Nokia is recalling an estimated 14 million cell phone chargers the company says might be defective and could cause users to get shocked.

The Finnish mobile telecommunications giant said it found the defect through its own quality control program and has not had any reports of any incidents involving the chargers. The problem with the chargers, Nokia said, is that the covers can come off and expose the internal components.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the normal conduit for recalls of this type, was not party to this announcement and a spokesman for the safety agency did not immediately have a comment on the recall. It is not immediately clear how many of the recalled chargers were sold in the U.S.

Nokia is offering anyone with the affected chargers a new charger in exchange for the recalled ones. Nokia has a web site dedicated to the exchange program.

The company blamed the problem with the chargers on a supplier, BYD Co. -- run by Wang Chuanfu, who Forbes says is the wealthiest man in China. All the chargers being recalled were made this year.

Nokia said the chargers subject to the recall are: AC-3E and AC-3U models, manufactured between June and Aug. 9, 2009; and the AC-4U model, manufactured between April 13 and Oct. 25.

Nokia's recall site shows customers how to identify their charger model and determine whether it needs to be replaced. If the charger is subject to the recall, Nokia urges consumers to stop using it until the new charger arrives.

Nokia, recognizing that a huge disparity exists between the number of individuals who have mobile phones and the number who have bank accounts, has launched a new mobile financial service called Nokia Money. The new service will let users send and receive money, pay bills and manage money with just a phone number.

On its surface Nokia Money sounds very similar to PayPal, but the service is expected to offer deeper money management abilities from a cell phone. One of the core reasons that Nokia developed the service, which will work with most mobile phones, was to extend financial services to millions of individuals who do not have bank accounts.

Mary McDowell, EVP and Chief Development Officer for Nokia specifically pointed to the fact that, "many mobile phone users have very limited or no access to basic financial services. With more than four billion mobile phone users and only 1.6 billion bank accounts, global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services such as Nokia Money."

In a worldwide survey cellphone maker Nokia found that only 3% of people have ever recycled a cell phone and nearly half had never heard of such a thing. That's pretty pathetic after the huge efforts by manufacturers, retailers, governments, environmental groups and charities to make sure cellphones don't end up in landfills, where they leak lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic.

If all the 3 billion cell users worldwide recycled one phone (and on average we've gone through five), we would save 240,000 tons of raw material and cut the greenhouse gas equivalent of 4 million cars, Nokia Director of Environmental Affairs Markus Terho said in a statement. Some 85% of Nokia phones can be recycled. Some recycled cell phones go for parts and materials; others go to seniors or people in developing regions that might otherwise be cut off.

The big problem is that people just don't know what to do with their old phones. The survey of 6,500 people in 13 countries showed only 4% just threw them away. About 44% just kept them in a drawer with their other dead electronics. One fourth of us give them to somebody else and 16% try to sell them.