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Thunderchild | 13:55 Mon 21st Jan 2008 | Law
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ok I keep coming across very badly made tools that really are dangerous (such as plastic cooling fans in power tools that shatter when used ) who do I write to complain about these things being let into the country let alone getting past saftey and quality testing
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Your local Trading Standards office can look into complaints about unsafe goods. (If they identify a serious problem, they'll ensure that it's dealt with at national level).

Enter your postcode, here, to find the relevant address:
http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/search/dbas e/searchlocal.cfm

Chris
Question Author
thanks crappy power tool makers here I come ! so beware
Buenchico is correct in that the relevant authority for such complaints is Trading Standards.

Before you invest your life�s savings in your quest to rid the country of dangerous tools � I would offer the following advice:-

Pick the single worst example you have seen, and complain to Trading Standards � pointing out that your main purpose is not to gain a refund, but to ensure that the dangerous goods are taken off the market and/or the manufacture/importer of the goods are fined.

Just because a tool is crappy, does not necessarily mean that it is unsafe. Even if a fan breaks up, this does not mean that it is unsafe, if the parts cannot cause injury.

See how you get on, if successful, present them with another unsafe item.

Trading Standards are tasked to deal with consumer complaints concerning a multitude of areas. It is very unlikely that they will have an expert in the area of product safety. To some extent, this reflects the low priority successive governments have given to ensuring the safety of products sold within the UK � perhaps with good reason.

With regards fatalities from electric shocks, around 10 people a year die in the UK. When each of these incidents is analysed, around 9 of the 10 were doing something dumb, such as connecting their bathtub to the plug live terminal. In comparison, 10 people a day die on our roads. Although even one death, is one too many, especially if it is you.
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no this IS a dangerous tool, the fan fin that broke off in the machines first 5 seconds of free spin only just missed my eye, there are I would say about 50 fins on that fan so chances are someone might have a sharp chunk of plastic in their eye ! secondly the fan is there to provide cooling to a hard worked motor and so once there is no more fan to cool it chances are that motor will get a bit hotter than it should, the fans life span will probably be something like 1-2 hours of use.
I returned to netto a tooltec drill for the same reason it shot peices of plastic everywhere these things should just not be allowed into the country, of course this is also not very environmentally friendly either as I am sure many of these poorley made machines end up in a land fill and where a waste of power and resource to make and transport needless to say not the value for money they were advertised as

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trades union or something

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