JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – There are countless online marketplaces you can use to buy products and get them delivered to your home, but few are as vast as Amazon, with millions of items available.
It can be hard to know which products are safe, and which ones could put your family at risk.
But that could be changing.
The pressure is now on Amazon to better notify shoppers of potentially defective, dangerous, and recalled products sold on its website.
“We live in the country. We farm. We can’t get to town. I can have something here in a couple of days, maybe a week,” said Sunila Brown, a mother of three.
She shops on Amazon. Sometimes directly from Amazon, other times, things that are “Fulfilled by Amazon.” A third party, not Amazon, sells these items, but Amazon handles the packing and shipping from one of its Fulfillment Centers. Why does this matter?
Recently, the Consumer Product Safety Commission unanimously determined Amazon may ultimately be liable for notifying you about unsafe or defective products and providing cash refunds or replacements that were purchased through the Fulfilled by Amazon program.
The decision focused on more than 400,000 units of faulty carbon monoxide detectors, noncompliant children’s pajama sets, and dangerous hair dryers sold through Amazon’s F-B-A program all of which the CPSC said were “defective and pose a risk of serious injury or death.”
Consumer Reports said this new rule is good news.
“This is clearly the right decision. Otherwise, products that could injure or kill people might slip through the cracks. Consumers are affected either way and need the platform to step up. The sooner Amazon acts, the better people will be protected in their homes,” said Oriene Shin with Consumer Reports.
Amazon didn’t dispute that the products were hazardous but argued that it wasn’t required by law to follow the same recall rules as other companies because it was merely an intermediary between its third-party sellers and the buyers.
But the government says otherwise.
“Amazon will now be responsible for recalling these products and reaching out to people to get more of the products out of homes. This is a major step forward for consumer protection and it helps hold online marketplaces accountable in the future,” Shin said.
“It gives you more security in what you’re buying for your family, for yourself, for someone else,” Brown said.
In a statement, Amazon plans to appeal the decision, adding that the products in question have been recalled and refunded and that Amazon stands by the safety of every product in its store, and that its recall process is “effective and efficient.”