OPPO Malaysia has been a vanguard against the production of counterfeit mobile devices, publicly declaring that the production of fake OPPO smartphones was rampant as well as issuing official certificates to their authorised retailers.
Spending all your hard earned money on a fake device has to be one of the most heartbreaking things ever, so OPPO Malaysia teamed up with the Ministry of Domestic Trade Co-operatives and Consumerism (KPDNKK) to crack down on these counterfeit bandits.
On the 20th of November at 11am, the operation began and both OPPO Malaysia and KPDNKK raided two locations, Plaza Alam Sentral in Shah Alam as well as Terminal 1 in Seremban. KPDNKK’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Division head Othman Nawang said that based on the information and intelligence gathered during the KPDNKK’s investigation, they had conclusive evidence to carry out the raid on these two locations suspected of selling counterfeit OPPO products.
Sure enough the raid was a success as the joint task force uncovered 8 counterfeit devices worth over RM4,200. This may only seem like a fraction of the earlier reported 644 counterfeit devices, but at least these are devices that people haven’t spent their hard earned money on, so at it’s a start if nothing else. Among the phones confiscated, were fake versions of the OPPO Find 7 and OPPO N3.
Othman said that the ministry had sent out recon teams to investigate the two locations and they found that these counterfeit devices were being sold between RM400 and RM700, which is a stark contrast to their original price range of RM1,000 to RM2,098.
According to OPPO Overseas Customer Service manager Boyce Lee, this was the first raid to crack down on counterfeit phones conducted by KPDNKK.
“Ever since we received reports in early January, we have been in close contact with the Ministry to further strike down these counterfeiting activities,” he said. “We have brought this to the Ministry’s attention that the circulation of counterfeit products are getting worse with each passing day and we seek legal actions to be taken by the authority.”
Boyce added that to the layman, the counterfeit products’ design were almost indistinguishable from original OPPO products, but the devices’ poor design quality and unstable features tainted the OPPO name. He added that there was a possibility that the cheap parts used could have direct harmful or toxic effects on the user.
If you have any qualms about whether or not your OPPO device is authentic, OPPO has a program that allows you to check the device’s IMEI number to determine authenticity. OPPO also encourages users who have any information regarding the sale or misconduct of counterfeit goods to contact KPDNKK on their hotline at 1800-886-800.
