Amazon withdraws child car seats from sale in the UK over safety fears

  • 2/18/2020
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Amazon has pulled several children"s car seats from its site over safety concerns, after they appeared similar to so-called "killer seats" which were found on sale last year. The suspect seats were discovered by BBC Panorama as part of a documentary to air this evening. They were said to have no safety labels on them with one as cheap as £3.99. The design was said to be similar to fabric-based seats removed from the site in 2014 following an investigation by Trading Standards in Surrey. At the time of the probe, one product was found to tear apart when involved in a 30mph-crash. A spokesman for Amazon said safety was "extremely important to us and we regret that these products were available from third party sellers using our stores". "After a thorough investigation, we identified the issue and are removing these products, and we’re also contacting each customer who purchased one of these products to explain the situation and issue a refund. We will continue to leverage and improve our tools and technology to ensure only safe and compliant car seats are available worldwide.” The latest steps come less than a year after Which? discovered a loophole which would allow it to list an illegal child car seat via Amazon Marketplace. The listing stayed live for two weeks until Which? took it down. The consumer rights body said it had "repeatedly found these so-called killer material car seats for sale on the platform as well as on other marketplace sites". Amazon later removed those seats and said users were required to follow its selling guidelines. "Those who don"t will be subject to action including potential removal of their account." Which? has been pushing for legislation over such products being able to appear on sites, and late last year said this should be included in the Online Harms Bill. It said regulation was needed to give public authorities the "adequate powers, tools, and resources to require action from marketplaces when consumers are put at risk". "The voluntary nature of current checks by marketplaces fails to recognise their role as the primary interface for consumers with the technical, as well as commercial, ability to hold their suppliers to account for consumer safety."

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