These £10 gadgets promise to cut your energy bill - they could blow up in your home instead, writes Dean Dunham KC
Online marketplaces shouldn’t be able to disappear from the conversation when a product turns out to be dangerous
Energy bills rose again this week, with the typical household price-cap figure increasing by 4% to £1,723 a year.
Listen to this article
So it is hardly surprising that people are searching online for anything that promises to reduce their electricity costs.
But some of the supposed solutions are far more worrying than the problem.
Electrical Safety First has tested 13 cheap plug-in “energy-saving” devices being sold online, including through major marketplaces. Every single one failed basic safety checks, two actually exploded during testing.
Here’s the extraordinary part: investigators say none of the products contained the components necessary to provide the advertised energy savings, and some could potentially increase electricity consumption.
Consumers weren’t just being sold something that apparently didn’t work, they were plugging a potentially dangerous electrical product directly into their homes.
That raises a much bigger question. How are products like this getting anywhere near UK consumers in the first place?
The devices were found on platforms including Amazon, TikTok Shop and AliExpress. The marketplaces took action on products brought to their attention, including removing listings, and AliExpress reportedly initiated recalls.
But I don’t think the consumer conversation should begin and end with removing a listing after somebody else discovers the product is dangerous.
When people shop through a major online marketplace, many naturally assume there’s some meaningful level of protection behind the familiar name on their screen.
They may not realise they’re effectively buying from an independent third-party seller operating through that platform.
And this is where consumer protection needs to keep evolving.
I’m not suggesting an online marketplace can personally laboratory-test every electrical product advertised through it.
But neither am I comfortable with a system where a platform can facilitate the listing, recommend the product through algorithms, process the transaction and potentially take a financial benefit, yet the consumer shoulders most of the risk when the product turns out to be unsafe.
Sellers and electrical products should face rigorous checks before they reach people’s homes, backed by rapid recalls and meaningful consequences when dangerous goods slip through.
Consumers should also be extremely suspicious of plug-in gadgets promising dramatic cuts to energy consumption. If a £10 box could slash household electricity bills simply by plugging it into a socket, we’d probably all have one already.
As energy prices rise, desperate households become an attractive target for businesses promising effortless savings.
That’s exactly when consumer protection needs to be strongest, because if an online marketplace is happy to be part of the transaction when the product is sold, it shouldn’t be able to disappear from the conversation when that product turns out to be dangerous.
____________________
Dean Dunham KC presents LBC's Consumer Hour every Sunday from 9pm-10pm.
LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.
To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk