Beko issued an important safety notice regarding some of its frost free fridge freezers. Beko have said that, “in a very small number of cases it could result in overheating”.
The defrost timer is the problem, whose job it is to trigger a heating element to defrost.
However, within several weeks of posting this warning things have escalated to such a serious degree that this safety warning is on the National news. The phrase, “could result in overheating” should now be read as, “could result in a serious fire producing an enormous amount of toxic smoke.” According to one newspaper these fridges have so far caused at least 20 fires in London alone and one death.
There is a free modification to the defrost timer, which any owners of the fridges should definitely get sorted out asap.
Use this link to check with Beko Please check your Beko Fridge Freezer Now
What Beko advise
Currently, they say over 500,000 of these appliances have been sold and only a very small fraction have been affected. They are assuring their customers that if the appliance is working ok, with no symptoms of any faults then it is safe to keep using until they can get to it.
What if you don’t believe them?
This is a decision only you can make. If your model is on the list – contact Beko asap using the link above. If you decide to unplug the fridge freezer – especially if it’s been playing up recently. Food will be wasted if you have nowhere to transfer it to, but if you genuinely believe it poses a serious risk to you and your family there isn’t much choice and how could anyone morally deny that?
If you did unplug it you might be able to contact Beko before the food defrosts (don’t open the door) and plug it back in if that’s what they advise and can convince you it’s safe to do so.
You have a responsibility to try and mitigate any food loss though. You shouldn’t just deliberately let it go off if you can salvage some, use some of it before it goes off, or transfer some to another freezer if possible.
If you do have to let the food go off take a note of all items, photograph them or save the packaging too and add up the cost. You can then try to claim compensation from the manufacturer or the retailer as “consequential loss”.
However, don’t be surprised to meet resistance from Beko or the retailer to the idea of compensating anyone for food loss or even time off work.
That doesn’t mean you have no right to compensation, but unless they comply you will have to fight for it and maybe even have to take them to the small claims court. Get official consumer advice.
What did London fire brigade advise?
Having said all that, a representative of London Fire brigade on Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine programme has said there’s no need to stop using one because he believes people who’s fridge freezers have caught fire suffered some intermittent fault prior to the fire. Therefore if your Beko fridge freezer is apparently working perfectly ok he doesn’t think there’s a risk of imminent fire.
Beko says the risk to consumers is extremely low and it is advising customers with the affected fridges to continue using them unless they notice anything unusual
My personal thoughts on this are as follows – It seems that Beko are insisting that unless anything unusual is happening with an affected fridge freezer it’s impossible for one to catch fire. Presumably one can’t catch fire until it’s been doing something unusual for some unspecified time as the spokesman for the London fire brigade also advised on radio 2. I hope for everyone’s sake that is the case!
If you do unplug it and lose food the retailer may try to claim you didn’t need to and the loss was avoidable therefore denying your claim for consequential loss.
I think a small claims court judge may well accept that having heard on the news of 1 death, and 20 fires, and then finding out your fridge freezer has the same fault, that it was reasonable for people to immediately unplug the appliance rather than risk leaving it plugged in until something was resolved.
Especially if despite your best efforts you could not get through to Beko, which I know many have experienced. That’s only my opinion though. However, you have a responsibility to mitigate the risk. That is you can’t just unplug it and let the food spoil expecting to get compensation. You would need to try everything you can to save the food or use it up before it goes off.
Always register any white goods appliance you buy. Send off the registration card or go online to do it. If ever a serious safety issue arises the first thing a manufacturer needs to do is to contact all the people registered on its database.
These people are the first to get their appliance modified. If you haven’t registered you may not find out about it and could suffer a serious incident or tragedy.
Check if your fridge freezer is affected with Beko’s web site tool
Please check your Beko Fridge Freezer Now
UPDATE:
I just read this news article –
Some faulty Beko fridge-freezers began catching fire as long ago as 2007, the BBC has learned
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We’ve had our fridge freezer modified by a comet engineer who replaced the faulty part and left. The wife calls me at work and tells me the fridge isn’t working so I go home to check the situation. He must have pulled the fridge freezer away from the wall with sufficient force to snap the 3 core mains cable and it appears that he then pushed the end of the broken cable back inside the moulded-on plug to hide the problem.
I put a new 3 pin plug on it to get it going but now the bottom of the fridge under the salad crispers is filling up with water Does this mean that the new auto defrost timer is also faulty?
Hi guys again !
I personally took the desicion to replace the fridge freezer with a different make and model. Although my fridge freezer was fine i wasnt happy at the thought of it blowing in the middle of the night. As the news reports where suggesting after about 6 or 7 years after buying the fridge freezer it might go!
I’ll give Beko their due because just 2 weeks after i filled the online form i got a phonecall on behalf of them for an engenieer to call out and fix it but i told them not to bother as i bought a brand new one instead .Now i think it might have been the right decision as some people are getting it fixed and the fridge is failing anyway!
Oh dear.
Hope everyone gets there fridge sorted.
Hi Debbie, I think you did the right thing. if there’s a risk an appliance you leave plugged in 24/7 could catch fire you should take positive proactive action.
hi i am waiteng for a beko fridge freezer to come from beko , i take it that new ones are safe , mal in billingshurst west sussex.
Hello Malcolm. The appliances warned about in this article were made between January 2000 and October 2006 so any new one should be completely different. Of course no one can say for sure about any appliance currently on sale, it’s crazy that this sort of thing keeps happening. No manufacturer is immune from safety issues like this but it has to be said it appears the budget end tend to be more affected, which is hardly surprising.
its 2013 and they still havent learnt…..how we missed all the other articles I have no idea but 2 fridays ago we did see an advert on itv. so we called (being the weekend they were shut) so we called Monday and was told turn it off. I have to tell you that because if anything happens you will be liable. So we did. We also asked what about the food we will lose while awaiting up to 3 weeks for an engineer. The engineer will assess you loss and we can send in a claim. sounded strange but hey he works for Beko. The enginner came today and fix the 10 year old fridge freezer. But knew nothing of the claim. He did take pictures of our list and put them with the job file. We rang Beko and surprise surprise we should have sent a letter when we called the other week …who told you that blah blah…..So we have sent an email with pictures and our claim any guesses on how long it takes to get an answer…….
Hi I would just like to add that they made an offer £85 to cover our food loss. We declined that offer as we had loss £153.77 (current tesco web prices to re buy) and provided photos and a list of these prices. Beko have just offered us £150 (there max offer without documentation) as we cant provide till receipts. We have accepted this offer. But will never by any of there products again.
Thanks for the update neil.
I know this is quite log these threads but I’m currently looking for a new fridge freezer (May 2013). Obviously with the publicity of Beko Fridge Freezer catching fire it has put me off totally but if the component that caught alite has totally changed perhaps they are ok to buy now? Certainly as I’m having trouble finding a fridge freezer with an ambient temp of 10oc – most seem to be 16oc or 18oc. Where the fridge freezer is kept (not out-house) but certainly in the winter months the room temp can drop to about 12oc! Annoying I can also only get a small Fridge Freezer which is no more than 55cm wide and ideally no more that 55cm/58cm deep!!
I would go into a John Lewis store if possible and ask their advice. They should be a lot more knowledgeable than most other places. As long as you get a good quality fridge freezer which has separate temperature controls for the fridge and the freezer section you should be ok as long as it doesn’t get too cold. The main problems are caused when the freezer temperature is controlled by the same stat as the fridge.