Fake cigarettes and toys that are ‘essentially weapons’: Choice refers online retailers to regulator over unsafe products

Choice bought items including prop cigarettes and lighters shaped like children's toys from online marketplaces including eBay, Amazon and AliExpress. Photograph: supplied View image in fullscreen Choice bought items including prop cigarettes and lighters shaped like children's toys from online marketplaces including eBay, Amazon and AliExpress. Photograph: supplied Fake cigarettes and toys that are ‘essentially weapons’: Choice refers online retailers to regulator over unsafe products Consumer group makes ‘super’ complaint to ACCC after investigation found dangerous items on platforms such as eBay, Amazon and AliExpress Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Cigarette lighters that look like toys, gel blasters, flick knives and fake tongue studs are among the “frightening” number of unsafe and potentially banned products being sold to Australians on online marketplaces, a Choice investigation has found. After identifying the products, Choice on Wednesday formally asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to take action against the retailers and begin a review of the country’s product safety laws more generally. The consumer advocacy group considered the matter serious enough to warrant a designated or “super” complaint to the ACCC, which it can only do once a year and compels the regulator to respond within 90 days. Choice is calling for the law to be tightened to stop unsafe products being sold in the “grey area” of online marketplaces. Product safety was already in the spotlight, after the ACCC launched its first federal court action against an online marketplace – alleging Amazon failed to comply with mandatory button battery warning requirements on children’s backpacks. The ACCC on Tuesday announced it had asked several online marketplaces to take down “banned and potentially deadly” toys and games as part of its own investigation into small high-powered magnets, which are banned in Australia. Choice said it bought and received a range of toy-like novelty lighters and cigarettes from eBay, AliExpress and Amazon, as well as sky lanterns from Shein. All of these products are permanently banned in Australia because of the risk to children or general fire risk. Choice said it also found fake tongue piercings, which could pose a choking hazard if swallowed, from AliExpress and eBay. The products had been removed from the sites by Tuesday. Choice’s campaigns director, Andy Thomas, said they also found a flick knife, a butterfly knife and a gel blaster – “essentially weapons” – for sale on some of the online marketplaces, which they didn’t order to avoid potential legal consequences. Thomas said a nationally representative survey by Choice had found 6% of Australians who bought products online in the past two years had suffered an injury, property damage or both. “We’ve been shouting from the rooftops about Australia’s lax product safety laws since the 60s really,” he said. “Consumers are still being put at risk and far too many people are still being harmed.” Choice’s previous safety tests on products from online marketplaces had found goods including cots, toys and bassinets failed Australian safety standards, Thomas said. “Online marketplaces [are] one of the biggest gaps in the law where they can act as an intermediary and essentially they get away with selling these non-compliant and unsafe products because the law basically doesn’t apply to them,” he said. “We really want this to be a catalyst for lasting reform rather than more kind of, you know, playing whack-a-mole with this problem.” The ACCC said it would carefully review Choice’s complaint and issue a public response in due course. It said “unsafe consumer goods in digital markets” was one of its compliance and enforcement priorities for a second year in a row. “This recognises the rise in unsafe consumer goods available across our economy facilitated by the increasing scale and reach of digital markets,” an ACCC spokesperson said. The assistant minister responsible for competition and consumer affairs, Andrew Leigh, said the federal budget included money strengthen Australia’s product safety framework. This funding includes would enable state and territory consumer ministers to strengthen product recalls, introduce mandatory safety obligations for online marketplaces, and lift penalties to ensure businesses that put consumers at risk faced “real consequences”, Leigh said. Guardian Australia contacted the retailers identified by Choice for comment. Amazon and Shein said customer safety was their top priority. Amazon said the company used “advanced AI models and dedicated safety teams to continuously monitor products listed in our store” and acted quickly to remove any product that “evades our controls”. Shein said its vendors who failed to comply with product safety standards, as well as all relevant local laws and regulations, faced penalties including possibly being banned from selling their goods on its site. Temu said it required sellers to comply with applicable laws and regulations and removed listings that are found to be non-compliant. The company said it had added the novelty lighter and similar listings to a platform-wide blocklist to help prevent them from being relisted. Both AliExpress’s parent company, AliBaba, and eBay did not respond by deadline. Explore more on these topics Consumer affairs Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Business Toys eBay Amazon news Share Reuse this content