A shopper bought a phone charger for nine dollars from an online marketplace. It fit the phone, it charged the phone, and it worked for a month. Then it started to get hot. The cable was warm to the touch after ten minutes, and the plug was warm after twenty. She kept using it, because it still worked, and because nine dollars felt like a deal. The charger was not a deal. It was a counterfeit, and the heat was the warning that the wiring inside was too thin, the fuse was missing, and the cable was a fire risk on a nightstand.
Counterfeit chargers are the most common dangerous fake, because they are cheap, they are everywhere, and they look identical to the real thing from the outside. The danger is inside, where the shopper cannot see it: thin wiring that overheats, a missing or fake fuse, and a plug that does not meet the standard. The charger works until it does not, and when it stops working, it stops by overheating, smoking, or catching fire.
A genuine charger has wiring thick enough to carry the current, a fuse that cuts off if something goes wrong, and a plug that meets the standard for its country. A counterfeit charger has wiring that is too thin, which is why it gets hot. The thin wire has more resistance, and the resistance turns into heat. The heat builds up in the cable and the plug, and if the charger is left plugged in overnight, on a bed or under a pillow, the heat has nowhere to go.
The Lincolnshire Trading Standards warning about counterfeit Christmas goods puts the scale plainly: more and more counterfeit and sub-standard electrical goods are being sold online, with fake items like chargers, battery packs, hair straighteners, and e-cigarettes offered at lower prices than genuine products. Nationally, one in three people in the UK have mistakenly bought a counterfeit electrical item online. The chargers are the most common, because they are the cheapest and the easiest to copy.
The fuse is the part that saves the house. A real fuse contains a ballast and meets the standard, and it cuts off the current if the charger faults. A fake fuse does not contain the ballast, and it does not cut off. The Suffolk Trading Standards warning lists the scale of what was stopped: since January, 349,000 consumer goods were checked at the Port of Felixstowe and refused entry because they were unsafe or non-compliant, including 104,983 electrical goods and 30,898 chargers and adaptors. Those were the ones that were stopped. The ones that were not stopped are on marketplaces now.
The Lincolnshire warning adds a case that makes the risk concrete. A counterfeit replacement battery for a Dyson vacuum caused a fire at a home in Lincoln earlier in the year, and Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue now regularly refer fires caused by electrical items to Trading Standards for investigation. The battery was a counterfeit, and the fire was the result. The charger on the nightstand is the same risk, in a smaller package, and the nightstand is where the phone charges overnight, while the household sleeps.
Buy from the manufacturer or an authorized retailer, and pay the real price. A charger at a third of the retail price is not a deal, it is a warning. Check the seller: a seller with no history, a new account, and a price far below retail is a seller to avoid. Check the plug when it arrives: the pins should be the right length, the fuse should be real, and the plug should fit securely. If the cable gets warm during use, stop using it. A charger that gets hot is a charger that is failing, and the failure mode is fire.
Do not charge devices overnight, and never on a bed or under a pillow. Switch electrical items off at the socket when not in use. Those are the rules Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue give for genuine electrical items, and they matter more for counterfeits, because the counterfeit has no safety margin. The genuine charger has a fuse that cuts off. The counterfeit does not. The difference between the two is the difference between a warm cable and a fire, and the price gap is nine dollars.
Keep reading: the fake electronics listings, chargers and earbuds, the counterfeit headphones and audio gear checks, and the fake power tools and battery checks cover the nearby cases in this series.
Because the wiring inside is too thin. Thin wire has more resistance, and the resistance turns into heat. The heat builds up in the cable and the plug, and if the charger is left plugged in overnight, on a bed or under a pillow, the heat has nowhere to go. A charger that gets warm during use is a charger that is failing.
A fake fuse does not contain the ballast a real fuse contains, so it does not cut off the current if the charger faults. The plug can overheat, explode, or fail to cut off. Suffolk Trading Standards refused entry to 30,898 chargers and adaptors at the Port of Felixstowe in one year because they were unsafe or non-compliant.
Very common. Nationally, one in three people in the UK have mistakenly bought a counterfeit electrical item online, according to Lincolnshire Trading Standards. Since January, 349,000 consumer goods were checked at the Port of Felixstowe and refused entry, including 104,983 electrical goods.
No. Do not charge devices overnight, and never on a bed or under a pillow. Switch electrical items off at the socket when not in use. Those are the rules for genuine electrical items, and they matter more for counterfeits, because the counterfeit has no safety margin and no fuse that cuts off.
From the manufacturer or an authorized retailer, and pay the real price. A charger at a third of the retail price is not a deal, it is a warning. Check the seller: a seller with no history, a new account, and a price far below retail is a seller to avoid.