The US Food Safety Supervision Commission (CPSC) has filed a complaint against Amazon in connection with the sale of hundreds of thousands of dangerous goods, including non-working carbon monoxide detectors, hair dryers without short circuit and shock protection, and flammable baby underwear. The commission said that the measures taken by Amazon are insufficient and the marketplace must make sure that all goods of inadequate quality are destroyed.
Dangerous products were sold by third-party companies through the Fulfilled by Amazon program (executed by Amazon), the products were stored in the company’s warehouses, the latter was responsible for the delivery of goods and took a significant commission for its services. The CPSC believes that Amazon has not approached responsibly enough to fulfill its legal obligations.
Although the document did not mention specific personal injury cases, it did explicitly mention support for certain “lawsuits related to incidents of harm involving multiple consumer products identified in the complaint.” It is also known that CPSC employees have tested products and found that they do not meet safety requirements and pose a risk of injury to customers, including fatal ones.
According to the agency, the products include 24,000 non-working carbon monoxide sensors, flammable baby underwear and about 400,000 hair dryers without short-circuit and shock protection systems. The CPSC believes Amazon should recall products, remove existing products from sale, notify those who have already purchased the product of the recall directly, and offer a full refund.
In turn, Amazon says that the marketplace has already removed the “vast majority” of the mentioned products, notified buyers and provided full refunds. In some cases, the CPSC did not respond to direct requests from the company for additional information. The company says it is using the industry’s most advanced recall program and expressed surprise at the continued claims of the US regulator and its intention to force the company to take action already in place.
