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Comment by aurea | Hacker News Reader

How can I know whether I have a real of fake charger?

Directly order from Apple, Samsung, etc. Definitely do not trust anything that comes off Amazon or eBay.

Yes, but what if I already have a charger and I don't know where it came from?

It is probably hard to say, from the outside they often look legit. I have seen one once, but it became more apparent when we compared it to a genuine charger (usually the print is off in some way). Since counterfeit chargers typically have fewer components, apparently weighting the charger can also help finding counterfeits:

https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/blog/how-to-spot-a-...

Of course, it's probably not beyond them to add some weight to make you believe it is real.

I guess if you have the right tools, you could also measure output quality.

They do add weight (and go through the trouble of implementing ring structures to fake writes)

https://youtu.be/g8ovFkd8myE

Anecdata: My A1265 charger weighs 23g and my A1385 weighs 25g.

This article shows how to tell between an authentic A1265 and at least one fake one: https://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-a...

In my limited experience, counterfeit iPhone chargers do not have a serial number printed inside the USB connector. Real ones do have it. I've found this picture that shows they've started printing a "serial number" on the fake ones too https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/243541/how-to-diff...

If you order something that is sold by Amazon.com (not merely fulfilled) you're extremely unlikely to receive a counterfeit.

Yes I know about comingling, but Amazon does not comingle their own interventory with 3rd-party sellers. (Apparently they may have in the past but do not anymore.)

So realistically the only way you'll get a counterfeit is if someone bought a genuine one, swapped it for a counterfeit, and returned the counterfeit, which was then re-sold to you.

However, that can happen with literally any store that sells items that were previously returned, which is a common practice.

1. This is not true. Amazon still commingles inventory with 3p sellers.

2. For Apple specifically, Amazon blocked everyone but an Apple provided list of authorized sellers, so you're pretty much guaranteed to get an authentic product.

>Yes I know about comingling, but Amazon does not comingle their own interventory with 3rd-party sellers. (Apparently they may have in the past but do not anymore.)

Source?

Edit: This page from Amazon does not state shipped and sold by Amazon is excluded from commingling.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200141480?...

From the page you linked to:

> For inventory tracked with the manufacturer barcode, each seller’s sourced inventory of the same ASIN is stored separately in our fulfillment centers. We can also track the original seller of each unit.

That doesn't say items sold by Amazon.com are not subject to the following:

>We may fulfill that order using another seller’s unit of the same product if it’s closer to the customer

Another piece of evidence that Amazon doesn't really want to be a retailer is that they removed the option to filter items to only shipped and sold by Amazon.com

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