Fake iphone charges cause fires?

So I bought x7 iphone chargers the other day for £5 of eBay, I knew they were fake and everything but I got them because they were super cheap and colourful(each one is a different colour) I got told today by my friend that they can cause fires so I searched on Google if they can and it's all about the plug piece(bit that goes in the wall) the chargers I have bought are just cables and I would plug that cable into my real plug piece but I wanted to know if the cable can catch alight or if it's just the plug piece. Should I use these cables, but with my real apple plug piece?

Why buy a fake one?

As far as I know the USB cables alone don't cause the faults that cause fires, that's all down to the cheap faulty wiring within the charging plug itself. Your cables should be fine.

Of course NOT, if you're using an real apple plug piece then you should use the same thing becos if you buy the fake one they don't hve any warrenty its like you're playing your own risks.

They probably won't work anyway, they won't cause the fire but the plug part will, so worth a try.

You might be okay you might not be.

There's a reason why fakes are super cheap. One reason of course is because they infringe copyright and trademark laws and apparently you have already decided on the ethics of robbing inventors of their royalties. The other reason is safety, the real ones are subject to strict safety tests and are of acceptable quality meeting minimum safety standards. With cheap knockoffs you don't know what you are getting, they might be safe but chances are they probably aren't. Cheaper low grade materials are used. You'd be naive to think that the quality of meat and the food safety standards in a cheap burger are the same as in a more costly one. Why then would you think that phone chargers that are cheap have been subjected to the same rigorous safety standards as more expensive ones?

They might not cause fires but if you buy fakes, there's no guarantees, you're buying from people who don't care about the law and don't care about your life or your families' lives or your neighbours' lives they only care about getting your money.

How can a cable cause a fire?

Cables have to be rated to draw a certain current - the more current they draw the hotter they get (this is how an electric hob or electric kettle works). Now cables are supposed to be able to take a certain current without getting too hot but the impurities in the conductive material and the diameter of the cable etc all affect the rating of the cable (how much current it can safely take). With fakes of course you don't know what you're getting the cable might not be up to the task of handling the current safely and even if it's fine for a while over time it could become unsafe and start a fire either because it got too hot or because the insulation wasn't very good and the electricity could spark.

Hope this helps you to understand that buying fakes isn't just robbing the inventors/artists of their rightful earnings but putting yourself and your family in danger - oh not to mention illegal meaning you're risking a fine or criminal record.