No 'hoverboard' is safe from UK Trading Standards
17,000 more of the things have been seized at UK ports in just a few weeks.
"Hoverboards" are getting a pretty bad rap of late, and not just because their common name is annoyingly misleading. Several UK retailers have stopped selling the things due to serious concerns over battery safety -- they have a habit of spontaneously combusting, you see -- with Amazon even advising customers to bin their potentially dodgy models. A number of airlines won't carry them, the US is scrambling to regulate the fad, and earlier this month UK Trading Standards announced it had seized over 15,000 unsafe devices at sea ports, airports and postal hubs since mid-October. This hasn't seemed to dent their popularity much, however, with Trading Standards telling BuzzFeed that figure has now spiked to 32,000 in just a few weeks.
Hoverboard imports have jumped significantly in the run-up to Christmas, and of the 38,800 Trading Standards has inspected at UK ports since October, 82.5 percent have been "detained" over safety fears. High demand for the gizmos has led to an influx of low-quality imports, the vast majority of which have dangerously noncompliant chargers, batteries and cut-off switches. By starving the UK of these highly sought-after products, Trading Standards may have either ruined your Christmas or saved you from a house fire waiting to happen. Either way, we imagine officers are having no fun at all "investigating" the matter.
