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.
The CPSC unanimously voted to hold Amazon legally responsible for third-party sellers’ defective products. Now, Amazon must make a CPSC-approved plan to properly recall the dangerous products—including highly flammable children’s pajamas, faulty carbon monoxide detectors, and unsafe hair dryers that could cause electrocution—which the CPSC fears may still be widely used in homes across America.
While Amazon scrambles to devise a plan, the CPSC summarized the ongoing risks to consumers:
If the [products] remain in consumers’ possession, children will continue to wear sleepwear garments that could ignite and result in injury or death; consumers will unwittingly rely on defective [carbon monoxide] detectors that will never alert them to the presence of deadly carbon monoxide in their homes; and consumers will use the hair dryers they purchased, which lack immersion protection, in the bathroom near water, leaving them vulnerable to electrocution.
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. Instead, Amazon opted to use much less alarming subject lines that said, “Attention: Important safety notice about your past Amazon order” or “Important safety notice about your past Amazon order.”
Amazon then left it up to customers to destroy products and explicitly discouraged them from making returns. The e-commerce giant also gave every affected customer a gift card without requiring proof of destruction or adequately providing public notice or informing customers of actual hazards, as can be required by law to ensure public safety.
Further, Amazon’s messages did not include photos of the defective products, as required by law, and provided no way for customers to respond. The commission found that Amazon “made no effort” to track how many items were destroyed or even do the minimum of monitoring the “number of messages that were opened.”
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
we went from the amazon is burning to i am burning because of amazon
Can’t wait for them to be hit with their 0.1% fine.
As is tradition.
When I was a kid I thought that clearly understandable things (punishment is intended to prevent doing something again, that is, to clearly undo the benefit for the criminal ; best of all be worth twice that benefit ; if not, then those issuing punishment are clearly corrupt, and the punishment should be reconsidered, and they should be removed from power and investigated ; and so on through all the chain) not being met will be seen and violently protested, but later I learned what gaslighting is!
Say, legalism is gaslighting. As in “you should fight evil only by the law which is made by that evil, and you should only consider that law not a law when you’ve managed to remove it by the rules made by evil”.
Any other thing which says “things are normal, no need to break stuff, everybody thinks it’s normal, you should too” is gaslighting.
We are a whole civilization gaslighted by parasites into not crushing them.
The issue isn’t the fine. Amazon is breaking numerous federal laws by not managing what is being shipped by 3rd party sellers. They are violating several FAA regulations on thousands of packages daily. At some point they will have to put a plan in place to vet these packages and that will be EXTREMELY costly. We will see a dramatic shift in how Amazon does business in the near future.
Are you sure about that though? Do you really think they will be held accountable?
I don’t think they will be held accountable, they will be hit with a 0.1% fine, even if there are many deaths, and they will move on with their lives.
As is tradition.
Is it more costly than buying a senator or two? Cause I bet we’ll NOT see any major changes that could cost them real money.
It doesn’t matter what senators they have, if the FAA/TSA revoke their license to ship using air services they will lose billions.
Where is the list of products? It’s gotta be online somewhere.
i came in here to find out the same thing.
Rossmann did a review a few months ago of electrical fuses on Amazon. Very few of these electrical safety devices worked as advertised.
Yup and the all negative reviews are inexplicably removed.
If any physical store got a dangerous product, was made undeniably aware of the danger and continued to sell the product - they’d be in a lot of trouble.
I know cheep electronics are fun but please buy UL Listed stuff
Maybe unpopular opinion, but I’m on the fence about this. I slightly subscribe to the conspiracy theory that many “certified” products are just ways to stifle competition while also justifying higher prices for “certified” products.
Take UL listed electronics for example. Sure, that might mean something on a full computer full of electronics, but a lamp is two fucking wires and a bulb. It’s not complicated. Even confirming proper metals are used to prevent shrinking and expansion is not complicated. But the same $15 lamp is $100 once it’s UL certified. The math doesn’t add up.
Like I said: On the fence. Maybe it’s the best way to ensure safe products, but it also seems like a great system for lining specific peoples pockets.
EDIT: Jesus people, read my post before you get all triggered. I’m not saying shit products don’t exist.
And yet, companies can and will cut corners whenever they can. Using too thin of wire or the wrong type of plastic can cause a fire. Cheap switches, bad insulators for the bulb socket are also things that they’ll cut corners on.
That’s not really the point I was going for. I’m not saying bad companies won’t make shit products. I’m just pointing out a lamp doesn’t require alot of effort for the UL to certify, so it can’t justify a 10x increase in cost. But they must be charging a ton or more companies would just get their products certified.
I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that UL certified goods are super expensive. UL is the bare minimum. I have a $10 UL certified lamp on my desk right now. Certifications like TUV and similar are the more expensive ones.
UL certification can mean different things, depending on the product and type of mark. It also isn’t that expensive to get UL listed as it isn’t like every single item you produce is tested. Each product you design is tested, but not each item you produce.
There are 3/4 types. UL listed, UL recognized, and UL classified. Certified is newer and more stringent.
As for pricing for UL listed, it can be just a few grand for a single product. Not much when you are selling thousands. I am sure Classified is even cheaper. I wonder how many of these cheap ass lamps say Classified.
Kind of reminds me of the Roman empire falling due to the fact that too many lead based products were made.
Deep breath
Wheatley: “A very minor case of serious brain damage.”