Shame, really
It was a nice idea and the fact you could swap them for a charged replacement at any store was an innovative solution to the problem of low battery life on smartphone. Unlucky, EE, good attempt and shame it backfired.
British carrier EE has issued a recall for all “Power Bars”, the company's name for external USB batteries. The company had already recalled 500,000 of the devices, after being warned by The Register they posed a safety risk. The Register subsequently reported that the devices appear not to comply with European safety …
Zero? It wasn't clear from the article: I assume you mean that EE had given them away, not sold them?
It was a service, and a free one at that. Customers never owned their equipment, it was merely on loan while that service was in use. If e.g. British Gas cut you off for safety reasons would you expect them to "refund" you £x billion to build your own network in its place?
It was a service, and a free one at that.
No it had a price, namely £20 pa. If however you were an EE customer (home phone/broadband, mobile PAYG/PAYM), EE invited you to enrol for free, however if you lost a powerbar then a £20 charge became payable. If you terminated your agreement you were expected to return the powerbar or start paying £20 pa for the service.
So effectively EE had decided to give it's customers a £20 reward. The shame is that the powerbar service probably represented much better value than a £20 discount voucher.
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you do realise that EE are under no obligation to give a refund for an item that they gave all of their customers FOR FREE!!!
they do not even have to give any credit - they are actually being pretty good about it - although I have 2 of the power bars (one from my own phone when I was an EE customer, and one from my work phone) - I can return both, but would only be eligible for a single £20 voucher - as I am no longer an EE customer (the offer only applies to 'eligible customers')
and then I would struggle to buy anything with it - as my company is the customer, not me - bit of a lost opportunity, unless you can use the voucher in store
As mentioned above, neither the article nor EE's link made it clear that the PowerBar was effectively free. Not being on that side of The Pond & unaware of how the device was marketed, I naturally assumed it to have been a purchased rather than given away arrangement.
Thank you for the down votes, it just goes to show how an unclear article can lead to incorrectly reached assumptions ("Never assume. It just makes an ass out of you and me.") and kneejerk down votes.
"Not being on that side of The Pond & unaware of how the device was marketed, I naturally assumed..."
... that a massively exaggerated over-the-top reaction on a topic of which you clearly had no knowledge, and which had zero impact on your life, was appropriate.
And now you want to blame the article, and winge about (totally justified) downvotes.
On the up-side at least you'll think twice next time.
It's a shame you don't have the balls to leave your original comment up - it would serve well as a salutary lesson to others.
Li-ion batteries are something easy to get wrong. Competition between manufacturers is intense, margins thin. Shoddy construction is a common occurrence, and any breach within the cell that links anode and cathode - however tiny - will rapidly lead to thermal runaway ending in fire and/or explosion. One of the several issues with the Hoverboards recently was traced to very low-quality batteries prone to spontaneous fire in this manner, and given fake Samsung labels. Counterfeits.
Re: Hoverboards
My first thought was whether the problems being encountered with the hoverboards, namely very poor quality charging circuitry not only in 'questionably' cheap units but also in versions carrying the CE safety test mark has lead EE to rethink its previous decision.
It would seem that there are significant quality problems with some electrical products coming out of China and that just because a product carries the CE mark, doesn't actually mean it is safe. The obvious implications for this is that we may see companies looking to bring manufacturing back on-shore.
Well, I was one of the people in the first round of recalls and by the time something worth having in their online store was in stock someone else had "used" my voucher.
Making the redemption code on a £20 voucher the same as your telephone number and not throttling the number of attempts to enter a voucher code on your website is just proof that Marketing don't get IT security.
Didn't bother to complain, Power Bar was free and all the stuff in their store is overpriced sh*te.
I'll keep mine and take my chances...
There's no way in hell that powerbar was ever 'worth' £20 in the first place - even before they decided to cut so many corners in its design and manufacture that they're now having to undertake a complete product recall. So I won't be too upset about not receiving a £20 voucher.
There's absolutely nothing priced at or under £20 in the crummy EE accessories store that I want to buy and just like the powerbar, everything in the store that's for sale for £20 looks like it should only reasonably cost £10 anyway.
I'll keep mine and take my chances...
Did you read the T&Cs when you got your power bar? I believe you will find it is not yours to keep; it was a "free hire" service and it remains their property. I believe it has to be returned upon request, has to be returned after 18 months anyway, and you agreed that penalties can be applied if the T&Cs are breached.
You can take your chances, but is it worth it, and do you trust them not to make your life difficult, cancel your contract, start court proceedings, or engage in other nonsense, when you have breached the T&Cs?
I decided the offer simply wasn't worth it given the very low cost of similar high street products which I could own outright and do whatever I wanted with, lose, break or damage without fear of retribution.
There's no way in hell that powerbar was ever 'worth' £20 in the first place
That was because you were effectively buying a service, namely: you take a discharged powerbar into any EE shop and exchange it for a fully charged one without a limit on the number of times you could this.
they decided to cut so many corners in its design and manufacture
Is there evidence of positive intent by EE or just bad luck in not spending enough on supplier due diligence and QA? Given the quantity EE would of been ordering and the envisaged use, there should of been little real incentive for EE to specify cheap devices that would fail within a very short period of time.
I had 3 of the first wave, one did get hot on its first charge. Took them all back to the shop, got one £20 voucher as the other 2 "weren't on the system"..... Didn't spend the voucher, twas all junk on offer really. A month later I get a marketing-head letter asking about the other 2 "Our records indicate...blah"
Given the small print says I get charged if they don't return to them after 18 months, I wonder which set of records will EE use....
"Section 2.3 for the 18 months period."
My wife spotted this and when she returned the power bar (as part of the first 50,000 recall) she suggested that they could highlight this particular condition to the next wave of punters claiming their free power bars. The manager was very surprised about the 18-month time limit as neither he - nor any of his staff - were aware of the actual Ts & Cs.
On the plus side we did get two £20 vouchers as she returned her mother's power bar at the same time.
It's just a pity that EE's accessory shop/site is both dire and over-priced.
Armchair lawyers of the UK, put the Consumer Protection laws aside (maybe even the ones that say "a service must be delivered with reasonable care and skill", which seems to have been missing here since the early days when these things allegedly weren't even CE marked????).
What can Product Liability laws bring to the table here? And why aren't they being invoked?
I have never been a customer of EE but i picked up one of these (branded) bars in association with a well known music festival. The deal was, you give us £20, we send you a bar. For the duration of the festival, you can walk up to one of our stands and swap a dead bar for a charged bar. At the end of the festival, you keep the bar you have.
I would expect there are a fair few of those knocking around, as the charge 'n' swap shacks always seemed to be pretty popular