Defected items are mostly sold at a fraction of the original price. However, iPhone is an exception that, if defective, sells at a fortune, given Apple’s strict quality control.
A man from Japan bought an iPhone 11 Pro to find out that his purchased piece has a manufacturing defect where the Apple logo on the handset wasn’t in the right alignment. The man tried to sell his defective piece, but unfortunately, no one seemed interested. Later, he started to receive overwhelming offers for his handset that were actually sourced because of fake news.
The owner of the defective iPhone 11 Pro posted an ad to sell it out. Despite receiving offers for the device, the pictures were taken from the ad, and articles were published stating that “iPhone 11 Pro with misaligned Apple logo sold for $2700.”
As it turned out, the news was fake, and that article was re-written on many other tech websites. This was why the Japanese man started receiving more offers on his device because it got famous and trending over the internet. And the stated reason for it to sell at a high price was that Apple hardly ever makes defective devices, so it becomes a collectible product when they do. The device was never actually sold, and its first owner still has the defective iPhone 11 Pro.
The first fake post was made on Twitter by Internal Archive stating that the defect was “sporadic- or to say 1 in 100 million” and marked it as the reason for the device’s selling at a higher price. This post was later picked by many online news sites, including reputable tech websites like Apple Insider or Mac Rumors, which aided the spread of the news. The device’s owner later replied to Internal Archive’s post stating that the device was never sold.
Moreover, the device’s owner stated that it is actually an iPhone 11 Pro Max, and he tried selling it earlier but failed. The fake news, however, changed its fortune, and many are interested in buying it now.
The first owner of the device denies offers, maybe because he sees the defective device could now sell at a price higher than $2700 and that his defective iPhone 11 Pro Max is an online celebrity.