It’s illegal to sell secondhand items that have been recalled, but it happens a lot.
Even products deemed unsafe for children and kids are slipping through the cracks and being offered for sale on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, Consumer Reports said.
“I was pretty surprised by the sheer number,” Consumer Reports investigative journalist Rachel Rabkin Peachman told WTOP.
Peachman last month found hundreds of recalled inclined sleepers, such as and similar to the Fisher Price Rock and Play Sleeper. She also discovered other baby gear such as bumbo seats and a host of recalled Ikea MALM chests and dressers.
“Millions of them were recalled about three years ago,” Peachman said. “They were causing hundreds of tipovers — incidents that were linked to deaths of children and injuries.”
Whether you’re buying secondhand items or offering them for sale, it’s easy enough to find out whether they’ve been subject to a recall, said Joe Martyak, Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman.
Just check the Recalls section of the CPSC site.
If you’re buying: “The responsibility of any consumer is to the safety, for example, of the children that you’re buying this product for,” Martyak said. “The responsibility to yourself, your family, is to take those two minutes and check to see if the name of that product is on that list.”
If you’re selling: “Look at what you’re selling. If it affects the most vulnerable population, infants and children, maybe you should check on that stroller, that crib, whatever it is. Take 10 minutes, put the names in,” Martyak said.
Then, if you find a recalled item, congratulate yourself. “Think of the benefit you’ll be providing to someone else to keep them from buying that, and pat yourself on the back.”
You can be fined up to $110,000 per item for selling a recalled product.
Martyak declined to discuss the direction of enforcement deployed for sales on E-platforms, but noted big fines recently paid by large retailers in the relatively recent past for sales of recalled items.
Home Depot in 2017 was fined $5.7 million for selling 2,800 recalled products. In 2016, Best Buy sold 600 recalled products and was fined $3.8 million.
