Ebay purchase, charger has a small moulded plug, which given it's size presumably un-fused.
I could snip it off and fit a proper one. In any case a fault that would render the lead/wire/flex/cable (what are we calling it?) dangerous would probably cause a trip with modern electrics.
Just wondering how people feel about it, I wouldn't have thought it was legal to sell them like that.
I had the earth pin break on a moulded plug, so no problem I'll fit a new one. but the conductors were so small and few that I ddin't think I could make a proper reliable contact. So it went in the bin.
You might find the same, in that snipping the plug off made the whole thing useless.
The first word may provide a clue.
And you would be 100% right, so don't re-sell it.
I am guessing that the vendor was outside the jurisdiction of British Trading Standards. If not, you know what to do.
Another danger is Far Eastern wall-warts because you can't trust the compliance markings, and without an x-ray machine you have no idea if there is adequate protection inside I would never risk plugging such an item into a wall socket, only into an adapter of some sort with a 3 amp fuse so at least there is some protection.
The pins must be a minimum of 9mm for the edge of the plug. It is possible it has a one-time thermal or other fuse in the plug, but I doubt it.
If it isn't fused, then there is a fighting chance the cable, if thin enough, will fuse before any 'trip'.
If you imported it, then you are the deemed the manufacturer. If you bought this from a UK source and it's defective, you ought to contact Trading Standards, or whatever is left of them.
I would snip off the cable and fit my own plug with a 3 amp fuse.
Be interesting to see what the charger looks like. Do you have a link to the eBay page?
Claims to ship from UK.
At least three reasons the plug fails BS-1363 reqs
1) not fused 2) pins too close to edge 3) earth pin part sleeved (though it looks like 2-core flex so it could have had a fully plastic "earth" pin)
These turn up on quite a lot of imported tat.
Its unlikely to trip anything, but its certainly dangerous. Often you will find the amount of copper (if it actually *is* copper) in the cable is also well below spec - so if a short were to occur on the lead there is a fair chance it will burst into flames.
Its not, but it still happens.
There's lots of noncompliant stuff about at the low end of the market. Fit a proper plug.
NT
There are so many substandard electrical goods around these days (often made in China) that it's hard to find the energy to report every dodgy item you come across.
I wonder if there's an easy and effective way to report these things without getting mired in dealing with local authority indifference.
Are there really? Where do you buy them?
Probably not. Local authorities in these cash trapped times have much more important things to spend what little money they have on.
Electrical goods I bought "sold by Amazon" have been substandard or fake.
Although "Item location" is Cardiff, and the seller's eBay name is "ukreliable-e-home", if you scroll down to the "Business Seller Information" link you will find it's Qing Zhou, China.
The wording is typically Chinese-ified, and we have "Note:Waterproof(but don't put it into water)"
Ah. I'm probably unusual in never having used Amazon. I've bought quite a bit from Ebay without problem - but if the pic looked dodgy, I'd move on. Or if the price looked too good to be true.
Perhaps 'BBC Watchdog'?
If you have a cash strapped council complaining on less funds available for the next year, remind them that they could close their "trading standards" office. No one would notice.
If I see a programme on the telly which features a largish successful investigation by trading standards then my first thought is how on earth they got allocated enough resources to do it.
Unless it's a local service, many times these trading standards violations are being broken nationally (like the dodgy mains plug on eBay) and it would seem better if a central government body could look into it.
What did they say when you complained? (you did complain didn't you?
Andy
For a fake camera battery, sold direct by Amazon, they said they would inform their fake goods people who would get in touch with me but they didn't.
For a fake Samsung charger, sold direct by Amazon, which burnt our after six months they just sent me another one.
For a US mains plug on an appliance, they sent me an adaptor.
None resulted in enforcment action to prevent such goods continuing to be sold.
Apple recently complained to Amazon in the US about the amount of fakes they were selling. They'll probably get a much better response than lil ol' me!
Regulation gets in the way of profits. The current mob are unlikely to make that a statutory national thing, so it would have to run as a charity like RNLI, RSPCA, and be self-funding. Then they'd be bankrupted by some some clever defence lawyer acting for a shady client. And that will be that :(
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required