Starting with the iPhone 12 lineup in 2020, Apple stopped providing power adaptors and EarPods in the box. Now, it has been ordered to pay $1,000 to a customer in Brazil who sued the tech giant for not including a charger in the box. A judge ruled that Apple illegally carried out a “married sale” of separate products.
Judge calls Apple decision to not include charger in iPhone box “illegal”
Apple’s decision to remove the power adaptor and EarPods in the iPhone retail box caused quite an uproar in 2020 since the removal of said products did not result in a reduction in the price of the device. Furthermore, customers now have to spend more money to get accessories that would have previously been provided to them at no additional cost.
A judge in brazil said that the Cupertino tech giant’s move to remove the charger from the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 packaging was “the sale married by concealment or ‘inside out’, abusive and illegal commercial practice, in accordance with the provisions of the Consumer Protection Code.” As reported by Tecmundo:
According to article 39 of the Consumer Code (CDC), “tie sale” is an abusive and prohibited practice in Brazil, so it is not allowed to sell cell phone and charger separately. Therefore, Apple is being sentenced after selling an iPhone model and charger separately to a consumer in the city of Goiânia.
According to the result issued by Judge Vanderlei Caires Pinheiro, of the 6th Civil Court of Goiânia, Apple must compensate the consumer R$ 5 thousand for carrying out the “tie sale” of the company’s devices.
As a result of the ruling, Apple now has to compensate a customer nearly $1,075 for the lack of a charger. This situation begs the question: when will something like this happen again? Now that a precedent has been set? It seems that we will have to wait for further developments.
Apple was fined $2 million by Brazil’s watchdog for not including a charger in the iPhone 12 retail box and was ordered to provide a charger to any customer who asked for it.
In related news, it was reported in March that Apple saves $35 on every iPhone by making the boxes lighter and slimmer. In two years since the move to remove additional accessories from the iPhone retail box, the tech giant has saved over $6 billion.
