The Dutch consumer watchdog, Consumentenbond has written to Nokia asking the company to investigate claims that their handsets are exploding and injuring owners. There has been two recent incidents in the Netherlands where Nokia handsets have caused injury to the user.
In August a cell phone exploded and earlier this week a supermarket worker suffered burns when a cell phone caught fire in his pocket. On the first occasion, a 3rd party manufactured battery was blamed for the explosion, however local media reports are suggesting that the second fire was caused while the phone was using a genuine Nokia battery.
"Now they cannot say any longer that these are just incidents, this is the second time in a short period that a Nokia phone exploded," Juliette Oolders of the Consumentenbond said.
Earlier this year, Nokia reported that over the past months, cases have been reported of non-original mobile phone batteries overheating in the European, African and Asian regions, causing damage to both batteries and Nokia phones. Nokia is currently conducting a thorough investigation of various non-original batteries manufactured by different entities and obtained in a number of regions. Based on the investigation conducted on the non-original batteries that Nokia has been able to obtain, the batteries appear to not fulfill the safety and quality requirements Nokia applies to original Nokia batteries. It is also possible that using non-original mobile phone chargers increase the risk of battery malfunction."
Posted to the site on 8th October 2003
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/9878.php