The internet, and the online shopping experience it offers, have taken convenience shopping to a new level. This is a wonderful boon for those unable to visit stores personally, and cuts pollution from shoppers’ personal transport. Unfortunately though, a few irresponsible vendors are offering substandard online battery and charger purchases, that may be downright dangerous.
Police Confiscate Online Batteries and Chargers
Our battery news for today takes us across the Channel to the East of England. Fire and rescue services there, noted an increase in fires involving lithium-ion chargers and batteries.
One particularly alarming incident occurred in a five-hundred-year old village. A family was charging lithium-ion batteries for their small boat before going fishing, when disaster struck and the batteries caught fire.
The local police decided that enough was enough. They contacted trading standards services from nine local authorities for support. Together, they began a campaign that stopped 1,800 illegal online battery and charger purchases in their tracks.
The Trading Standards authorities purchased and tested 22 items for sale, mainly on the internet. All of these items failed to provide the correct information required by UK law.
Alarmingly, over half the items (13 out of 22) ‘failed on safety grounds’ according to Yahoo News. These failures ‘included risk of fire and explosion’. Online purchasers could be in a bad space, if these findings are typical of the online industry.
Spotting a Rogue Online Battery and Charger Vendor
Any one of those online battery and charger purchases could have started a lithium-ion battery fire, such as we illustrate in our image. Consumers therefore need to become smarter, by researching online vendors before they purchase from them:
- Are they manufacturers, value-added retailers, or affiliate re-sellers?
- Do they provide a physical address, and an easy way to contact them?
- Do they supply detailed instructions, FAQ’s, and practical safely advice?
We strongly recommend applying this litmus test to any internet vendor including ourselves, before purchasing batteries and chargers over the internet. We recommend this despite the fact that our lead-acid gel batteries cannot burn, as a lithium battery may do.
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