Hundreds of "banned" products still on sale at Amazon, report says

Amazon is by far the largest US online retailer. Over the last 20 years, it has gone beyond its origins as a website on which you can order books to become, among other things, the everything store, a one-stop shop for all physical and digital goods from A to Z.

The explosive growth of the company is due in part to its sprawling market of third-party merchants. Many merchants are indeed independent retailers, manufacturers and resellers. But thousands of others sell not only counterfeit items, but also mislabelled, dangerous, recalled or even banned items that could put consumers, especially children, at risk.

The Wall Street Journal has identified more than 4,100 of these products on sale on Amazon.com during a multi-month survey and at least 2,000 are toys or drugs that do not include warnings concerning the risks for children.

Among the findings of the review: 116 products falsely listed as FDA approved, including toys, that the agency does not regulate; According to the FDA, 80 lists of "sleep slices" for infants can cause choking and have previously been banned by Amazon; 1,412 electronic components claiming to be UL certified; 2,324 toys that did not include the choking hazard warnings prescribed by the federal government; and more.

The WSJ commissioned tests on 10 specific children's products purchased from Amazon, many of which bore the enigmatic badge "Amazon's Choice". Of these, four failed on the basis of federal safety standards, including one that contained excessively high levels of lead.

The balloons also proved to be a stumbling block: the WSJ discovered 4,500 balloon entries that did not include the required choking hazard warnings, and the newspaper informed Amazon. A few weeks later, WSJ found another 2,200 lists of balloons that did not include the required warnings. By including all bubble lists, the WSJ has identified 10,870 problematic Amazon lists, of which 83% have been removed or modified.

A mislabeled product that the WSJ included in its report has proven deadly to its owner. A 23-year-old Missouri man bought a motorcycle helmet from Amazon, which at the time was certified by US Department of Transportation safety standards. Later in the year, however, he was killed in an accident while he was driving. A federal investigation later revealed that the helmet did not meet DOT standards and had been recalled. The WSJ, however, found the product still on sale, with an active listing promising compliance, until the WSJ contacted Amazon to inquire about it.

Whack-a-Mole

The WSJ survey found 157 products for sale that Amazon has already prohibited from selling on his site. The motorcycle helmet was among the 2,300 lists of products that were modified or removed after the WSJ drew them to Amazon's attention. Yet in the space of two weeks, the WSJ found that at least 130 of these problems were problematic, "some being sold by the same sellers as those previously identified by the Journal under different lists".

In short, writes the newspaper, Amazon "has increasingly evolved as a flea market", practicing virtually no scrutiny on items sold by third-party merchants, unless a specific complaint or a Press report attracts the attention of the company. The market configuration that forces Amazon to land in hot water apparently every year to sell some sort of rape, slavery or pro-Nazi clothing also leads to endemic listings for recalled or dangerous goods.

About 60% of Amazon's physical retail sales come from the third-party market, the company said. A recently released quarterly report shows that the market generates $ 11.14 billion in sales for the e-commerce giant in just three months. But even consumers who are reluctant to shop at third-party merchants can still find themselves easily buying one. Many of the WSJ's survey items have been filled in by Amazon: eligible for the Prime shipping, from Amazon warehouses and in Amazon boxes. Two different buyers told the WSJ that they had assumed that the harmful or mislabeled products that they had purchased on the site had been reviewed and approved in one way or another by Amazon because they would be in a big box store like Target or Walmart until they were contacted by the WSJ.

Counterfeit products, which are often less secure than their "real" counterparts, are also a persistent scourge for Amazon and its customers. The WSJ has not tested counterfeit products, which appear in searches for all types of products, from luxury goods to cheap USB cables.

When Ars asked us to comment, an Amazon representative referred us to a company blog that said, "We provide to regulators, industry organizations, brands, customers and our service teams. customer in different ways to report security issues. . When we receive these reports, we act quickly to protect customers, remove dangerous products from our store, and investigate. "

Limited recourse

Swimming against the tide of questionable lists and questionable products is a challenge for the most educated consumer, and going to court if you end up with a damaging product is, at best, a random exercise.

The family of the young man who died in the motorcycle accident sued Amazon, the driver of the vehicle with which he had collided and the third-party merchant who sold the helmet. The merchant was ordered to pay $ 1.9 million in restitution; Amazon was happy with $ 5,000 without admitting that there had been wrongdoing. A company lawyer told the WSJ: "Basically, a third party was using Amazon as a bulletin board to advertise the product and sell it."

Your ability to sue Amazon if you are hurt by a third party product depends largely on your place of residence. In July, a federal court in Philadelphia ruled that Amazon could be held liable for a defective product rendering a Pennsylvania woman blind.

The third circuit court was, however, the first to do so. The courts of appeal of the fourth and sixth circuits ruled respectively in May and June that Amazon is only a platform, and not a "seller", with respect to the right of consumer protection.