Why is Apple supposedly providing South Korean customers refurbished iPhones instead of new handsets when the device breaks? That will be the central question when the Cupertino, Calif. company faces that nation’s legislators. Just days after expected record-breaking iPhone sales are to be announced, the company must answer the Korean parliament October 21.
At issue is Apple’s reported tendency to issue refurbished units when responding to repairs, a move appearing to depart from its stated repair and replacement policy. Farrel Farhoudi, Apple’s senior iPhone service director, is scheduled to take the hot seat. Farhoudi, also the former AppleCare Business Development, has been with the Cupertino, Calif. firm since 1993.
The appearance by Farhoudi indicates Apple wants to head off any further dispute with Korea. Apple’s carrier partner KT recently fielded 130,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4 in just 13 hours. Apple’s response to the official inquiry may also illustrate the company may want to be more sensitive to consumer concerns.
[via 9to5Mac, Bloomberg Businessweek]
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
