Buying an iPad should be a treat. But more and more often, consumers are being tricked.
iPad scams are on the rise, and a recent one in New Jersey shows how important it is to check what you're buying before you take it home. Jamie Frick paid $499 for an iPad at a New Jersey Walmart, only to later open the box and find a counterfeit iPad, NJ.com reports. When Frick realized that she had been sold a fake iPad, she attempted to return the product to Walmart, where she was initially refused a refund.
Frick filed a claim in small claims court and contacted NJ.com's Bamboozled blog for help. Walmart ultimately issued Frick a full refund and gave her a $50 Walmart gift card for the "inconvenience."
Dianna Gee, a spokesperson for Walmart, verified the incident in an email to The Huffington Post.
This isn't the first time something like this has happened at a Walmart store. Last October, Bobbi Linden bought what she thought was an iPad but was actually a stack of notebooks at a Texas Walmart. In November, a Florida Walmart sold Emilio Pereda a worthless fake iPad. Both Linden and Pereda were eventually refunded their money.
The proliferation of counterfeit iPads isn't just a problem for customers though; it's an issue for Apple as well. During one day in July, almost 18,000 fake iPads were available online at 23 sites, according to data cited by Bloomberg. With consumers looking for bargains, Apple is at risk of losing some of their customers to fake iPad sellers, even if they're looking for the real thing.
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