Greedily diluting its brand did not work out for Gold Apollo, did it? — a morality lesson in not blowing up one's customers

© 2024 Peter Free

 

18 September 2024

 

 

Avarice often destroys a formerly respected brand

 

For example, consider the consequences of Gold Apollo's pagers literally blowing chunks out of its customers' bodies.

 

From Reuters:

 

 

A Taiwanese pager maker denied on Wednesday that it had produced devices that wounded thousands of Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon when they exploded . . . .

 

Gold Apollo said the devices were made by under licence by a company called BAC, based in Hungary's capital Budapest.

 

Israel's spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of pulling off sophisticated attacks on foreign soil, planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday's detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.

 

The death toll rose to 12, including two children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said on Wednesday.

 

The attack wounded nearly 3,000 people, including many of the group's fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut.

 

Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that Gold Apollo named in a statement as BAC.

 

"The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it," Hsu told reporters at the company's offices in the northern Taiwanese city of New Taipei on Wednesday.

 

The stated address for BAC Consulting in Hungary's capital Budapest was a peach building on a mostly residential street in an outer suburb.

 

A person at the building who asked not to be named said BAC Consulting was registered there but did not have a physical presence.

 

© 2024 Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily, Hezbollah exploding pager trail runs from Taiwan to Hungary, Reuters (18 September 2024)

 

 

One might conclude that BAC was a Mossad front

 

And further, that Gold Apollo had, in effect — short-term profitably — licensed Mossad to kill its customers and its reputation.

 

 

The moral? — Greed kills

 

Gold Apollo and Hsu Ching-Kuang, most probably are not going to be able to wipe this deadly egg off their faces any time soon.

 

On a brighter front, Arab and Persian entrepreneurs — of any enterprising spirit at all — will see a new market open for them.

 

Impenetrable Network Electronics, could be the new company's name.

 

From error and misfortune, seize a new day?