Counterfeit and Illegal Plugs and Leads

[timtheenchanter]

this isnt an overly new issue.
A thread on another forum from 2009 has these pics

spot the error on the last one!!

 

[aptsys]

this isnt an overly new issue.
A thread on another forum from 2009 has these pics

spot the error on the last one!!

I'm coming across more and more of these. Especially the dodgy cable and the first type of plug in your pictures - one set of leads came from a well known medical equipment manufacturer!!

 

[FatallyFlawed]

Fair enough. If it has actually been demonstrated that these plugs fail to establish a satisfactory earth connection with some types of BS1363-compliant sockets, then I obviously would agree with you that this is unacceptable.

John, You really are missing the point here, it does not matter one iota what you or I think, what matters is that sleeved earth plugs, non-BS 1362 fuses, the total lack of a fuse, and other general non-compliance points like pins too close to the periphery, are all conditions which define a plug as non-compliant with BS 1363, and therefore illegal to sell in the UK. What matters is that significant suppliers like Amazon and ebay should not be allowed to continue peddling illegal goods.

Apart from being illegal, sleeved earth pins are dangerous, and they are also one of the more obvious indicators of a counterfeit plug. Why the manufacturer decided to make them that way is of absolutely no consequence.

 

[studips]

saw a real eye opener of a documentary on fakes a while back, i thought i'd seen it all until i watched that program.

fresh eggs manufactured out of chemicals (and toxic with it) - why? because it was cheaper than keeping chickens....

and a village in china that specialises in a certain philips light fitting, including packaging, instructions and warranty - i bet a lot of you sparks are fitting gear that your wholesalers have supplied in good faith and are blissfully unaware it's actually fake - maybe sometimes your handling something and it just doesn't seem quite right........ (no disrespect implied here by the way)

lets face it, tesco were selling fake wine a while back. oh, and we all know about fake vodka.......

fake eggs though.......... mad...........

 

[mattylad]

Why do they make the plug with the sleeved earth pin like this though?

Surely to make the pin like that requires metal to be trimmed from the pin so they cant be saving metal use?

Edit - its nice to see that there are still plenty for sale on ebay here and here and hereand so on....

 

[JohnW2]

John, You really are missing the point here, it does not matter one iota what you or I think, what matters is that sleeved earth plugs, non-BS 1362 fuses, the total lack of a fuse, and other general non-compliance points like pins too close to the periphery, are all conditions which define a plug as non-compliant with BS 1363, and therefore illegal to sell in the UK.

I agree totally. I never have suggested, and never would want to suggest, that non-BS1363-compliant plugs should be tolerated. As you say, selling them in the UK is already unlawful, so it's a question of the policing of that law.

It was you who picked up on my comment that I thought that, if the partially-sleeved earth pins were the only problem, I thought it extremely unlikely that they would do harm. In terms of every socket I've ever dismantled, that would be true, but I have to accept your assertion that there are types of socket for which that would not be true. However, as you say, this is actually irrelevant. Even if the sleeving posed no demonstrable risk, the law against selling non-BS1363-compliant plugs in the UK should still be enforced.

My expressions of surprise at the poor nature of the 'copying' have been meant to make the point that these items are not really 'counterfeits' in the normal sense ('a fraudulent imitation' of a genuine product). Non-compliant, and therefore unlawful for sale in the UK, yes - but hardly 'counterfeit' when they do not even visually resemble any compliant product.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

The 13A plug has strict sizes and the recent campaign to bring to the public awareness the dangers of the plastic blanks sold by many outlets with the claim of stopping children being in danger from sockets high lighted the problems where these sizes are not complied with.

We are told how BS 1363 should be printed on every plug. Yet I look at the unit supplied with my Nokia phone and it does not have BS 1363 printed on it! AC-15X adaptor input AC 100-240v 50-60Hz Made in China etc but not BS 1363 and because of the reduced size of the unit I would not expect with the adjustable earth pin that it does comply. The same with the Iphone supplied adaptor these units have been made so that they take up as little space as they can and as a result to not comply. These are not FAKE they are original equipment supplied with the phones.

I have also had with my two way radio an adaptor to be able to plug the US style two blade plug into the 13A socket. With the radio likely no problem as it is 240 volt and has internal protection against overload. But the adaptor is not fused and if used with other items could clearly be a problem. However it is not a FAKE.

Plugs designed for medical equipment do sometimes lack the fuse because of the dangers should the fuse blow. However again they are not FAKE although normally coloured RED to show they are for medical equipment.

So how can one explain how to identify a fake when the genuine items don't follow the rules?

The multi adaptors often don't comply. The square 4 way are normally OK but again to save space the long 4 way units will often allow one to insert a plug 180 degrees out into the earth so opening the shutters on the live pins. This includes the square block type which also puts extra strain on the pins.

Yes fakes are a problem specially with the non visible faults like insignificant separation. But until our consumer protection clamps down on the official items supplied by major manufactures the chance of educating the general public on how to identify FAKES is unlikely to succeed.

My daughter wanted to do child minding and as a result the house had to be inspected by council officials to ensure it was suitable and safe. On one of these visits the inspector wanted socket blanking plates to be fitted in spite of non being made to BS 1363. Now it seems they have realised their error on that but still did not pick up on the Iphone adaptor or any of the other items which did not comply.

So step one has to be to training for those whose job it is to identify these items like council inspectors and whole sale buyers. And I would say one thing that would help is to be able to down load the British Standards without paying huge fees. I can see how we need to pay for paper but the restrictions on publishing British Standards must surely be lifted if we really want to stop this problem?

 

[FatallyFlawed]

these items are not really 'counterfeits' in the normal sense ('a fraudulent imitation' of a genuine product). Non-compliant, and therefore unlawful for sale in the UK, yes - but hardly 'counterfeit' when they do not even visually resemble any compliant product.

What they are counterfeiting is the approval marks, usually you will find that it is the ASTA mark that is counterfeited, in the case of the fuseless plug at the top of this page it is a CE mark, but as a CE mark is specifically not applicable to UK plugs and sockets then it is doubly wrong.

 

[bernardgreen]

Another cause for concern is the poor quality but other wise genuine items supplied with bogus certificates of quality.


The first batch of 2000 items were good quality, met the specification and on the basis of this the contract was given to produce 100,000 over 4 years.

The next two batches of 5000 came with certificates of quality from a genuine and independent quality testing organisation in the country of manufacture but the quality was poor. What the manufacturer had done was to carefully produce about 2500 good quality items for the first batch, deliver 2000 of them and then kept the other 500 to be used as samples for the quality testing during the 4 year contract.

The purchaser tried to pay a surprise visit the factory but " visa and travel difficulties " meant the factory had prior warning of his arrival.

He was however able to visit the quality testing organisation with samples of the poor quality item and they took the matter up. The contract was terminated and the items are now manufactured in Europe at a higher cost per item but without the costs of replacement of failed equipment and loss of reputation. The fate of the quality testing organisation is not known.

Flexible cable from low cost sources has been found to be lacking the french chalk needed to allow the inner cores to move inside the sheath when the cable is bent. Some have been found to have solvents from the inner cores leaching out and "glueing" the inner cores to sheath effective making the cable no flexible. The inner core insulation then fails after repeated flexing resulting in explosive short circuits in the cable. This affected a well known and respected brand names's hair straighteners with the cable failing right next to the handle.

 

[FatallyFlawed]

We are told how BS 1363 should be printed on every plug. Yet I look at the unit supplied with my Nokia phone and it does not have BS 1363 printed on it!

Plugs which incorporate electronic components, eg chargers, are not covered by BS 1363 and therefore cannot be marked BS 1363. They are also excluded from the Plugs and Sockets Regulations. They are subject to BS EN 60950-1:2001.

Plugs designed for medical equipment do sometimes lack the fuse because of the dangers should the fuse blow. However again they are not FAKE although normally coloured RED to show they are for medical equipment.

I did not realise that, do you know what standards/regulations such fuseless plugs should meet?

 

[ericmark]

I am lead to understand that amendment 1 of BS7671:2008 will have a section on medical but not seen it as yet.

From what I was told there are some items used which are either very close or over the 13A and they are fused with 16A fuses within the equipment rather than a 13A fuse in the plug. But all I was concerned about was watching for any smuggled out and finding their way into general use. Also of course where two neutral pins have been installed in the same plug.

I personally think it is wrong and if one needs a 16A supply it is not hard to install a 16A socket however what is becoming a problem more and more is the lack of a neat unit similar to the standard FCU able to take a 16A fuse.

We are harmonizing with Europe yet we are lacking anything to give us the 3500W which is standard in Europe well 3680W but rounded down 3.5kW. Ovens seem to be main problem but there are other items which are between the 3kW of UK and 3.5kW of rest of Europe and there is a need for a compact unit able to fuse down to 16A. In rest of Europe there is no ring main and they have 16A radials so they have no need for one hence with a low demand they have not been marketed as far as I am aware.

 

[JohnW2]

Plugs designed for medical equipment do sometimes lack the fuse because of the dangers should the fuse blow. However again they are not FAKE although normally coloured RED to show they are for medical equipment.

I did not realise that, do you know what standards/regulations such fuseless plugs should meet?

I am lead to understand that amendment 1 of BS7671:2008 will have a section on medical but not seen it as yet.

The 2011 amendment does, indeed, contain a whole new chapter (Section 710, 9 pages) about Medical Locations, but I see no reference to the unfused red plugs to which you refer.
Nor do I recall ever have I seen any such red plugs in medical locations. What I have seen a lot of are blue sockets used in IT systems within medical locations and 710.553.1 of BS7671:2008(2011) now requires blue sockets on medical IT systems. As far as I am aware, they are only intended for use with fused plugs.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[JohnW2]

What they are counterfeiting is the approval marks, usually you will find that it is the ASTA mark that is counterfeited, in the case of the fuseless plug at the top of this page it is a CE mark, but as a CE mark is specifically not applicable to UK plugs and sockets then it is doubly wrong.

Unauthorised use of approval marks is clearly fraudulent. Whether or not 'counterfeit' is the right word is another matter (and I somewhat doubt that it is) - but that is neither here nor there.

My point remains. The usual problem encountered by Trading Standards, Customs and police in detecting fake or unlawful goods is that they are generally pretty good copies of genuine products, such that it can be difficult to immediately identify them as rogue products. Those manufacturing these unlawful plugs almost seem to have gone out of their way to make their visual identification very easy, so enforcement of the law ought to be pretty straightforward for the authorities. As has been pointed out, it doesn't take much Googling to find obviously non-compliant plugs being offered for sale.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[TAB]

From time to time the subject of counterfeit plugs and power leads is discussed on this and other forums.

Counterfeit plugs are often distinguished by having partially sleeved earth pins in clear contravention of BS 1363, that means that they cannot be legally sold (The Plugs & Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations (1994)). Despite that they are freely available from (amongst others) many ebay sellers, and even Amazon!

Some of the counterfeits also have counterfeit fuses fitted, others have no fuses whatsoever!

For further information see www.bs1363.org.uk This includes samples of ebay and amazon sales listings, and links to reports from PAT testers who have come across these.

The safety of BS 1363 sockets and plugs is under threat from a variety of sources; it is time that the government and the IET took stronger action to counter this.

Forgive my ignorance here. On the web site you linked to there are a couple of moulded plugs with sleeved earth pins. These are supplying 2 core cable and therefore no earth. So what is dangerous about these examples?

 

[JohnW2]

Forgive my ignorance here. On the web site you linked to there are a couple of moulded plugs with sleeved earth pins. These are supplying 2 core cable and therefore no earth. So what is dangerous about these examples?

Indeed. I meant to make this point myself earlier, but got sidetracked by some other line of thought, and forgot.

My understanding is that a moulded plug connected to a 2-core cable could be compliant with a completely plastic earth pin, so there really can't be any logical safety issue with a partially shrounded earth pin. Whether not they BS1363 is that logical is another matter!

If such plugs were sold 'loose', there would obviously be a potential problem - certainly of compliance with BS1363, and possibly also with safety.

Kind Regards, John.