Author Topic: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite  (Read 736 times)

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« on: 13 December, 2022, 01:41:46 pm »
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63956314

Well, there's a shock (pun intended).

They are pretty much the same as car boot sales these days, where fly-by-nights can shift unsafe and fraudulently CE/kitemarked crap to unfussy punters.  Amazon is not a site I use, because even a very specific search returns results packed with this sort of off-brand, knock-off landfill.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« Reply #1 on: 13 December, 2022, 01:44:15 pm »
Oh. I thought that coming out of the EU meant an end to ridiculous regulations and therefore cheaper prices?

What's wRonG wItH ThAt?
It is simpler than it looks.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« Reply #2 on: 13 December, 2022, 01:51:34 pm »
I would be amazed if Amazon etc do not sell the exact same products to customers within the EU too. Possibly even at lower prices.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« Reply #3 on: 13 December, 2022, 01:56:03 pm »
It's all good fun when it's subject matter for a Big Clive teardown, or you're going to take it apart for a project, but it's alarming to think that people buy this stuff and use the Chinesium power supplies uncritically.  I've bought a fair amount of stuff from AliExpress over the years, and you start to get a bit of a spidey sense for differentiating "legitimate niche product" (usually sub-assemblies for industrial/hobbyist use), "knock-offs which may have quality control issues" (pay particular attention to tolerances and the quality of any plastics used) and "mainstream tat" (avoid other than for Big Clive purposes).  Certainly don't buy a [cheap shitty pink] USB charger or mains-powered Christmas lights from eBay.

"Buy it in a physical shop." is a good rule of thumb.  Even Poundland stuff seems properly engineered (at least from a safety perspective).  Stuff sold by Amazon themselves seems okay, but the search returns all sorts of dubious rubbish from marketplace sellers.

ian

Re: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« Reply #4 on: 13 December, 2022, 02:08:07 pm »
Actual shops face some come-back if they sell something that burns down your house. Amazon and Ebay will splutter 'we're just a market place' and tell you they have procedures to stop what has obviously happened from happening; procedures which generally seem to consisting of telling people they have procedures to ensure they don't sell cheap and dangerous shit when someone calls them out for obviously selling the sort cheap and dangerous shit that burns down your house. Again. I hope that's clear.

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« Reply #5 on: 13 December, 2022, 02:13:19 pm »
Big Clive is usually quite complementary about Poundland electrics.
 His latest tear down of a Chinesium ‘ioniser’ was defiantly shocking with the ‘ionising’ spikes , that were proud of the case, being connected directly to the live input. Nou unsurprisingly the actual ionising circuit consisted of a pcb with no components at all.

I’ll by from Bezos emporium of stuffs largely because of the convenience and the returns process is straight forward. I don’t buy from eBay very much at all these days and wouldn’t by electrics from there at all.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Re: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« Reply #6 on: 14 December, 2022, 04:38:36 am »
I do buy through Amazon and ebay but only brands from their platform "shops" that I already know and trust suck as Anker for instance.

The only dud I ever bought that way was an LED cree bike light some years ago.  The light head unit rattled like a snake until I added an O ring but the battery failed in short order.

I do prefer to buy from a bricks and mortar shop but that seems to be increasingly difficult for some things these days.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« Reply #7 on: 14 December, 2022, 05:36:33 pm »
The only dud I ever bought that way was an LED cree bike light some years ago.

A bike light with 'Cree' on it is like a bicycle with 'Shimano' written on it.  They're both extremely competent molishers of components, but if the end product is boasting about their use, you know it's not very good.

Re: Amazon and eBay selling unsafe Chinese shite
« Reply #8 on: 14 December, 2022, 05:39:17 pm »
Not to mention the lithium battery packs they came with, with poorly soldered 18650 cells salvaged from old laptops.

By and large, you get what you pay for.