Hacker News Reader

Comment by AdmiralAsshat | Hacker News Reader

Amazon sent me a recall notice about this one, indicating they had it from my purchase history, but oddly I couldn't find it in my own collection of power banks, or in the ones I gave to my wife. I'm worried I might have purchased one for another family member as a gift and not remembered who.

The recall is concerning, especially since once they started with the one, they quickly added several more to the list. I've ordered at least 17 Anker products over the last ten years (not all of them power banks). I pay the premium over cheaper external batteries, and I have advised my family in the past to do the same. This is ostensibly because they are supposed to be the guys that don't explode. If I can't even take that for granted, then there's really no reason to maintain customer loyalty. There are countless other, cheaper brands available online from no-name Chinese companies.

View on HN

Those random brands that flood amazon (TYUOIT or ERYWERP) are dispensable brands in part because it allows them to discharge the company if something like a recall becomes necessary.

Part of the price of cheap shit.

Anker on the other hand is a recognizable name with a brand image. So they need to do right to keep their trust.

FWIW my random brand that I purchased was also part of this recall.

Given the upstream cell manufacturer is involved, it would not escape reason many other no name brands might be involved ...

How did you find out? I recently bought a no-name battery pack and have no idea if it's at risk.

Amazon sent me a push notification offering me a refund if I promised to destroy it. But notably it was only for one of the several such identical packs I ordered.

They also do recalls. Which I’m certain is more than some cheaper no name brands do.

And they might pay from now on closer attention. Expensive lesson learned?

For now I don't avoid them, yet. Definitely not switching to a random cinese brand instead.

I only buy portable Li-ion batteries from manufacturers with a history of product recalls in my country or directly from major retailers that regularly recall defective products.

I also only buy portable battery models that I believe will sell or has sold many thousands of units so any widespread manufacturering defects should become apparent sooner.

Yeah, I see your point, never thought of it that way.

Just also darkly hilarious — “I only buy <PRODUCT> with a history of product recalls”.

There was a time in which we used to avoid such things…

Reminds me of the survivorship bias exposed by Abraham Wald:

https://medium.com/@christian.dobbert/the-missing-bullet-hol...

I got a recall notice from Amazon also but I couldn’t find a part number match on my Anker powerbanks.

fwiw: You can see when you bought it in your Amazon purchases list, it might help you remember. For example, if you bought it just before someone's birthday date...

Locating the physical product is the problem, not the purchase record.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com