Why was the ROMADA EV charger stopped at the UK border?

The charger that never reached the shelf

The product is an EV charger with an attached wall plug and a carry case. It bears the brand ROMADA and the model designation K02-1.8 13A 5.

Officials from the Office for Product Safety and Standards published the safety report on 11 September 2026. The alert carries notification number 2609-0023 and was raised by Local Authority Trading Standards.

What the inspection found

The charger presents a serious risk of electric shock. The root cause is poor quality internal connections combined with internal wires that are all cut to the same length.

That wiring choice matters. When every conductor inside the unit is identical in length, mechanical stress pulls on the protective earth connection at the same time as the live and neutral conductors. The earth can detach first. Once the protective earthing is lost, the metal parts of the charger can become live during use.

The supplied plug also lacks the required accreditation markings. Documentation and markings fall short of what UK regulations demand. The instructions also fall short.

Regulations it fails

The unit does not meet the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016. It also fails the Plugs & Sockets etc (Safety) Regulations 1994.

Both sets of rules are in force in Great Britain. They set mandatory safety objectives for any electrical appliance placed on the market.

What happened to the shipment

The import was rejected at the border. The corrective action recorded in the report is exactly that: the consignment was turned back before it could enter UK distribution.

Carton identifiers listed in the report include B04000000001409021663, WI49803276, M0100000000010472175 and No. 51. The country of origin is China.

If you already own one

The notice does not describe a recall of units already sold to consumers. It records only the border rejection. How many units may have entered the UK in earlier shipments is not stated in the report.

Owners of a ROMADA K02-1.8 13A 5 charger should treat the device as potentially unsafe. The missing earth path and unmarked plug are not faults that appear over time — they are built into the unit as manufactured.

What the report does not cover

No injuries are mentioned. The document does not say whether any testing was done on samples from the rejected batch beyond the visual and construction assessment. It also does not name the importer or the UK address where the goods were presented for clearance.