ESF petition: 'dangerous electricals on online marketplaces'

Signed

I can't sign as I do not use email.


Z.

I'd sign but I note the aim is misdirected, what is needed is the existing legislation to be enforced, and more resources to the bodies that do that,  and the rules spelt out to the slow of thinking, not new legislation.

If you buy something online, and it comes from the UK, or for now anywhere in the EU you have the same rights as if you bought  it in a shop - and CAB and trading standards are the way to report defective and dangerous goods - but right now they are a paper tiger, and struggle to manage to enforce the most egregious breaches that are reported, let alone pro-actively police markets either real or on-line. That is a matter of funding, not new legislation.

If you buy on-line and it comes from overseas, you are the importer, and as well as being responsible  for all customs tariffs etc, you the  buyer are also responsible for ensuring the item meets all the UK product standards.  That I think is something that many 'bargain hunters' overlook. That is a matter of education, not new legislation.

Whilst I do not disagree with Mapj1 I would opt for the "simple" most effective remedy.


All civilised countries should ban Ebay completely

Ha, there speaks a man who has never sold anything on it.... However I'd appreciate a more regulated approach, especially more warnings for overseas buyers,  it is handy for uniting people with things they do not need with folk who  are happy to pay for them - and Iv'e had some first class stuff made for me by companies I would have been unaware of - but I am more of an informed buyer.

This is not the fault of EBay. The sale of electrical goods is highly regulated in the UK, so users should only buy from UK suppliers. ESF is misguided, they need to spend their money on publicity suggesting that buying from foreign suppliers has dangers which persons may not understand. A blanket ban on eBay or anything else is simply mad. Can ESF define what should be banned, or will they say anything electrical at all, like electronic components? I have bought many very satisfactory electrical items on eBay, and so far avoided any dangerous, in the domestic sense, products. All Auctions are very much buyer beware places as I expect many of you know to your cost! Can I buy from other EU countries or Australia, or is it just China (Communist) or Taiwan, or Singapore or what? The regulations are in place, it is just the usual human trait of buying cheap! Banning Samsung phones (or Apple ones made in China) would help no-one.


Edited, I will not sign such a petition for the above reasons, to do so is simply asking for the wrong outcome. Nathaniel: All the retailers such as amazon etc. are bound by these rules. Report sales from them to the correct Authorities (trading standards). You do not buy from eBay, you buy from the seller.

I share the concerns about dangerous electrical goods being sold on line and also in street markets and the dodgier end of retail stores. The worst items IME are defective cable/flexible cords and mains plugs.

I believe that better enforcement of existing regulations is called for.


Trading standards are in my experience pretty useless and concentrate on very "low tech" offences such as short measure in pubs or misleading money off promotions.


I cant support a ban on ebay

I used to have a group of customers who didn’t consider “Scammel Mechanical Horse” an unusual EBay search.


I am very wary of buying through EBay but it does have a place in the scheme of things, such as buying obsolete equipment and rarities. But for everyday items you can generally do better elsewhere, unless you are certain you know exactly what you are buying.


Don’t buy IET books through Amazon.

I use ebay a lot, but am selective as to what types of goods I purchase.


Things I would buy and have purchased regularly.

Bed sheets, bed blankets.

Underwear, socks.

Other basic clothing.

Overalls.

Non perishable foodstuffs.


Things that I might consider buying on ebay.

The more unusual types of wire, cable and flexible cord.

The less common types of electric lamp.

Obsolete spare parts.

Rare or hard to find wiring accessories,


Things for which ebay is to be avoided and only considered as a last resort.

Modern and popular types of cable, too much risk of fakes.

Modern and common types of wiring accessory.

Safety critical items such as smoke detectors, fuses, RCDs and MCBs that cant be internally examined.


I would for example avoid white plastic 13 amp sockets or similarly common items from ebay, millions are sold and they are well worth faking.

I did buy a couple of RED 13 amp sockets though, these are produced in much smaller numbers and probably not worth faking. Also for use on a UPS circuit with the load unlikely to exceed one amp.

I would avoid common types of flex or twin with earth cable, millions of meters are sold and fakery well worth while. I DID however purchase a roll of very non standard flex (3 red cores, 1 green core, and 1 white core, all 6mm) excellent value. Whom is going to fake something that obscure ?

Thank you all for good points. Yes, much of the reason why I don't usually go for petitions is that there tends to be some part I don't agree with, even if the general idea sounds good.


In this case: the aims don't strike me as very heavy-handed; and I don't think customer-education efforts will have so much effect as getting the main intermediaries to take some responsibility for transactions that they're very much assisting as well as profiting from; and trading standards has no control over the direct imports; and I do also feel an annoyance at how a few very large organizations can shrug off the resonsibility for what their marketplace sellers do, while responsible local sellers have to go through the process of getting good products and certification. So I still feel overall positive about the ESF intention, although as usual I worry about things like the final result being badly drafted and having knock-on consequences. At the current rate I still suspect the petition will never reach its target anyway, which I still feel is a bit of a pity, although I sympathise with much that others have said on this thread.


I wouldn't like to see intermediaries such as free-ads sites/papers, ebay etc, being bound to "make sure .. are safe" for equipment sold between individuals, such as "selling my cooker/computer/etc". That would mess up a useful market if each transaction involved checking.

When the seller is a company selling many products, I'm much more supportive of some responsibility falling on the intermediary.

If the seller is a large UK/EU-based company, it's likely to be good at managing the sources and certification of products so it should pose little trouble to the intermediary (there will be exceptions, but generally I don't see safety problems in product from companies that have experience, lawyers who know what's required, and something to lose). 

If the seller is a small UK one that started last month and can happily re-start itself if needed, it's much more likely to have cut corners, perhaps not even knowing about what responsibilities it has.

And if the seller is outside the UK/EU, and is temptingly cheap, then I'd be quite surprised if product really does everthing that it should, although there will be no come-back against it.

It's for these two last cases that I'd be pleased to see intermediaries forced to be more accountable. Without the intermediaries, many of the transactions simply wouldn't happen. The intermediary is in these cases the only party that has the incentive and resource to take some effort. The sellers are immune, ignorant, or accept the risk to themselves as low. The buyers are presumably (except a minority, such as members of this list) unaware of many of the risks. I suspect that customer education attempts get lost among all the noise of the media for most people who aren't already careful about what they buy. If I could believe that the education method would work well, then I'd agree it would be better to go that way than to have yet more petty legislation. 


I've bought a lot of electrical stuff via the big companies that connect me to distant sellers. Looking back, I don't think a single thing bought directly from the far east was up to both CE-style product standards and its claimed specification. Faults mentioned as examples in my earlier posting were just a subset of my direct experience with imported products. However, I've been well aware of the likely problems, and was prepared to make changes to reach a satisfactory state. Example: a 12V/230V inverter that cost £30, claimed 3 kW but actually manages about 1.4 kW even with solid 12V applied, and has been happily mounted on top of my car's battery for three years, after suitable bonding of its chassis and output PE terminal to the car chassis, and addition of an RCD on the output - still working in spite of heat, dust and vibration.


One of many links with examples of bad products, on Which. 


About trading standards, paper tiger etc.: I can well believe it, and agree that these organizations should have the resources to police the in-UK sellers adequately. Until yesterday I hadn't thought so much about bad products from companies within the UK, but more about the "untouchables" (outside EU). However, I remember that a recent study of bad USB chargers in Sweden found plenty from local retailers: these were typically new webshops or small family shops, which presumably got batches through channels that didn't check the source. Some spot-checks of these wouldn't be a bad idea. The trading standards tests I've seen are specific to particular council areas, whereas a central effort would probably be more efficient.


About the requirement of an email address for the petition: good point - I used to be the same about providing a mobile phone number; it's rather silly of them to require email rather than a choice of this or phone or postal.