In 2020, Apple had announced that the company will no longer be providing free chargers and EarPods upon purchase, starting with the iPhone 12 series.
This decision was made by the technology giant as an environment friendly measure to reduce carbon emissions and avoid the use of rare materials.
Now, a group of five students from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology and Donghua University have filed a lawsuit against Apple for not including a phone charger with an iPhone 12 Pro Max model that one of them purchased, according to the Shanghai Law Journal.
The plaintiffs stated that the USB-C to Lightning cable included in the box was not compatible with some other Apple chargers that are available in the market. As a result, one student was unable to charge the phone, as advertised by Apple on its website.
The plaintiffs also questioned Apple’s waste reduction claims and its concern about environmental impact and argued that the company was only making an excuse to promote and sell MagSafe wireless chargers, which utilizes more power than wired chargers.
The lawsuit also accuses Apple of “increasing corporate profits in the name of environmental protection” and committing mobile phone sales fraud.
The students want Apple to supply the charger, pay a penalty of 100 Yuan ($16) as compensation for “breach of contract,” and cover the legal fees.
Apple reportedly told Beijing’s virtual court that selling power adapters separately are common in mobile phone sales and authorized by the government. However, the plaintiffs argued that several Chinese smartphone companies such as Xiaomi, Meizu, etc. offer consumer options to choose from such as including chargers or without chargers during selling their phone products.
The case “is still at the stage of supplementary evidence and written material.”
This is not the first time that Apple has been slapped with a lawsuit for not including charger in the iPhone 12 box. In March 2021, the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo fined a $2 million fine on the Cupertino giant for failing to include chargers with the iPhone 12 series.
