Massive Recall of Tassimo Coffee Brewers After 10-Year-Old Burned, Hospitalized
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The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada announced a recall of more than 1 million Tassimo Single-Cup Brewers after more than 100 reports of the brewers spraying hot liquid and burning users.
According to the CPSC, about 835,000 brewers in the U.S. and 900,000 in Canada are being recalled.
The Single-Cup Brewers use plastic T Discs that are filled with coffee or tea to brew hot drinks. The product has been recalled after “140 reports of incidents with the brewers spraying hot liquid, coffee grounds or tea leaves onto consumers, including 37 reports of second-degree burns.”
In one incident, a 10-year-old girl was hospitalized in Minnesota with second-degree burns on her face and neck.
Her name is Halee Miller. She was making a cup of coffee with her grandmother using a Tassimo Single-Cup Brewer her mother purchased for the family for Christmas. All of a sudden, there was a funny noise and then an explosion. Halee was burned by coffee grinds that exploded on her face and neck.
“I got the call at work,” said her mother, Susan Miller.
She rushed home.
“I pulled into the driveway and I could hear her screaming,” she said.
Halee was rushed to the hospital, stabilized and then moved to the burn unit, where she underwent surgery and received synthetic skin grafting.
“She only has one little scar on her neck. The doctors did a great job,” her mother said.
The incident happened more than a year ago.
“After it happened, we found tons of blogs about it online,” Miller said. “I don’t see why nothing was pulled off the shelf before now.”
But she said it’s better late than never.
“To see a child go through something like this over a defective appliance is really a sad situation,” Miller said. “I’m very happy to see they’re recalling it before anyone else gets hurt.”
“Millions of Americans enjoy starting their day by brewing a hot cup of coffee or tea,” CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum said in a statement. ”Being sprayed and burned by hot coffee grounds or tea leaves is something no one expects when standing near their brewer. I urge consumers to stop using these recalled T discs and respond to this important recall.”
For more information on the recalled equipment, please visit the CPSC website.
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Obviously a coffee maker should not be spitting hot water and exploding but in the same vane should a 10 year old be permitted to operate it?
Posted by: Tim C | February 9, 2012, 5:00 pm 5:00 pm
I’m sorry the girl was hurt – I’m sorry anyone was hurt, but that’s 140 incidents in 1,795,000 brewers? That’s .007 percent, if my math is right.
Posted by: Sheila | February 9, 2012, 5:08 pm 5:08 pm
Sheila, are you saying it is okay if a coffee brewer explodes hot liquid on consumers if it doesn’t happen too often? That is nuts.
Posted by: Librarian53 | February 9, 2012, 5:24 pm 5:24 pm
Shelia, according to human health risk assessment procedures, anything greater than 1 in a million is considered a risk. Having that many incidents is clearly a manufacturing problem, whether your math is correct or not.
Posted by: Lindsay | February 9, 2012, 5:33 pm 5:33 pm
140 incidents out of nearly 2,000,000 units sounds more like user error than design defects.
Posted by: Swell | February 9, 2012, 5:35 pm 5:35 pm
If a person needed skin grafts from this I’d say a recall is warranted. That should not happen.
Posted by: lexingtonlady | February 9, 2012, 6:28 pm 6:28 pm
TIm, if I had to bet the grandmother was using the machine, the kid just looking at the machine do its thing. How many times when you where a kid did you stare aimlessly at the coffee maker, blender, toaster waiting for your breakfest.
Posted by: Jram | February 9, 2012, 7:10 pm 7:10 pm
i had issues and took mine back to Hy_Vee in Iowa and they refused to exchange it. they even went as far as making me feel stupid in front of everybody at the customer service area by demonstrating with my machine that it was working ok.. I would have gone to the manager ,,, but she was the manager… stupid store..
Posted by: colleen | February 9, 2012, 8:33 pm 8:33 pm
I question the the number of incidents that have actually occurred–140??? Anymore, I doubt accuracy of numbers reported by manufacturers/media. Furthermore, why didn’t we hear directly from Bosch earlier, not from U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission today!! Think if Bosch valued their customers/reputation, they’d send a replacement coffee maker vs. simply supplying a FREE T-disk holder! Will never feel comfortable using my present machine, even w/a new holder. Bosch is gonna lose many a cutomer over this band aid offering!!
Posted by: Marcia | February 9, 2012, 8:53 pm 8:53 pm
This incident happened over a year ago? And the recall is just happening NOW? Seems rather fishy to me.
Posted by: MJ | February 9, 2012, 9:24 pm 9:24 pm
I had two Tassmos and we had never had a problem, we had customers using them 6-12 times a day and we never had a problem
Posted by: Brandy | February 9, 2012, 9:25 pm 9:25 pm
so many people are dismissive of this incident for one reason or another, but if the same spew of burning water had scalded the child with an image of Rick Santorum as the Virgin Mary, people would be flocking to the “shrine.”
Posted by: bajacalla | February 9, 2012, 10:28 pm 10:28 pm
Much ado about nothing. I have a Tassimo Pro and it’s never been anything but flawless… Now, if we could just some T-discs to use in the thing besides lousy Maxwell House and middle of the road Gevalia.
Posted by: Thrash | February 9, 2012, 10:38 pm 10:38 pm
My tassimo is about 4 years old and it started spraying coffee grounds and hot coffee all over last week. I’ve tried it a few more times, with different t-discs, and it continued to do it. Just this morning I accepted its no longer working and bought a keurig. And sure enough, the story about the recall was on the abc news with Diane sawyer tonight! My husband called the recall # and had to leave a MSG since its being bombarded with calls. We’ll see if I can get mine fixed. Its just weird timing!
Posted by: Kjw | February 10, 2012, 12:53 am 12:53 am
keurig has made it again trying to push Bosch out
Posted by: 7amada7 | February 10, 2012, 1:51 am 1:51 am
I’ve been very happy with my Tassimo. The only time grounds came through or spilling occurred was when the piercing unit needed replacing. It’s the part that comes out to be washed. The rubber gasket started to get worn out. But that is meant to be replaced. They sell them on their website. But seriously, all this hoopla seems like user error and not anything to do with the manufacturing. Like that other person said earlier, the only thing I want are more coffee brand varieties.
Posted by: Hylas | February 10, 2012, 11:54 am 11:54 am
My Tassimo is one of the recalled numbers. I’ve never had a problem. Yesterday I used one of the defective t-disks and it got coffee grounds on my mug but that’s all. I probably will get my t-disk holder replaced to be safe but I still love my Tassimo!
Posted by: Shelby | February 10, 2012, 12:55 pm 12:55 pm
I’m trying to figure out whose really responsible for this accident. The company or the guardian who is suppose to be acting in the best needs of the child? In this case, a 10 yr old operating a brand new machine the guardian herself doesn’t even know how to operate. Why is a 10 yr old making coffee? Sounds like they need to own up to part of the responsibility for the incident. This sounds to me like a case of much needed common sense of the adults part.
Posted by: Sharlyn | February 10, 2012, 6:32 pm 6:32 pm
I have 2 Braun (not Bosch) Tassimo machines that have had a problem with exploding t-discs for at least 3 years. The company has exchanged t-discs and even one of the machines. I stopped my direct delivery of the discs 2 weeks ago due to this exact problem. The company never told me this was a common problem and much more widespread than they are disclosing. I have placed phone calls to the recall phone numbers and sent emails. I have had no response except auto-generated emails saying that someone would be in touch with me within 24 hours. Nothing !!!
Posted by: merle Gandolfo | February 14, 2012, 5:30 pm 5:30 pm
Then there are those who have had a problem and never made an issue of it. I have had this problem but blamed it on human error
Posted by: dave | February 18, 2012, 1:56 pm 1:56 pm
I have 5 Tassimo’s and have turned at least 10 of my friends on to them including 4 that I gave away at Christmas time. I LOVE MY TASSIMO’S and so do all my friends especially the one that is a cross country truck driver whom has had one in his truck for over two years. I have never had any issues with any of my Tassimo machines. If you look at the way the T disks are completely encapsulated it hard to imagine that this true tragedy can happen especially to a 10 year old child.
PS. I wish they would sell the Maxwell house Expresso by it self.
Posted by: Joe Gallardo | March 5, 2012, 11:25 pm 11:25 pm
I LOVE MY TASSIMO machine and so do all all my kids who have used their Tassimo daily for years without incident or any problems. Now we can’t find expresso, latte or cappuccino discs at any local stores because of this recall that may be caused by human error or lack of replacing some of the parts recommended to be replaced by the manufacture.
I wish they would bring the cappucino/latte/expresso discs back to local stores again so we don’t have to order on line and wait for shipping arrival.
Posted by: toni odom | March 16, 2012, 2:16 pm 2:16 pm
What you all you guys think? Who is standing behind this massive recall? Don’t you think it is Keurig?
On the top of the unit there is a sticker that CLEARLY SAYS “DO NOT OPEN LID UNTIL YELLOW LIGHT COMES ON”! I’m not suprised that some stupid peoples trying to open it just after coffee was brewed. There is still steam pressure inside that can make burn hazard. Simple calculations: if you can get excellent coffee maker that makes gr8 cofee for less than 100 bucks when other products like this cannot make that good coffee and costs ove $150 then someone has to do something to remove this product from the market. I think Bosch can manage that and everything will back to normal.
Posted by: Tassimo happy user | March 17, 2012, 2:26 pm 2:26 pm
Dealing with customer service at Tassimo is close to impossible. After being on hold for 40 minutes I was rransfered from one department to the next ,with no one being able to help me. My machine was origanaly not part of the recall, even though I had discs explode on multiple occasions. After weeks of trying to resolve this with Tassimo, I finally gave up and just for the heck of it, took a chance and emailed Bed Bath and Beyond (where I had purchased my Tassimo machine). They responded right away and told me they would indeed take back my Tassimo machine. After all my frustration with Tassimo, I retuned my machine and purchased a Keurig. This was the best thing I could have done. Needless to say, I have since had calls from Tassimo. They have now realized that the problems with their machines are far more wide-spread than originally thought, and mine is part of that problem. To late Tassimo…I am now loyal to Keurig !!!
Posted by: merle Gandolfo | March 27, 2012, 4:55 pm 4:55 pm