Most Smartphone Chargers are Dangerous: Here's All that You Need to Know

Based on the test of 400 fake chargers available online from eight different countries including the USA, a massive 99 percent of them badly failed the safety standard test.

| Published: Sunday, December 4, 2016, 22:32 [IST]

A large number of smartphone chargers are sold online and most of the products are substitutes and not the genuine chargers from the original manufacturers. While they may come cheap, these chargers may have dangerous safety flaws and may even cause problems in your device.

Most Smartphone Chargers are Dangerous: Here's What You Need to Know

As such, the UK consumer protection body, Chartered Trading Standards Institute has conducted a large scale test by buying 400 chargers online from eight different countries. They have reported that a staggering 99 percent of the devices failed the safety tests.

Out of the 400 chargers bought especially of the Apple brand, 397 chargers had failed the test and only three had sufficient insulation to protect against electric shocks in the most basic safety test performed.

Earlier this year, Apple had also performed similar checks after purchasing chargers marked as being made by Apple from Amazon. What Apple found out was startling. More than 90 percent of the items purchased were fake.

As a result, Apple filed a lawsuit against Mobile Star LLC, a company selling those fake chargers as real. Apple also revealed that some of the adapters were so poorly designed and constructed that they posed a risk of lethal electrocution to the user.

While the result of the test conducted by CTSI has been alarming, Leon Livermore, Chief Executive, CTSI has urged people to only buy second-hand electrical goods that have been tested and only buy online electrical goods from trusted suppliers.

He added that the device might be priced more but counterfeit and second-hand goods were an unknown entity and could cost customer's home or even their life, or the life of a loved-one.

Amidst such developments, the CTSI has urged consumers to buy only from reputable suppliers because choosing legitimate goods and products might only be the answer to this problem.

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