Dangerous Cases of Fire for AmazonBasics Products
Some stories about dangerous products are frightening. In one
Messages have obviously accumulated over the years. CNN has counted at least 1,500 reviews since 2016 for over 70 stories that described "products explode, catch fire, smoke, melt, cause electrical failures or otherwise pose risks."
Items are still on sale
Amazon has removed some of the items customers deemed dangerous, such as the USB cable and surge protector, although many still remain on the site, CNN reported.
In over 1,500 reviews, many consumers clearlycalled goods potentially hazardous, using terms such as "hazard" or "fire," or saying that the product should be recalled. Today there are about 30 items for sale on Amazon.com with three or more reviews. At least 11 other products meeting these criteria were no longer for sale at the time of publication. Some of them became unavailable after CNN began reporting and at least four product pages were completely removed from the seller's site, leaving dead URLs known to employees as "dog pages." Amazon has confirmed that at least eight of these products have been under investigation, but said the company has determined that they all meet its security standards.
However, despite numerous reports ofsecurity issues, Amazon has only released two official reviews for AmazonBasics products. The Federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has received at least 10 reports in eight years that mention an AmazonBasics product with problems similar to those in the reviews analyzed by CNN.
Like Amazonreacted for investigation?
"In response to the recent story about AmazonBasics products, we thought it would be helpful to share facts about how we ensure the safety of our products," Amazon said .
Before Launching New AmazonBasics Products
According to the company, proactive safety measures begin even before the physical production of any product.When Amazon decides to launch a new product, the company first scrutinizestechnical standards and compliance and safety requirements for this product.
What happens during the production process
If necessary, Amazon requiresmanufacturers submit quality control documentation around issues such as defect rates and material control, allowing the platform to ensure that products are made to standards. After the products are manufactured, the company works with suppliers and third-party laboratories to ensure that each product meets both the mandatory standards set by the regulatory authorities.
Products are made available to customers. What's next?
Amazon assures that it performs an audit of existing AmazonBasics products after they are launched and made available to customers, including additional testing in third-party labs to ensure that these products will continue to bemeet our safety, quality, and compliance standards.
How has Amazon avoided liability in the past?
In the past, Amazon has often been subject to scrutiny for selling defective products — in a January report, The Verge counted more than 60 federal lawsuits over product liability to Amazon over the past decade.
Hair dryer caused a fire that burned down the house
A US woman was once blow drying her hair whennoticed the smoke and the smell of burning. Soon she saw something fly from the end of the hair dryer onto the floor. She later recalled that it was a small piece of metal, like a link in a necklace chain. A fire broke out, after a while the firemen helped her get out of the house, and she had to watch from the side as her house and valuables burned down.
In a sense, what happened next wasfor the victim the best scenario. Although she had to leave her home, the insurance company paid for the renovation and rent of the house, and the repairs were carried out by contractors. She was able to move back. The insurance company, however, has sued the hair dryer manufacturer and Amazon for a refund, asking the court to claim over $ 850,000 in damages.
The case was closed in court.
How does Amazon defend itself in court?
For years, the online retailer has claimed that many of its customers simply useits platform as an intermediary between the seller and the buyer.
This argument provided Amazon with a cruciallegal protection, allowing you to completely avoid the liability that ordinary retailers face. For the most part, the lawsuits were granted, and Amazon was able to expand its business with third-party sellers to hundreds of billions of dollars in sales.
Recently, however, some courts and pundits have begun to question how far this protection should go, and whether Amazon is really as inattentive a player in the market as it claims to be.
“They are taking decisive steps toconvince the consumer to buy their products or the products of their manufacturers, ”said Dennis Crawford, a lawyer representing insurance company Andy Weintraub, who suffered from a hair dryer bought from Amazon.
The question is, who is really to blame?
Gloomy list of disasters after using goods
When you pay for a product on Amazon, there is noguarantees that what you are buying has been thoroughly tested for safety. The Wall Street Journal reported this year that the company's platform contains over 4,000 prohibited, unsafe and mislabeled items, from faulty motorcycle helmets to magnetic toys labeled as suffocation hazards.
These defective products have resulted in serious,sometimes fatal, injury, sparking a wave of liability claims. Amazon has faced over 60 federal product liability lawsuits over the past decade, according to court records reviewed by The Verge. Cases are a grim catalog of disasters, with some claiming that hoverboards bought through the company burned users' property. A vape pen, bought through the company, exploded in a pocket, according to another lawsuit, causing the 17-year-old to suffer serious burns.
The list goes on:A defective ladder purchased on Amazon allegedly led to a death. Two days after Christmas 2014, a fire started in a Wyoming home after holiday lights purchased through the company caught fire. According to court documents, firefighters found a man inside, face down and unconscious. He died that night. The court results have been mixed, with Amazon settling some cases and successfully defending others, depending on the circumstances.
What's the bottom line?
In all cases, Amazon used itsunusual legal status as a half-platform and half-store. However, in the case of products manufactured directly by Amazon, this status may not work. Now the public's attention is focused on AmazonBasics' own products, which have already received more than a thousand negative reviews mentioning fires.
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