Scalpers Are Stealing All Of China’s Genius Bar Appointments!

By

Screen Shot 2013-07-29 at 9.34.47 AM

It’s hard to make a buck, especially in China. It’s also hard to get an appointment at the Genius Bar. It’s hard, then, to know where our sympathies should lie in this story: Chinese scalpers are apparently booking up all of the Genius Bar appointments in China and then selling them online at huge premiums. Oh wait, no, it’s not. Those scalpers are scumbags.

A reporter from the Beijing Morning News noticed when he tried to book a Genius Bar appointment online that there was not a single appointment to be had. He then started snooping around, and discovered at least a couple companies willing to sell him an appointment for the next day for 10 to 40 yuan ($1.63 to $6.52). Booking an appointment through this company, the reporter got his login details sent to him, and he was able to go to the Apple Store.

At the store, the reporter asked the Genius helping him if Apple required customers to verify their identities. The Genius responded that Apple did not opt to do so, since it would be too troublesome.

It’s a pretty troubling problem. There are only so many Genius Bar appointments each day, but in China, there are plenty of people willing to reserve huge blocks of appointments just to scalp them later. If Apple won’t lock down their system and require customers to show a valid ID for a Genius Bar appointment, then there would seemingly not be much to be done about that.

Source: China News

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.