13-year-old South Korean girl sues Apple for not paying iPhone repair costs

13-year-old South Korean girl sues Apple for not paying iPhone repair costs

2010-10-19 15:55:17 GMT+7 (ICT)

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SEOUL (BNO NEWS) -- A South Korean teenage girl on Tuesday sued Apple Inc. to demand that the U.S. company pays the repair costs for her damaged iPhone, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Yonhap, citing court officials, said the 13-year-old girl, identified only by her family name Lee, had bought an iPhone 3G in February. Within several months, however, the phone broke and had to be repaired.

The girl brought her device to an authorized repair shop earlier this month, where the phone was repaired. However, Apple Inc. would not refund the repair costs because the color of a tag had changed to red, meaning the phone had been in contact with water.

She then decided to file a lawsuit against Apple's Korean unit before the Seoul Central District Court to demand that the company pays her 300,000 won ($269) in compensation.

Lee denies that the phone made contact with water. "I never dropped my phone in water but they insisted that I did, just based on the color change," Lee told Yonhap. "I heard that the tag can be discolored from humidity. The company has not taken any action to prevent the color change, that means it provides poor-quality goods."

Just as in other parts of the world, the iPhone is extremely popular in South Korea. In June, Apple announced that it had sold more than 1.7 million of its newly released iPhone 4 within three days after its launch in South Korea.

"This is the most successful product launch in Apple's history," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, in June. "Even so, we apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply."

Apple did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.

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