A recalled power bank tied to one death is still sitting in millions of pockets

A wireless power bank recalled more than a year ago is back in the spotlight after regulators confirmed it has now been linked to a death, and safety officials say a large share of the devices may still be charging phones in bags, cars, and pockets across the country. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has reannounced its recall of a Casely-branded portable charger after receiving nearly 30 additional reports of the device’s battery overheating or catching fire since the original 2025 recall, one of which ended in a fatal injury.

A MagSafe Charger With A Recurring Battery Problem

The product at the center of the recall is the Casely Power Pods 5000mAh portable MagSafe wireless phone charger, model E33A, sold under the Casely brand out of Brooklyn, New York. The CPSC’s reannouncement, issued April 16, 2026, covers roughly 429,200 units sold online at getcasely.com, on Amazon, and through other e-commerce retailers between March 2022 and September 2024, at prices between $30 and $70. The recall itself is not new: Casely and the CPSC first recalled the charger in April 2025, after the company had received 51 consumer reports of the lithium-ion battery overheating, swelling, or catching fire, including six minor burn injuries.

A Death Confirmed After The Original Recall

What changed between the original 2025 recall and this year’s reannouncement is the severity of the incidents reported since. The CPSC says it received 28 additional consumer reports of the battery overheating, expanding, or igniting, including two incidents that resulted in one fatality and one serious injury. In one case, a 75-year-old woman in New Jersey was charging her phone with the power bank resting on her lap in August 2024 when the device caught fire and exploded; she suffered second- and third-degree burns and later died from complications related to those injuries. In a second incident, in February 2026, a 47-year-old woman was charging her phone with the power bank while on an airplane when it ignited, causing first-degree burns. The recall notice describes both injuries as arising from reports filed voluntarily by consumers, underscoring how incident data can take months or years to surface after a product first reaches the market; the two most severe cases behind this reannouncement occurred nearly two years apart, yet both were only formally tied to the recall in the CPSC’s 2026 notice.

Why So Many Recalled Units Are Still In Use

Product recalls rarely reach every owner of a hazardous device, and portable chargers are especially easy to lose track of, since many are bought as impulse purchases, given as gifts, or carried without any registration linking them to a specific buyer. With roughly 429,200 units sold over more than two years, and only 51 reports filed by the time of the original 2025 recall, the CPSC’s own data suggests the overwhelming majority of the chargers were never reported as faulty, meaning a substantial share of the recalled devices are likely still being carried in pockets, bags, cars, and desk drawers well over a year after the first warning went out. Registration is not required at purchase, and there is no public tally of how many replacement claims Casely has processed since the recall was reannounced, leaving regulators reliant on word of mouth, retailer notices, and news coverage to reach the remaining owners.

How To Get A Free Replacement

Casely is offering current owners of the recalled charger a free replacement rather than a refund. The company’s process requires owners to submit two photographs: one of the front of the power bank with the word ‘Recalled’ and the date written on it in permanent marker, and a second showing the model number printed on the back of the device. Consumers can start that process at the company’s dedicated recall page. The CPSC has also cautioned owners against throwing the device in household trash or standard curbside recycling, since damaged lithium-ion batteries pose a fire risk in waste and recycling streams and should instead be taken to a local household hazardous waste collection site.

Lithium-Ion Batteries Keep Driving Recalls

The Casely recall is one of several lithium-ion battery recalls the CPSC has issued in 2026 alone; the agency’s own related-recall listings tied to this notice include a solar-powered wireless charger, a cordless vacuum cleaner, and a smoke-and-carbon-monoxide detector line, all recalled for fire or malfunction risks tied to lithium-ion cells. In each case, the agency has flagged the same underlying hazard: a damaged, defective, or overheated lithium-ion cell can enter a chemical chain reaction known as thermal runaway, in which the battery generates heat faster than it can dissipate it, sometimes ending in fire or explosion with little warning. Regulators have urged consumers to stop using any recalled battery-powered device immediately rather than wait for a replacement to arrive, given how unpredictable that failure mode can be.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors.

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