Apple sold iPhone without free charger; court slaps $1000 PENALTY

Apple has recently paid $5,000 Brazilian Real, nearly $1,075 to a customer for selling him an iPhone without a free charger included in the box. A Brazilian judge has ruled that the tech giant must pay compensation to the consumer for not providing a charger with the iPhone.

According to the country’s Consumer Code (CDC), devices such as a smartphone must include a charger. Though it can be sold separately, the separate sale must not be mandatory. As per the report by local publication Tecmundo, the court ruled, “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 phones and chargers separately.” For the unversed, Tie sale refers to the practice of forcing a consumer to buy two products in order to make one of them work fully.

Hence, Apple is being instructed to pay compensation of over $1000 after selling an iPhone model and charger separately to a consumer in the city of Goiania.

This is not the first time, but Apple was fined earlier as well for the same reason. Last year, Brazil fined Apple $2 million as a punishment for violating consumer law and disrespecting Brazilian customers.

Before that an Australian court asked Apple to pay a $6.6 million fine for misleading customers who bought its devices between February 2015 and February 2016. In 2018, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) filed a lawsuit in the Australian Federal Court against Apple and its subsidiary after hundreds of customers complained regarding the “error 53.” The technical failure had disabled some iPhones and iPads after users downloaded an iOS update.

Later Apple admitted that it refused to repair the devices of at least 275 affected customers in the country as they had already been repaired by a third party.

Apple took the decision to remove the charger in the box in 2020. The tech giant claimed the move is for environmental reasons as it will save 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually, around 10% of Apple’s annual footprint.