An Ebike Company Was Sued for Misleading Info on Safety. It Points to a Big Problem

Amazon and UL, a company that tests and certifies that products meet safety standards, settled a lawsuit in July with several Chinese companies that manufacture ebikes under the Aipas brand name.

The US companies accused the Chinese firms in January of claiming in Amazon listings and on Aipas’ website that the ebikes had been certified by UL, giving recognizable, brand-name assurance to online shoppers worried about risks like ebike lithium-ion battery fires . But that wasn’t true. On July 15, a federal judge signed off on a permanent injunction in which the companies agreed that they would no longer use the UL mark. It also bars them from “assisting, aiding, or abetting any other person or business” in doing the same.

The filing notes that the Chinese companies didn’t admit liability or wrongdoing tied to Amazon’s and UL’s accusations of knowingly using fraudulent safety-certification marks. (The enterprises involved are Jiangmen Meijiasheng Bicycle, Hong Kong Manchester International Trading, Shenzhen Aibosi Sport Technology, Guangzhou Aierfeile Sport Technology, and the individual Tang Shuhui, who the lawsuit alleges was involved in an Amazon selling account.)

But WIRED has found a Facebook account associated with Aipas Ebike still running ads that include UL’s bright red logo. A WIRED reporter was served one of the ads in mid-July, even after the companies had agreed to a permanent injunction. At least one other ad using the UL mark has been actively running on Facebook since April, months after the lawsuit was filed, according to Meta's Ad Library. Another active ad including the UL mark and first posted in May appeared to disappear from the Ad Library after WIRED contacted both Aipas and UL for comment.

WIRED also found that while some Aipas ebikes and their batteries did eventually receive safety certifications from a nationally recognized organization, seemingly months after the company began advertising its UL safety marks, some of those certificates are now inactive.

A spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit. Bradley Carlson, a spokesperson for UL, also declined to comment on the lawsuit but said the UL team is “aware and working to resolve” the issues related to the Facebook ads. Neither Aipas Ebike nor the lawyer representing the Chinese businesses in court responded to multiple requests for comment.

While fights over fraudulent product safety certifications don’t always break out into public view, “this is a common problem and has been a common problem for quite some time,” says Donald Mays, a longtime product safety expert who now runs his own consulting firm .