Online sellers fail to stop sales of dangerous goods says watchdog
FURTHER CONCERNS have been raised about Amazon and eBay’s failure to stop the sale of unsafe products after a charity found them listing “potentially deadly” electrical items.
Electrical Safety First said the two sites, as well as online marketplace Wish, were putting consumers at risk from possible severe electric shock and fire after testing items such as hair straighteners, phone chargers, travel adaptors and laser hair removers.
Out of 15 products bought on the advice of the charity’s technical experts and tested independently, 14 failed tests against the UK standard. Failures ranged from minor non-compliance over markings to severe failures posing a risk of electric shock and fire to the consumer.
All three sites have removed the products from sale. However, the charity said it believed its findings to be a “snapshot of a much wider problem”. Last week, Which? said Amazon and eBay were failing to take “basic steps” to stop the listing of toys that appeared to have been declared unsafe by the EU safety alert system.
Caroline Normand, of Which?, said: “These alarming findings back up our own research which has repeatedly exposed how online marketplaces can put people at serious risk by failing to stop dangerous products being sold on their sites.
An Amazon spokesman said: “Safety is a top priority at Amazon. We require all products offered in our store to comply with applicable laws and regulations and have developed industryleading tools to prevent unsafe or non-compliant products from being listed in our stores. The products have been removed.”
An eBay spokeswoman said: “The importance of our customers’ safety is paramount. We proactively enforce our Product Safety Policy using block filter algorithms to prevent unsafe products from being listed. In addition, our security team continuously patrols our marketplaces and will remove items and take appropriate action against sellers who breach our policies.”