An American blogger has discovered three fake Apple stores operating in Kunming city, China.
Pictures of the stores, their staff and a description of a stroll around them was posted on the BirdAbroad blog.In the article, she writes about conversations with staff, many of whom were convinced that they were employed by the US electronics firm.
Apple has said it has no comment to make on the discovery of the counterfeit shops.
On her blog, BirdAbroad described the stores as a "beautiful ripoff - a brilliant one - the best ripoff store we had ever seen".
She describes how convincing the shop was at first glance because so much trouble had been taken to copy key elements of a real Apple store.
For instance, it has a winding staircase, upstairs seating area and employees wearing blue t-shirts and chunky ID lanyards. read more
