Are these lightning cables fake?

[adam9c1]

I needed to purchase some lightning cables to replace physically broken ones and my last ebay seller does not carry them anymore (nor sell anything else)

I purchased three cables via eBay (searched for OEM genuine Apple ...) and made sure they came with the box.
They arrived in few days later. They came in with the boxes (I took one cable out), and noticed the boxes do not have the "display hook clear stick on" and they bulge out. Also there is no adhesive and I was able to open one box up easily. Are these fake?

See the photos...

 

[Samuelsan2001]

They look like they've been opened but look genuine other than that, your phone will actually detect if they are genuine or not, its done it when i've borrowed a dodgy cable.

 

[960design]

Agreed, the box was opened. It is missing the Apple seal / hanging on a wire plastic thingy that keeps the box sealed. As already mentioned, the phone will determine if they are Apple certified and let you know.

 

[adam9c1]

It's as if these boxes did not have the stick on hook thing. Like came from non retail box.

 

[adam9c1]

Plugged one in to my wife's iPhone 5S running iOS9

This cable or accessory is not certified and may not work reliably with this iPhone.

 

[960design]

Plugged one in to my wife's iPhone 5S running iOS9

This cable or accessory is not certified and may not work reliably with this iPhone.

Sorry to read that. The little linux chip in the cables make them expensive, but keep a very expensive computer ( your phone ) safe.

 

[redpandadev]

That is not how a lightning cable is packaged in boxed form. Looks exactly how lightning cables are packaged in an iPhone 6/6s box. Because of that I can tell you for certain - the cable you received is not the cable that originally came in that box, and also can tell you that the box has been opened.

Those facts alone however do not determine if the cables are genuine or not. My advice would be to take them to an Apple store. The Geniuses are quite good at determining if a cable is genuine or not (they have to be - for warranty swaps).

A genuine cable has some characteristics you can look for yourself:

• "Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China" will be printed in very small, very light writing about 6 inches from the USB side of the cable. New genuine cables will also have a serial number in the same location. (look for no printing or typos in the printing to identify a fake)

• On both connectors, the hard white plastic portion of the connectors have no visible seams in the plastic. (look for seams or imperfections in the plastic)

• The plastic inside the USB connector is white.

• The lightning connector itself has 8 individual gold colored pins on each side, surrounded by a very small surround of white plastic.

If the cable you has meets all of these things, it's probably genuine. If it misses any of those, it's probably not.

 

[RiderX]

Good experience with Lemfo cables. Certified by Apple, so not the cheapest. But work well, much better than the cheapos. See ebay.