SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20191219-4679F-2147375922. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Dell Inspiron 15 3567 (Laptop computer). Incident: I purchased two laptop computers from Dell in June of 2017. The first had the internal electrical components catch fire inside the laptop in October 2018. I took it to a repair shop who showed me that the ribbon cable was sparking and every time you open or closed the laptop. I assumed it was an isolated incident and moved on. However, just recently, the second laptop now has just had a similar issue as the motherboard has areas that are burnt where it connects to the power connector. I've tried to report the issue to Dell but have been unsuccessful (called three different times only to be disconnected each after speaking to multiple departments, emailed, spoken with their dell cares account, and tried chat). None of them have resulted in dell taking any report of the defect nor any resolution. I'm concerned that it is likely some sort of defect that has caused such similar issues in two identical laptops purchased at the same time.