Apple’s recycling firm resold products instead of dismantling them
- by Nick Cohen
- in Industry
- — Oct 7, 2020
Tech giant Apple has sued recycling firm GEEP Canada, its former partner, for allegedly stealing and reselling at least 1,03,845 iPhones, iPads and Watches, as per a report by The Logic. The tech giant also stated that this fact was confirmed by GEEP Canada itself.
Approximately 18 per cent or 103,845 of all those devices were reportedly discovered by Apple to "be active on carrier networks". Considering the 18-percent doesn't count Apple devices without a cellular radio, the number of devices sold could be even higher. If those employees are not found, then GEEP Canada will have to pay $22.7 million to Apple as damages.
GEEP has denied all wrongdoing, filing a third-party counter lawsuit that claimed that three of its employees engaged in the theft without the firm's knowledge. However, the recycling company has said that there were no malicious intentions, arguing that the culprits are former employees who stole the devices to make a profit.
GEEP Canada is one of those electronic device manufacturer partner companies dealing with the recycling part.
Another phenomenon seen in the Apple line-up is the camera, which has less lens or features than lower iPhone variants. iPhone 11's release only has two rear cameras, the wide and telephoto, compared to the Pro version with three, telephoto, wide, and ultrawide.
Notably, the following are only based on leaks, and Apple may have many changes that may prove the list wrong. If the allegations are true, GEEP Canada has been reselling over 100,000 of the company's devices. Selling these devices when they are no longer safe or good to use cannot only harm consumers, doing so can also harm Apple's reputation if these products can't perform up to par. The firm was meant to recycle and dismantle Apple iPhones, iPads, and Watches.
However, if you haven't updated your iPhone and Apple Watch yet, you might want to hold out for a bit longer till Apple fixes these issues. If for GEEP Canada the products are good to be resold and reused, for Apple they do not meet the quality and safety standards of the brand. Indeed, in addition to its internal recycling policies, using Daisy and Dave, it also depends on other partners to recover another type of material used in its equipment.
During an audit, Apple discovered that its products were being taken into areas that weren't actually under video surveillance.
