Chinese service sells fake 'sent from my iPhone' messages

Just when you didn't think that the world of knockoff products could get any stranger, Chinese merchants start offering a service which allows people to pay for fake "sent from my iPhone" messages.

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The Financial Times' Kathrin Hille reports that merchants on Taobao, a Chinese consumer-to-consumer online market place, are offering to hack into the accounts of folks who are using QQ — an instant messaging tool which is particularly popular in the region — and "make it appear as if they were sending their posts from an iPhone."

The service costs roughly one dollar per month and all someone needs to do is send his or her QQ username and password to one of the merchants offering to add the popular Apple tagline.

It's a bit difficult to believe that anyone would not only hand over his or her instant messaging service login information to a stranger, but also pay for such a silly service. Then again, "[t]he iPhone is too expensive," reminds one of the posts on Taobao. "If you don’t want to spend that money, then fake it!"