AmazonBasics products are dangerous!

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Sensational Headline, well if you produce a million items there's bound to be 5% defective, amazon basics produces 1000's of different items, saying "ABasics is dangerous" because of few incidents is like saying "Airplanes are dangerous" 

[wamred]

Yeah, this seems really dangerous. I have used Amazon Basics stuff before and it seems like decent stuff, I wouldn't have guessed that it might catch on fire. 

[Master Disaster]

Dangerous is a relevant term.

[AlTech]

There’s a few problems with this article if this is true:

1) That chair in the USB cable example would not be legal in the European Union. Chairs and other furniture are required by EU law to not be flammable and should contain flame retardant materials.

 

How this is not required in the United States of America is shocking.

 

There is zero reason that fire should have started and that sounds like it’s not entirely Amazon’s fault.

 

2) Nobody mentions the charging brick but I’m going to assume it’s the brick itself and not the charging cable. I don’t know the quality of different charging bricks but I’m gonna assume it’s a QC issue or design defect.

 

3) Same as number 2 but for the Microwaves.
 

4) I have literally no idea how something as simple as a USB cable even catches fire. Unless it either A) has faulty wiring, B) was used inappropriately by customers, C) passed QC even if it should have been failed.

 

5) And honestly this whole CNN article feels more like a hit job .  Why is CNN coming forward now? Why didn’t CNN talk to Amazon before publishing the article? Why is CNN assuming all reviews are trustworthy and accurate? 
 

This article asks more questions than it answers.

 

Product safety regulations are monumentally important and it could just be me but something tells me this wouldn’t happen in the EU except perhaps that Microwave problem since it sounds like a product defect.

 

If it is a product defect in the microwave then honestly just drop the supplier, find a new reputable supplier, do your own testing on it,  once you’ve confirmed it’s safe sell it as a revised AmazonBasics microwave and issue a recall for all units of the previous model and replace it with the new model.

[AlTech]

4 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Circuit breakers do exist, but cables should never be able to trip them. (e.g. 2A@5V=10W. Most breakers are 10-15-25A@110-220V=1100-5500W)

 

The chargers can trip them (by shorting AC components due to temperature/shock/humidity/bad design), but it's pretty rare if the charger is reasonably well made. That's why they usually have a fuse built-in.

 

After cable fires, I think putting a few thermistors along the cable to detect temperature surges and tripping a fuse would be a good idea.

Also why in Europe we like ground on as many things  as possible. 

 

In the UK everything plugged into the wall has a ground. Granted some ground pins are made of plastic instead of metal but I’d still argue that’s better than not having one.

 

Also why UK uses ON/OFF switches for power plugs. 

[HM-2]

13 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

Dozens of Amazon's own products have been reported as dangerous -- melting, exploding or even bursting into flames. Many are still on the market.

I think much of this is down to confirmation bias. Amazon shifts huge numbers of their own-brand Basics products, probably vastly outstripping most other brands within their marketplace by virtue of their costs. Instances of fires, shorts and other issues with pretty much any product of this nature exist; I see absolutely no evidence here or anywhere else that suggests that problems are more common with their own-branded products than they are with those of competitor brands.

 

As is often the case with marketplaces, you end up with a review system which effectively excludes the vast majority of consumers buying a product and accentuates those with both strong positive and negative feelings. 99.9% of buyers who don't have issues won't bother reviewing a product, but just anyone who buys a cable that suffers a short will be straight on there to leave a 1* review.

 

You can also get fake "Amazon Basics" products on other marketplaces.

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

Sensational Headline, well if you produce a million items there's bound to be 5% defective, amazon basics produces 1000's of different items, saying "ABasics is dangerous" because of few incidents is like saying "Airplanes are dangerous" 

5% is 1 in 20.  That’s incredibly high. 0.5% is 1 in 200 which is still pretty high. 0.05% might start to get where you seem to be going

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

There’s a few problems with this article if this is true:

1) That chair in the USB cable example would not be legal in the European Union. Chairs and other furniture are required by EU law to not be flammable and should contain flame retardant materials.

 

How this is not required in the United States of America is shocking.

 

There is zero reason that fire should have started and that sounds like it’s not entirely Amazon’s fault.

 

2) Nobody mentions the charging brick but I’m going to assume it’s the brick itself and not the charging cable. I don’t know the quality of different charging bricks but I’m gonna assume it’s a QC issue or design defect.

 

3) Same as number 2 but for the Microwaves.
 

4) I have literally no idea how something as simple as a USB cable even catches fire. Unless it either A) has faulty wiring, B) was used inappropriately by customers, C) passed QC even if it should have been failed.

 

5) And honestly this whole CNN article feels more like a hit job .  Why is CNN coming forward now? Why didn’t CNN talk to Amazon before publishing the article? Why is CNN assuming all reviews are trustworthy and accurate? 
 

This article asks more questions than it answers.

 

Product safety regulations are monumentally important and it could just be me but something tells me this wouldn’t happen in the EU except perhaps that Microwave problem since it sounds like a product defect.

 

If it is a product defect in the microwave then honestly just drop the supplier, find a new reputable supplier, do your own testing on it,  once you’ve confirmed it’s safe sell it as a revised AmazonBasics microwave and issue a recall for all units of the previous model and replace it with the new model.

Furniture in the US is required to be made of fire retardant materials and has been for a long time. Even fire retardant materials can burn though if hot enough.  Fire retardant material generally can’t stay burning though which makes me wonder. some furniture predates such stuff.  Furniture can be extremely old.

[LAwLz]

Quote

Dozens of Amazon's own products have been reported as dangerous

 

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Not sure if ground helps in case of these short circuits. Could allow for some energy to escape and trigger a GFCI breaker, but wouldn't really trigger a common breaker until reached it's capacity.

 

Plastic ground pin means there's no ground.

 

The reset-test for GFCI power plugs makes a ton of sense. On-off switches are just another point of failure.

Fwiw I only see plastic ground on low quality items.

[Comixbooks]

Its like the Great Value brand with Walmart you can trust it sometimes. I purchased a Amazon basics cable I think it worked.

[Kisai]

18 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

 

 

My thoughts

I personally do a lot of shopping on Amazon but I've never purchased an AmazonBasics product. Affordable is not the same as cheap, I always warn people. You never want something cheap. As the saying goes "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap." I usually suck it up and probably overpay to buy things from a brand I trust.

 

For instance, you might look at a $50 Belkin surge protector on Amazon and ask why would anyone buy it when there are these other ones for $10-20. But if you ever put these side by side you'll immediately notice the quality difference. Cheap electronics/electric things heat up a lot and often make a buzzing noise. That's bad! A safe power cord costs a certain amount to make, at some point there is no way to lower cost without sacrificing quality and safety.

 

Just to re-iterate, you don't have to choose between AmazonBasics and shady brands on Amazon.com. Reputable OEMs make these things and not all of them are on Amazon.

 

Sources

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/10/business/amazonbasics-electronics-fire-safety-invs/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2020-09-10T12%3A51%3A01

 

The AmazonBasics stuff is really starting to sound like someone went out to the counterfeiters and went "hey, why sell garbage passed off as (namebrand) when you can sell garbage using Amazon's brand?"

 

I've, to date, only bought one item as such and when I got it (clothing), it was of very poor quality, and reminded me of some of the things I bought off eBay or fly-by-night websites that are fronts for counterfeits that originate in mainland china. There's one super-obvious tell when you buy this stuff, and it's that it typically does not come in a bag/box with any brand on it, nor any tag. The AmazonBasics only differed in that they had that label on it, but otherwise felt like the typical poorly made items.

 

I've bought "OEM" stuff (another tell for counterfeit electronics, are "OEM" parts without the brand name visible on it in the photos) before and I probably would discourage people from buying anything that uses a stock photo and claims to be an OEM charger, because it's probably a low-quality counterfeit. The same with cables that are used for charging (USB A-mini-B/micro-B, and USB-C cables that are thin.) Stuff like HDMI, or RCA or TRS/TRRS 3.5mm stuff doesn't really matter and the worst you'll be exposed to with those are poor-construction that results in the connector breaking off after a few uses.

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

The AmazonBasics stuff is really starting to sound like someone went out to the counterfeiters and went "hey, why sell garbage passed off as (namebrand) when you can sell garbage using Amazon's brand?"

 

I've, to date, only bought one item as such and when I got it (clothing), it was of very poor quality, and reminded me of some of the things I bought off eBay or fly-by-night websites that are fronts for counterfeits that originate in mainland china. There's one super-obvious tell when you buy this stuff, and it's that it typically does not come in a bag/box with any brand on it, nor any tag. The AmazonBasics only differed in that they had that label on it, but otherwise felt like the typical poorly made items.

 

I've bought "OEM" stuff (another tell for counterfeit electronics, are "OEM" parts without the brand name visible on it in the photos) before and I probably would discourage people from buying anything that uses a stock photo and claims to be an OEM charger, because it's probably a low-quality counterfeit. The same with cables that are used for charging (USB A-mini-B/micro-B, and USB-C cables that are thin.) Stuff like HDMI, or RCA or TRS/TRRS 3.5mm stuff doesn't really matter and the worst you'll be exposed to with those are poor-construction that results in the connector breaking off after a few uses.

German actually has two different words for this issue both of which translate to English as “cheap”: billig & pricewort (spelling is almost certainly wrong) billig means cheap and unworthy, pricewort means cheap but worthy.  Sort of. I got caught by this one once and bought some awful shampoo.

[Kisai]

11 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Don’t circuit breakers exist as well? Will shorting the cable draw enough amps to trip the breaker?

You'd think that, but if you've ever seen ElectroBoom's videos...

 

 

Watch as he tries to trip the breakers and pretty much things he'd expect to trip them, don't.

[CarlBar]

9 hours ago, Mihle said:

Doesn't matter if it's low percentage, low percentage on a faults on a product that can actually hurt you very bad or even kill you is too much.

 

At least here, for actual brands, there have been recalls of products after just one or two cases of starting a fire.

 

Not legally speaking and not as far as reality is concerned. It's literally impossible to produce a product in which 0% of the items have faults. likewise it's literally impossible to have a QC process that is 100% proof against failure. To start assigning blame you have to show both that the problem was preventable and that the failure to catch the fault in QC was a result of a fundamental failing with the QC process. Otherwise it's just part and parcel of buying anything, anywhere, any-when. Failures will happen no matter what we do. The aim is allways to keep them to as low a level as possibble, the more serious the type of failure the lower we seek to keep it. But you can never completely eliminate them, the laws of probability don't allow it.

[Teddy07]

anti Amazon propaganda

[Bombastinator]

15 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

anti Amazon propaganda

Tell that to the burn unit this person apparently wound up in.  Something went wrong.

[pythonmegapixel]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Tell that to the burn unit this person apparently wound up in.  Something went wrong.

As others have said, part of what went wrong is that the chair wasn't made from flame retardant materials.

 

But in any case, clearly the charging cable shouldn't have been able to start a fire. So yes, I think Amazon does have something they need to look into here. However, I don't thnk Amazon is the only one, there's plenty of utter crap no-name junk all over eBay and Amazon which I suspect is similarly dangerous.

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

As others have said, part of what went wrong is that the chair wasn't made from flame retardant materials.

 

But in any case, clearly the charging cable shouldn't have been able to start a fire. So yes, I think Amazon does have something they need to look into here. However, I don't thnk Amazon is the only one, there's plenty of utter crap no-name junk all over eBay and Amazon which I suspect is similarly dangerous.

Agreed.  I don’t think it’s specifically an amazon thing.  This is a piece of evidence in a possible trend.  Billig production.

[wanderingfool2]

38 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Tell that to the burn unit this person apparently wound up in.  Something went wrong.

His burns were caused by him carrying a burning chair outside.  Also notice, the way the wire was fused to the chair...while the cable might 100% have been intact I would still give a strong likelihood that the cord had been rolled over in the past.

 

Not saying there isn't quality control issues or a design fault...the key is what is the real % of products that are being reported as faulty.

[steelo]

I don't know if the amazonbasics products all come from one facility, but I can't imagine them being any worse than some of the ebay or newegg cheaper 'China' crap...

[weeblord]

I feel like this is somewhat "breaking news! fire is hot" material. People usually know to stray away from the amazonbasics stuff, since it's usually even worse than the other chinese brands on the site.

[Bombastinator]

21 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

His burns were caused by him carrying a burning chair outside.  Also notice, the way the wire was fused to the chair...while the cable might 100% have been intact I would still give a strong likelihood that the cord had been rolled over in the past.

 

Not saying there isn't quality control issues or a design fault...the key is what is the real % of products that are being reported as faulty.

And we’re back to “will” and “won’t” arguments again.  Is the argument made by the “plaintiff” of questionable veracity? Sure.  Did this under fire resistant chair burst into flames by itself?  No. Was it instead cause by a dropped lighter or something? Maybe.  This is what courts are for. It seems your statement can be shortened to “Just because someone was crippled for life doesn’t mean Amazon should pay for his care” OK.  Who should?  Because if the answer is “him.  It’s his fault” the reply is then he should have been more careful, and being more careful means not buying products without a UL rating. 
If the answer is “it’s amazon’s fault” then amazon should not be reselling products without a UL rating.  If it’s “the chairs fault.  Too bad the company that made it has been extinct for 150 years” I refer you to “it’s his fault”

[wanderingfool2]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

And we’re back to “will” and “won’t” arguments again.  Is the argument made by the “plaintiff” of questionable veracity? Sure.  Did this under fire resistant chair burst into flames by itself?  No. Was it instead cause by a dropped lighter or something? Maybe.  This is what courts are for. It seems your statement can be shortened to “Just because someone was crippled for life doesn’t mean Amazon should pay for his care” OK.  Who should?  Because if the answer is “him.  It’s his fault” the reply is then he should have been more careful, and being more careful means not buying products without a UL rating. 
If the answer is “it’s amazon’s fault” then amazon should not be reselling products without a UL rating.  If it’s “the chairs fault.  Too bad the company that made it has been extinct for 150 years” I refer you to “it’s his fault”

Literally his burns were caused by an action he chose to do.  At worse the fire was caused by a poorly designed cable that was unsafe...to put things bluntly though, if the burns he received was because he literally carried the chair outside that is on him.  (As was mentioned in the article it had appeared he had tried also putting it out with bowls of water, a good example of why you should know where your fire extinguisher is).

 

Yes there was an injury, but saying "Tell that to the burn unit this person apparently wound up in.  Something went wrong." is such a baseless argument.  (Because again, he literally could have avoided it by not picking up a burning chair).  Yes something went wrong, but the article is written in the way that the Amazon Basic cable is the culprit and that Amazon Basic products are dangerous...there is a bias against Amazon in the article.  That isn't to say there isn't a design fault, but again unless you know the % of failures and cause of failure laying blame on Amazon isn't correct either.  There are plenty of OEM high quality cables that catch fire as well, and even in real world I've seem people who are just asking for fires from chargers (again frayed ends, run over ends).

 

So to sum things up.  Yes someone got injured, but your statement regarding the burn adds very little weight as an argument when it's the decision by the guy to carry a flaming chair outside.

 

[pythonmegapixel]

27 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

It seems your statement can be shortened to “Just because someone was crippled for life doesn’t mean Amazon should pay for his care” OK.  Who should?

This isn't a issue at all in most of the developed world because healthcare is free at point of use. Since this happened in the US, however, the question remains.

 

An entirely different kettle of fish, however, is whether the product needs to be pulled from sale and whether the manufacturer and/or retailer of the cable and/or the chair have broken any regulations and need to be fined for it. The former I think the default should be yes, the product should be pulled from sale until an investigation has proven beyond reasonable doubt that it didn't cause the issue. The latter is really not time-sensitive so there should be plenty of time to have a proper investigation.