RIYADH, 14 November 2003 — Cheating is rife in the electronics market, according to a report in Al-Riyadh newspaper. A common scam is for dealers to remove accessories that come with a package and sell them separately. Alternatively the dealer might replace the genuine accessories with cheap, low-quality ones.

Faisal Fahd is the owner of an electronics shop and has been in business for 18 years. “Many products come with accessories,” he told the paper. “Some products come with only one or two — such as TVs which include a remote control. In that case it’s difficult to remove the remote, because customers know it should come included.

“But a number of products come with a lot of accessories — at least three or four — and some of them are needed for the machine to work.”

But Faisal puts the blame for sharp practices squarely on the customer. “In this world of intense competition, most consumers worry about price rather than product quality. It’s the consumers who drive dealers to take the accessories out.”

PlayStation offers another example of fraudulent practice. The machine is adjusted so the customer can play counterfeit games. Such adjustments are considered commercial fraud. Dealers take original parts from the machine and replace them with fake ones. Unfortunately, most consumers are unaware of this until they open the machine and see for themselves.

“It’s well known that this happens without the knowledge of the company’s agent,” Faisal said. “But when you do it, it cancels the warranty. Buyers who cheat use other ways to keep the warranty valid, and the company often does not discover this, for two reasons. One is that a fake warranty sticker is put on the product, and second, the fake parts are very difficult to distinguish from the original.”

The summer is high season for scams, because people buy equipment like PlayStations and cameras to take on holiday. “These products include lots of accessories, and to increase their profit the shops remove the original parts, put in fake ones, sell the machine cheaply and make up the difference by selling the original accessories.

“Customers never know. When these shops offer them fake parts and claim that they are from Japan, people trust them because they trust Japanese products. Most of them know nothing about electronics and are unaware of the problem in the first place,” he added.