Amazon is asking owners of its U.K. Fire and U.K. Fire Kids Edition tablets to charge their slates via USB ports instead of the power adapters that were packaged with them. The power adapters may create the risk of electric shock, the company announced.
When pulled from a socket, the assembly may separate enough to create the risk of electrical shock. The cases are rare, according to Amazon.
"Customer safety is our top priority, and we are proactively offering to replace these power adapters with a new adapter, free of charge," says Amazon. "We encourage customers to exchange their original power adapters using the process below."
The recall only pertains to the U.K. Fire and U.K. Fire Kids Edition tablets. Adapters shipped with U.K. Fire HD and U.K. Fire HDX have given Amazon no reason to worry, and Fire and Fire Kids Edition tablets shipped to other regions are believed to be safe as well.
The faulty power adapters were sold in the U.K. and Ireland from September 2015. They were branded with the model number: FABK7B.
For now, owners of the recalled power adapter can use their USB cables to charge their Fire tablets through a USB port on a computer or via a third-party power adapter.
Amazon is offering consumers two options for remedying the situation. Consumers can either request a reimbursement in the form of a £12 ($16.90 USD) Amazon account credit. To do so, visit this page.
The other option is to request a free replacement for one of the faulty power adapters. To do that, consumers will need to add a replacement power adapter to their Amazon shopping cart and then enter the coupon code "Newadapter" in the field labeled "Add a gift card or promotion code" on the checkout page.
The recall comes roughly a month after Microsoft had to recall over two million power cords that were shipped with Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2 and Surface Pro 3 before March of last year in North America and up to July 2015 in other regions.
A few days before that, Apple announced a recall for power adapters that shipped with several of its mobile and portable products.
