Hair-raising stuff this! The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer has been forced to recall 14 million (count them!) handset chargers after discovering that all or any of three different models them could give users a severe belt. Martyn Warwick, in big rubber boots, reports the shocking news.
As Auric Goldfinge.r the villain in the ninth James Bond novel, says, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, third time is enemy action." Well Nokia is now at the "coincidence" point and must be hoping it'll never reach the third level of the Goldfinger scale.
Back in 2007 the company took a lot of flak and garnered some bad press when it had to recall 46 million mobile handset batteries because of dangers that they could overheat and cause handsets to burst into flame or even explode. The batteries were made by the Japanese company, Matsushita.
This time around it's a Chinese company - BYD of Shenzhen - that's to blame. BYD is probably best known for its hybrid fuel and electric cars but also manufactures telecoms components.
In a statement, Nokia says, "We are undertaking this exchange programme as a proactive, precautionary measure.
We are not aware of any incidents or injuries relating to these three chargers."
It continues, "The plastic covers of the affected chargers could come loose and separate, exposing the charger's internal components and potentially posing an electrical shock hazard if certain internal components are touched while the charger is plugged into a live socket."
In other words, the chargers could fall apart, expose live wires and electrocute users. Not good.
Nokia also says that BYD will pay for the recall and replacements. That cost will be considerable. Even allowing for economies of scale and bulk-buying discounts it is thought that the chargers still cost US$1 each, so BYD will be footing a bill well in excess of 14 million bucks. All that BYD itself has said so far is. "During internal tests we found the chargers could have some problems." There's bland and then there's really bland.
Three Nokia chargers are affected - the AC-3E and AC-3U models, manufactured between June 15 and August 9 this year and the AC-4U model, made between April 13 and October 25 (also this year. They were on sale globally, but, interestingly, the recall excludes chargers bought from outlets in Argentina, Brazil China (strange that) or the UK.
please sign in to rate this article
45729