The item trading standards are investigating
Dorset County Council’s trading standards service is warning residents about the safe use of electrical chargers following a dangerous incident at a house in Weymouth.
A consumer had bought the charger for his mobile phone last summer at Bowleaze market. Last week he put his phone on charge and after one minute smoke came out of the charger, and then flames as it exploded, firing the back of the plug across the room and leaving scorch marks on the wall socket.
Richard Herringshaw a principal trading standards officer with Dorset County Council said: “We would like to hear from anyone who believes they have a similar wall socket to USB charger as we need more information to trace the chain of supply in this case and we do have concerns about the design of this consumer’s item.
This particular product was marked ‘Emerson Network Power Model A1299’ on the plug face but also appears to have an error on the safety mark used as it states ‘SAEETY’. It also has a CE mark. It was sold without any instructions.”
Anyone with further information to report or who has a charger with these specific markings should stop using it and contact the Citizens Advice Consumer Service on 03454 04 05 06, which is the first point of contact for any consumer problems.
The trading standards service recommends that general caution is needed when buying and using any charger, and is advising consumers to:
- only buy chargers that have warnings and instructions
- ensure there is a manufacturer’s or importer’s brand name/logo and their address is supplied with a chargers
- check for a model and batch number that should either be on the charger itself or on the packaging
- obtain a receipt in case of problems later
- only use a charger that is designed for the product being charged whether it be a plug style charger or a USB charger
- not leave items charging unattended.
