Risk of electrocution, fire outbreaks, marking faults ... Some replacement chargers for smartphones would be dangerous, according to a survey by the UFC-Que Choisir.
On twenty chargers sold between 1 and 35 euros in supermarkets and commercial sites, the verdict is far from brilliant: several of them pose a serious danger for users. Only four passed the tests.
For chargers that have serious design flaws, the low-voltage cables are poorly fixed, the insulation is insufficient, there is also an absence of internal protection against overloads and short-circuits on some…
On tested chargers, the UFC “observed electric arcs as impressive as frightening. The icing on the cake, these accessories are often very fragile: half of them broke during our drop test to a meter ”, specifies the study.
UFC-Que Choisir chooses consumers to be vigilant. She advises "not to leave smartphones charged overnight" and also encourages owners of chargers listed as dangerous to contact the seller to have the defective device replaced.
The association also advises to avoid models shipped from China by sellers officiating on the market places of Amazon, Darty, Fnac, Cdiscount and others. Among the eight most dangerous magazines tested by Que Choisir, six came from this type of merchant.
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On the other hand, the UFC does not specify if the official chargers of the manufacturers are systematically safe. The association tested two Samsung and Apple models that posed no design danger. Faced with this finding, the association asked the fraud department to carry out more checks and to withdraw several products from the market.
