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But I still think chargers and children's toys are exactly where the line should be drawn
by BrtByte 4mo ago
But I still think chargers and children's toys are exactly where the line should be drawn
- lopis 4mo agoMy line is a little bit further back. Any electronics that will be plugged to a wall... Lots of appliances are not safe.
- ben_w 4mo agoYup. I've even had an (Amazon rather than Temu) power-strip-and-USB combo noticeably sparking and tripping the apartment circuit breakers when plugged in just 6 months after purchase.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- aDyslecticCrow 4mo agoCould we interest you in some amazons choice fuses? never more be concerned about replacing a fuse! as these ones, simply wont need replacing! (they survive 5-10x their rated current) https://youtu.be/B90_SNNbcoU https://youtu.be/B90_SNNbcoU
- Chaosvex 4mo agoIt's a little amusing that he's seemingly linked to the dangerous fuses using his Amazon affiliate links. Hey, may well make a buck if someone's going to buy them anyway, right?
- xingped 4mo agoI think the affiliate links work such that any product bought when the lead into the site is the affiliate code will generate affiliate rewards. So even if you don't buy the crap that's linked, maybe you'll buy something else and that counts.
- bombcar 4mo agoThat’s how they work, and often affiliate links are programmatically added by plugins. I’ve seen some reviewers intentionally break links to bad products.
- alopha 4mo agoAmazon is does zero quality control on listings, it's just AliExpress which larger margins. At least the reviews at Aliexpress often include exhaustive detail & photos by the terminally skeptical.
- pseudohadamard 4mo agoI was wondering when the EU was going to fine Temu West, aka. Amazon, given they sell things that are just as dangerous.
- ben_w 4mo ago5 years ago. Though after enough appeals, Amazon found a court willing to annul the verdict and force the regulator who issued the fine to reexamine: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/win-amazon-luxembourg-court-scraps-record-854-million-privacy-fine-2026-03-13/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/win-amazon-luxembou...
- DANmode 4mo agoNo, let them suck on the poison Happy Meal toy instead. The line should be drawn by parents. The paternalism really has gone too far, and people are (incorrectly and dangerously) expecting to be protected now.
- Freak_NL 4mo agoIt's all fun and games until your neighbour in a terraced house or apartment building unwittingly starts an uncontrollable battery fire. Electric scooters and those 'hoover boards' from a few years ago are notorious when it comes to that, but plenty of underspecced small electronics will fail spectacularly.
- DANmode 4mo agoThat’s harder to disagree with, but, you’re only going to achieve moving the cheapo builders stateside where they’re easier to enforce on. That race to the bottom isn’t going anywhere - if someone can save a grand half-heartedly wrapping their own packs, they’re going to.
- greggsy 4mo agoWith that thinking, people would still be buying unlabelled arsenic wallpaper. Consumer standards are a net benefit to society. > and people are (incorrectly and dangerously) expecting to be protected now. The general public hasn’t the faintest idea how to differentiate between a safe product and an unsafe one, and they shouldn’t have to
- AnthonyMouse 4mo ago> The general public hasn’t the faintest idea how to differentiate between a safe product and an unsafe one, and they shouldn’t have to The problem being that a marketplace platform with millions of small sellers has no reasonable way to do this either.
- kergonath 4mo ago
- retired 4mo agoIf you ban Temu chargers, people will go to stores to buy the cheapest ones which are identical to the ones on Temu, just for 10x the price. Edit: Reply to Scroll_Swe as I am rate-limited to posting new comments. The chargers in budget stores are identical to Temu chargers are are frequently recalled.
- tobz1000 4mo agoAt least in the UK, the main high-street retailers will only stock goods from reputable brands with a (relatively) decent track record and safety standards. I don't believe there is any intersection between products sold on Temu and e.g. Argos, John Lewis.
- RobotToaster 4mo agoIdentical chargers to temu ones are sold on amazon for 5x the price.
- justincormack 4mo agoSo Amazon should be prosecuted too.
- shmeeed 4mo agoNo no, it's third party sellers. There's absolutely nothing that can be done about that!
- kergonath 4mo agoThis talking point is everywhere in this thread. But bear in mind that you have no clue whether two chargers (for example) are the same without disassembling them and checking. Noname Chinese manufacturers are very good at producing things that are superficially similar to other things. It does not mean that two widgets that look similar actually are. The main difference with most physical stores is that those will accept responsibility for the stuff they sell, because otherwise regulations would put them out of business.
- selfhoster1312 4mo agoI think the line should be much earlier than that. But even with this very thin line, like the parent said, the deficient products are everywhere. Just look at the recalls in any major store here (Carrefour, Action, Leclerc). And that's for the main brands/distributors, go into any bazaar or market and you'll find the exact same products you find on Aliexpress/Temu, but with 10x price markup, like the parent said. Don't get me wrong. I think companies should be held to higher standards: i just don't understand why only Temu is being held responsible of the entire broken capitalist system.
- AnthonyMouse 4mo agoThere are generally two ways governments hold companies accountable for dangerous products. The first is liability. If they're selling chargers that burn down houses, they get sued, and they don't want to get sued, so they don't want to sell chargers that burn down houses. The second is regulatory requirements. This one is generally worse. The incumbents capture the regulators to e.g. have the law require their technology or raise costs to exclude new entrants. The rules are often inefficient or poorly conceived with bad cost/benefit ratios. And companies making products that are dangerous but nevertheless comply with the rules will point to their checkbox compliance to dodge liability. The problem with the first one is that it doesn't work well against companies outside the jurisdiction, because then you can't sue them, and the importer will be a small entity that just files for bankruptcy if you try to sue them. But the second one has the exact same problem. They sell products that don't comply with the rules; if you try to fine them they're outside the jurisdiction and the only thing in the jurisdiction is a fungible importer that will dissolve if you try to go after them. In that environment the thing that actually works is the third thing. Customers expect some products to be dangerous and rely on product reviews to determine which ones. But this is the thing the second one inhibits, because then overpriced incumbents use their influence over the laws to target any new supplier that tries to establish a trusted brand, which causes the foreign suppliers to have to sell through dozens of unknown labels so they can continue to dissolve them if any of them get prosecuted. And then customers are stuck choosing between the overpriced incumbents and the far cheaper foreign suppliers that may or may not be safe, with many people risking the latter because they have so much lower margins.
- AussieWog93 4mo agoI've bought both from AliExpress before and they were fine. Just required common sense.
- BobAliceInATree 4mo agoThis is why we have UL listings in USA and Canada. So you don’t have to rely on “common sense” which is notoriously unreliable.
- Broken_Hippo 4mo agoCommon sense? What sort of common sense allows you to remotely assess the safety and build of a product? Even if you get a charger in your hand, can you tell? Can your family? How about your neibhbors? Does anyone you know have this ability? There is no common sense to be had here. There are people with more specialized information that I have that look into this. There are laws to address this - and I'm pretty sure these laws were written with the blood of folks killed by faulty products.
- idiotsecant 4mo agoNo, you rolled the dice and won. Don't attribute to wisdom that which is explainable by very, very dumb luck
- nick__m 4mo agoIt's so cheaper that you can buy 2, disassemble one and inspect the electronic (spot thermometer and a cheap ESR tester). it's a charger not a nuclear power plant !
- onesingleblast 4mo agoI got a charger with a bluetooth speaker once (not from temu) and it came apart inside the outlet with the prongs sticking out from it.