Retail giant withdraws ‘unsafe’ car seats after TV inquiry

AMAZON has withdrawn ‘unsafe’ child car seats from its website worldwide and contacted all buyers following an investigation.

BBC Panorama, in an hourlong investigation into Amazon’s dominance of the online marketplace, found car seats for sale which were similar to those removed in 2014 after inquiries by Surrey Trading Standards.

Trading standards contacted the retail giant in 2013 after they found seats on the website caused bodily harm to a dummy when subjected to testing.

Rachel Greer, Amazon’s product safety manager at the time, said she called for the removal of non-compliant car seats from its UK platform.

But the seats were still sold in other countries as Amazon bosses deemed them not ‘unsafe’.

Ms Greer said: ‘I was told that there was no proof that they were non-compliant in those countries and that would not be happening.’

In response to the allegations Doug Gurr, country manager for Amazon UK, told the programme the seats were removed as they were ‘not authorised for sale’. He added: ‘It’s not that the products were unsafe, if they were unsafe we would have removed them everywhere.

‘It was simply they were not authorised for sale in the UK.’

When Amazon was contacted about the car seats similar to those tested by Surrey Trading Standards, the retailer said it had withdrawn them from sale worldwide now and contacted the customers who had purchased them. Amazon said: ‘After a thorough investigation, we are removing these products and contacting each customer to issue a refund.’

Amazon: What They Know About Us is on BBC1 tonight at 8.30pm.

‘We’re removing these products’