Senator Florez urges eBay to screen for dangerous toys

By: Bill Curtis
11:49 AM Thursday, November 22nd, 2007

As retailers and shoppers gear up for this weeks post-Thanksgiving Black Friday, one of the biggest retail sales days of the year, Senator Dean Florez is urging consumers to sign up for an instant recall notice service provided by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The free service provides consumers with regular updates on which products have been recalled, such as hazardous toys that may otherwise end up under the tree as holiday gifts.



Florez, D-Shafter, also released a letter directed to eBay and other consumer-to-consumer internet sales services requesting that they promptly install filters to identify and remove recalled products being sold through their sites.

While we have fairly enhanced systems to pull products off of store selves, we still dont have an adequate system to address person-to-person internet sales, Florez said. EBay and other peer-to-peer internet sales systems need to do a better job of policing the products that are being offered for sale. Im confident that they can create a system that can pinpoint recalled products and stop them from re-entering the consumer market. Internet providers need to spend the time to create the right filters and to act more responsibly in the marketplace.

Florez, in his letter, also asked eBay and other internet sales providers to create an easy mechanism for consumers who visit their sites to sign up to receive e-mail warnings from CPSC of newly-recalled products. The agency has been urging retailers to educate consumers about the potentially life-saving service, which they can subscribe to for free at www.cpsc.gov.

Folks who visit eBay are computer savvy shoppers who should be encouraged to sign up for this free and valuable service. I would urge eBay to provide their customers with a direct link to the Consumer Product Safety Commissions recall notification site; making sign-up as easy as possible will increase the chances that consumers will make use of the system. We need eBays help to get the message out to consumers that this service is available and could save a life.

Florez is also considering legislation that would make recalled-product filters and warnings mandatory for internet sales in California.

Im hoping that internet retailers and re-sellers will do the right thing and work to get the message out about recalled products. If not, then we can expect to continue this conversation in the Legislature over the coming months as we work to draft new laws.