News Releases
| For Immediate Release September 29, 2005 |
Contact: |
Lissa Hurwitz |
Counterfeit Electrical Products Pose Major Safety Hazards!
(Arlington, Va.) Trademark counterfeiting has reached the electrical sector. Counterfeiters have targeted well-known industrial and consumer brands, and registered certification marks of testing and certification laboratories.“Counterfeit electrical products can pose significant safety hazards and left undetected, can cause deaths, injuries and substantial property loss in the home and the workplace,” noted Anne Mayberry, program manager of the Electrical Safety Foundation International.
The electrical products targeted by counterfeiters apply to those used by both consumers and industry. The list includes control relays for industrial equipment, lamps, electronic lamp ballasts, dry cell batteries, lithium ion batteries, smoke detectors, fuses, circuit breakers, electrical receptacles, ground fault circuit interrupters, conduit fittings, power strips and surge suppressors, electrical cordsets (extension cords), power cords, telecommunications cable, and electrical connectors.
While some counterfeit products appear as excellent copies of the genuine product, investigations show that many are substandard and fail to pass minimum safety tests. Detection based on appearance can be difficult, and may only be determined by opening suspicious products and performing tests. Counterfeit electrical products may contain inferior materials, with little or no concern for consumer and workplace safety.
Counterfeit electrical products can overheat or cause short circuits and lead to fire, shock or explosion. For example, some counterfeit dry cell batteries use designs that fail to prevent explosion in electronic products when mistakenly installed backwards. Counterfeit electrical cord sets may contain thinner wire gauges than normally required, posing fire hazards.
Often, counterfeiters use inferior materials and avoid key manufacturing steps to reduce the cost of their products, allowing them to be sold at prices no genuine brand manufacturer can match. For the unsuspecting consumer of this product, the risk of fire causing injury to person or property is substantially enhanced.
Counterfeit electrical wire and cable products can contain substandard materials or eliminate product design requirements established by product safety standards used in product certification. Other counterfeit electrical products, such as control relays, fuses, receptacles, and circuit breakers, are often poorly designed and use parts that are substandard and incompatible. Many lack safety features and fail prematurely, creating the risk of damage to person or property. The use of counterfeit conduit fittings, inaccurately represented as suitable for hazardous locations, could have been catastrophic because they were not designed to prevent explosion.
ESFI noted that the following tips can help avoid potentially dangerous counterfeit electrical products:
• Look for the CSA, UL or ETL-SEMKO Certification marks. If you have concerns about the marks, contact the certifier.
• Buyers should beware of bargains that seem too good to be true. Products may be cheap because they are counterfeit or defective.
• Use established vendors who purchase their goods from legitimate distributors and genuine manufacturers. Fly-by-night vendors may not be willing to grant refunds for electrical products that do not perform as they should.
• Check the warning label. It should be free of grammatical errors and not conflict with information elsewhere on the package.
• Look for the name and contact information of the manufacturer. If this information is missing, considering purchasing electrical products elsewhere.
• Avoid no-name products.