Federal government sues Amazon citing sale of over 400,000 dangerous items



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The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) filed a lawsuit against Amazon this week for the sale of hundreds of thousands of dangerous products. Examples include carbon monoxide detectors that do not detect carbon monoxide and flammable sleepwear marketed for children.

Ars Technica reports that the CPSC filed a lawsuit this week against e-commerce giant Amazon for the sale of hundreds of thousands of dangerous products, including carbon monoxide detectors that do not detect carbon monoxide, hairdryers who do not have the required protection against shock and electrocution, and flammable sleepwear intended for children.

The CPSC said it has sued Amazon to “force a recall” of dangerous products. Although Amazon has already healed sales of most items and issued refunds, the CPSC said it was not happy with how Amazon had informed customers and said the company needed to do more. to ensure that the defective products are destroyed to avoid hurting customers.

The products have been offered by third parties using the “Fulfilled by Amazon” (FBA) program, in which Amazon stores the products in its warehouses, ships them to customers and takes a significant portion of the profits generated.

The complaint made no reference to any specific incident of injury, but indicated that the evidence supporting the charges included “prosecutions of incidents or injuries involving various consumer products identified in the complaint.” He also said that CPSC staff tested the products and found that they did not meet safety requirements.

“The complaint blames the fact that specific products are defective and pose a risk of serious injury or death to consumers and that Amazon is legally responsible for recalling them,” the CPSC announcement said. “The named products include 24,000 faulty carbon monoxide detectors that do not trigger an alarm, many children’s sleepwear that violate the safety standard of flammable fabrics that could burn children, and nearly 400,000 dryers. hair sold without the required immersion protection devices that protect consumers from shock and electrocution.

The CPSC said its complaint “aims to force Amazon, as the distributor of the products, to stop selling these products, to work with CPSC staff on a recall of the products, and to directly notify consumers who have purchased them. of the recall and offer them a full refund. “

CPSC Acting President Robert Adler said, “We need to ask ourselves how to deal more effectively with these huge third-party platforms and how best to protect the US consumers who depend on them. “

Amazon told Ars Technica in a statement:

Customer safety is a top priority and we take prompt action to protect customers when we are aware of a security concern. As the CPSC’s own complaint acknowledges, for the vast majority of the products in question, Amazon has already immediately removed the products from our store, informed customers of potential safety issues, advised customers to destroy the products, and provided customers with a full refund. For the few remaining products in question, the CPSC did not provide Amazon with enough information for us to take action and despite our requests, the CPSC went unanswered. Amazon has a state-of-the-art recall program and we have further offered to expand our capabilities to handle recalls of all products sold in our store, whether those products have been sold or fulfilled by Amazon or third party sellers. We don’t know why the CPSC rejected this offer or why it filed a complaint seeking to force us to take action almost entirely identical to what we have already taken.

Learn more about Ars Technica here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News and covers issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on twitter @LucasNolan or contact by secure email at [email protected]



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