An Apple a day: Chinese teen trades kidney for iPad 2

by Steven Mostyn - Jun 3 2011, 16:53

Whether you love or hate Jobs & Co., if you don’t own an iPad there’s every chance that you suffer a pang of irrepressible envy whenever you spy someone gleefully tapping and swiping on one of Apple’s iconic tablets. Bastards.

So, if you don’t have the disposable income to splash on the world’s most popular tablet computer, what exactly would you be willing to trade, give, or lose in order clamber aboard Apple’s consumer electronics bandwagon?

For a 17-year-old teenager in China, an important internal organ was the price he was willing to pay to secure a second-generation iPad after responding to an online advert looking for someone to sell a kidney.

“I wanted to buy an iPad 2, but I didn’t have the money,” the unidentified teen said in a Telegraph report. “When I surfed the Internet, I found an advert posted online by an agent saying they were able to pay RMB 20,000 [approx. $3,085 USD] to buy a kidney.”

Unperturbed by the notion of going under the knife as part of a potentially risky organ-for-cash transaction, the young boy had his right kidney removed at a hospital in Chenzhou—leaving three days later down a kidney but with more than enough cash to snaffle an iPad 2.

Although said tablet was duly purchased, along with various other gadget goodies, any sense of technophile joy was distinctly short-lived for the permanently scarred Apple fan.

Moreover, the boy soon developed medical complications and was rushed back to the hospital for further treatment.

The teenager’s anguished mother reported the dodgy deal to local authorities but all subsequent attempts to contact the organ broker and several associates have reportedly failed. 

Well, that takes Apple’s brand power to a whole new level.

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