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Another e-bike battery safety warning as charity warns that dangerous chargers are "freely available"

5 comments

11 months 3 weeks ago

So as well as the immediate tragedy of fires, we'll end up with train companies and housing associations with "no- ebike" policies, all because online retailers are not properly regulated and Trading Standards has been gutted.

11 months 3 weeks ago

So as well as the immediate tragedy of fires, we'll end up with train companies and housing associations with "no- ebike" policies, all because online retailers are not properly regulated and Trading Standards has been gutted.

11 months 3 weeks ago

There is no detail in this article about  brand / bike / manufacturer.  But I can imagine it was an 'illegal' eBike, a bodge of parts strapped together including a throttle. A lot of these things are never serviced because mechanics won't touch them. 

11 months 3 weeks ago

All of this translates to: 'Stop buying cheap Chinese crap'.

I don't trust any of the usual platforms anymore.  Even on Amazon, if a vendor is supposedly based in the EU and has a local sounding name, if you ook up the company info then more likely than not it's simply a shell with a  Chinese director who's not even physically present in the EU/UK. 

Worse, Amazon got hit in the US due to 'inventory balancing'.  Say you purchase from vendor X who is definitely physically based in Liverpool but outsources shipping to Amazon fulfillment.  You're in Londen and order an item.  Alas, the nearest warehouse to you doesn't carry inventory from your vendor but hey, they do carry the same product (same SKU) but that one's sold by vendor Y who really has no presence in the UK but ships in stock from China to an Amazon fulfillment center.  They ship you the product from Y because it's faster/cheaper to them.  Same thing, right?  The cash goes to X and later they internally balance stock.  Only problem is:  you thought that you purchased from X and Y is selling counterfeit stuff.  Disclaimer:  I don't know if they still do this but they ran into MAJOR trouble in the US because of these practices some years back. 

Yes, the big brands also source many of their products in China but at least they have the good sense to set up a system of quality controls and they perform checks.

11 months 3 weeks ago

Why do people need chargers off the Internet? Assuming they bought the ebike it would have come with the charger included, and a receipt and guarantee. Obviously if they acquired the ebike by other means, it might be down to them to source a charger separately. Do the police investigate?