New report says your aftermarket MacBook charger knockoff will cost you big
It’s no secret that buying fake, or aftermarket electrical products of any kind, may lead to unwanted consequences, but not many would have thought the situation would be as bad as a most recent report by UK consumer watchdog Chartered Trading Standards Institute, shows.
The report opens by revealing the results of a trial which involved investigators purchasing as many as 400 counterfeit Apple electrical products, like cable connectors and chargers, from various vendors around the world.
Out of 400 items, 397 have failed basic safety testing, which means that 99% of fake Apple chargers and electrical products sold worldwide, carry a very likely chance of causing unwanted results like electrocution, explosion, and fire hazards.
On a side note, fake Apple products are only a small slice of a much larger investigation involving as many as 3,019 electrical goods, 15% of which failed basic compliance tests.
While TSI’s study shows that nearly all counterfeit Apple chargers are indeed dangerous, not all Apple products can be told apart from fake ones, due to Apple’s very distinctive branding, which is often replicated with impunity by manufacturers out of reach of law enforcement agencies and regulators.
By this token, TSI has also published a set of guidelines to spot dangerous, counterfeit items like mobile phone chargers.
Plug pins, for instance, must have at least a 9.5 mm distance between the edge of the pin, and the edge of the charger, which is about as wide as a ballpoint pen. Anything less than 9.5 mm is likely to cause electric shock when plugging and unplugging a charger.
Chargers must also be able to firmly plug into a wall outlet, without movement. If any looseness is detected, it means that the distance between pins may be wrong, which could cause overheating, arcing and mechanical damage, to both the wall socket and the charger, not to mention any connected device.
Dangerous aftermarket electricals have raised to prominence this year, in at least two cases, one involving a Florida man who saw his Apple MacBook explode after replacing the old original battery with one purchased by Battery Plus, and another case in which 90% of Apple chargers sold on Amazon, within the nine-month period leading to this past October, turned out to be fake, and non-compliant with Apple’s safety standards. Apple reacted by filing an injunction against MobileStar LLC, the company responsible for the manufacture and sale of the unsafe accessories.
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