"I rather have a real Casio than a fake Rolex"- eponymous
This is a sad story but not really a tragic story. Two days ago, a guy from work was proud to show me his "Iphone". We all know an Iphone looks like this.
First a few things about my protagonist. My office mate is a very likable person. You can't say a bad thing about him. Ever. He is good at what he does. In short I like that man. This is the "Iphone" he showed me: 
He volunteered the price to me which was 5000 pesos. He also made a point of bragging this was smuggled and bought from customs. 1) I can not look up the specs of my officemate's so called "Iphone" online. Which is already a red flag. I know from personal experience that you can buy this phone for a little over 5000 from a legit source. Yes, an establishment that pays taxes. What a concept. You can look up the specs on line. From the brief time I was looking at the "Iphone" , it did not seem to do what most people perceive an Iphone to do. I doubt it even matches to the quality and utility of the legit name brand phone sold at the same price. 2) What is there to brag about inferior quality goods that bypass normal channels and therefore do not add to what little tax revenue this country earns? Chew on that? From what I said so far, I am trying to comprehend the appeal of this so called Iphone. 1) A fake Gucci bag I can comprehend. Though smart people who really know a person will know if they are type to buy fake or authentic anyway so the only people they might be fooling are the uninformed. 2) I thought the whole idea of counterfeit was that it was supposed to pass as the real thing. This is obviously not the case for the fake Iphone of my office mate. 3) One of Shakespear's many famous quotes is " A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" from Romeo and Juliet. It does not matter what you or I or a guy in Bolivia calls a rose but that rose will always have the same look and smell. Now based on that perspective, I am still trying to comprehend my office mate using his so called "Iphone" as a source of pride. It did not look like the real Iphone nor could it do what a real Iphone could do. It was brought into the country by criminals. You saw the definition of counterfeit. It was not even good by those standards.Imagine that, crappy counterfeit. I am just baffled by this episode. I did not want to ask him questions or take pictures. Because I knew in my head that even if I accomplished my goal of enlightenment and education I would be bursting this person's bubble. If I were to ask him questions I am sure he would expect me to ask out of genuine interest over what he was gushing over. But how many times can you have genuine interest over something that is not genuine? In my gut it was not the thing to do. I just find the behavior curious enough to document. Overall I just find it sad that a good educated person fell for this cheap ploy.That's why idiots will always hatch these schemes because there is a market for it. I hope a year from now that he still feels he got his hard earned money's worth. I did want to take a picture of this "Iphone" but could not bring myself to do it as I told you above. But was able to find the pics online. In an article dated March 18, 2007 it shows the exact fake "Iphone" and tells of its existence and it's street price. The real Iphone was launched June of 2007. It also concludes " Hard to believe they will find any suckers for this one." Well I saw it first hand and it is indeed sad for me. Ed
Websites referenced:
http://www.clivir.com/lessons/show/iphone-clone-learn-about-cloned-iphones-and-chinese-iphone.html
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2007/03/015356.htm
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment