US customs seizes 16,000 counterfeit 'hoverboards'
The final figure is expected to grow even bigger in the coming weeks.
The US Customs and Border Protection has prevented 16,000 counterfeit "hoverboards" from making it to people's homes. Authorities have seized a warehouse full of the controversial two-wheeled scooters stamped with fake trademark logos and equipped with unauthorized batteries in Chicago. They believe the goods they collected amount to $6 million overall, at least for now. That figure will grow even bigger, since the warehouse is expecting a "massive amount of shipments" to arrive in the next few weeks.
These self-balancing scooters became a huge hit last year, so numerous questionable manufacturers took advantage of the craze and released subpar, non-quality controlled versions to stores. They've been all over the news in the past few months for spontaneously catching fire and burning people's houses down. At least one incident took place in Illinois. Due to the hazard inferior-quality hoverboards pose, the scooters had been banned from many airplanes, universities and even from NYC's trains and buses. Last year, UK authorities also seized 15,000 units after inspecting shipments at seaports and airports.
[Image credit: US Customs/Flickr]
