Amazon Forced to Recall 400K Products That Could Kill, Electrocute People
Freeman writes:
Amazon failed to adequately alert more than 300,000 customers to serious risks-including death and electrocution-that US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) testing found with more than 400,000 products that third parties sold on its platform.
[...]
Instead of recalling the products, which were sold between 2018 and 2021, Amazon sent messages to customers that the CPSC said "downplayed the severity" of hazards.In these messages-"despite conclusive testing that the products were hazardous" by the CPSC-Amazon only warned customers that the products "may fail" to meet federal safety standards and only "potentially" posed risks of "burn injuries to children," "electric shock," or "exposure to potentially dangerous levels of carbon monoxide."
Typically, a distributor would be required to specifically use the word "recall" in the subject line of these kinds of messages, but Amazon dodged using that language entirely.
[...]
The CPSC has additional concerns about Amazon's "insufficient" remedies. It is particularly concerned that anyone who received the products as a gift or bought them on the secondary market likely was not informed of serious known hazards. The CPSC found that Amazon resold faulty hair dryers and carbon monoxide detectors, proving that secondary markets for these products exist."Amazon has made no direct attempt to reach consumers who obtained the hazardous products as gifts, hand-me-downs, donations, or on the secondary market," the CPSC said.
[...]
After the CPSC's testing, Amazon stopped allowing these products to be listed on its platform, but that and other remedies were deemed insufficient. So, over the next two months, to protect the public, Amazon must now make a plan to "provide notice of the product hazards to purchasers and the public" and "incentivize the removal of these hazardous products from consumers' homes," the CPSC ordered.
[...]
To make up for "significant deficiencies" in Amazon's initial messaging, mandatory recall notices will likely include "a description of the product (including a photograph), hazard, injuries, deaths, action being taken, and remedy," provide "relevant dates and number of units" sold, and specifically use "the word 'recall' in the heading and text," the CPSC said.Amazon's spokesperson told Ars that "in the event of a product recall in our store, we remove impacted products promptly after receiving actionable information from recalling agencies, and we continue to seek ways to innovate on behalf of our customers."
"Our recalls alerts service also ensures our customers are notified of important product safety information fast, and the recalls process is effective and efficient," Amazon's spokesperson said.
Customers can keep up with Amazon recalls in a designated safety alert section of its website.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.