EE Power Bar recall: free phone chargers could explode while charging, should be returned

Hugely-popular chargers ‘pose a fire risk’, EE has said

(EE)

The massively-popular EE Power Bar phone chargers could overheat and pose a fire risk, the company has said.

Launched earlier this year, the chargers are given out for free to EE customers, who can swap them for a new one when they’ve run out. But a limited number of them could “pose a fire safety risk”, after “a very small number of incidents where Power Bars have overheated”.

The recall follows reports that one student's power bar exploded in her hands and almost burned down her house.

The company said that the problems are limited to those in a specific batch. But EE is suspending the swap programme entirely until it has investigated the problem.

Power Bar owners should check their battery to see whether it has “Model No: E1-06” written on the side. If it does, they should be immediately unplugged and returned to the shop.

Chargers in the E1-06 batch represent about 500,000 of the 2 million in circulation, estimates Mobile News.

The company will replace the charger once it has completed its investigations it said. It told customers that it would get in touch once they were concluded.

Other batches should be safe, EE said. “We've not seen any issues of overheating with other batches and they meet all safety standards,” the company said in a release.