Amazon recalls its own-brand chargers due to fire risk

AmazonBasics is a range that price-sensitive consumers such as myself are all too familiar with. Rather than paying over the odds for, say, an HDMI cable, you can get a relative bargain by stumping for an AmazonBasics equivalent. It’s like buying supermarket value beans over the Heinz version, essentially, only with less risk: the beans may taste foul, but a cable is a cable no matter the brand name, right?

Usually, yes, but that rule might no longer apply to the AmazonBasics line of power banks after the retailer announced a widespread product recall. Six models of power bank sold between 2014 and 2017 have been recalled after users in America complained that the devices get unusually hot. This, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), means they could “ignite, causing fire and burn hazards.” Indeed, in the 53 complaints in America, four involve property damage through smoke, and one involves someone receiving chemical burns due to contact with battery acid.

The beauty of being an online giant like Amazon is that you have a full record of what customers bought which product and when. While a supermarket with a contaminated food has to put posters up and hope that someone who bought it sees, Amazon can go directly to the affected customers without having to spook those with nothing to worry about. To that end, we understand that those who bought an affected product have been contacted with disposal advice and a gift card, but just in case, these are the models affected:

• B00LRK8EVO
• B00LRK8HJ8
• B00LRK8I7O
• B00LRK8IV0
• B00LRK8JDC
• B00ZQ4JQAA

The AmazonBasics power banks are reportedly manufactured by the Guoguang Electric Company, and the CPSC estimates that some 260,000 of the risky power banks have been sold in North America.