— -- Here I was, working with Brian Ross on an investigation into recalled products lurking in people’s homes, and I find a recalled dehumidifier in my own basement – a model than had been recalled three years earlier for overheating and starting fires.
I’m the ABC News Fixer and a veteran consumer reporter, and I had no idea.
The scary thing was I had checked it online six months earlier, when there was a big recall of dehumidifiers and I wondered about ours. But when my husband and I initially looked online, nothing came up. It was only after I started working on this story that I got a funny feeling and decided to check again.
This time, after much clicking around on various recall notices, I found that our particular model, an old GE 40-pint dehumidifier, had been recalled in an earlier notice from 2011, and not the big recall of 2.5 million units announced in late 2013 and early 2014. That’s why I missed it the first time. (And yes, I confess, like so many other consumers, we probably failed to send in that little registration card when we bought it – probably because the item wasn’t very expensive.)
It turns out a close friend had a recalled one in her basement, as well.
I soon learned that recalled products -- not only dehumidifiers that can cause a house fire, but many other products -– are not only in people’s homes but are easily available for sale online.
For the Brian Ross investigation airing tonight on ABC News “World News With David Muir” and “20/20”, we were able to find plenty of dangerous recalled items in just a few minutes of searching online, especially on Craigslist.org, the online behemoth of buying and selling.
It’s a federal crime to resell a recalled item, but the products we easily found included:
- Recalled Bumbo baby seats, implicated in dozens of falls and skull fractures, mostly when parents used them on elevated surfaces.
- Recalled dehumidifiers of various brand names, blamed for causing at least 121 fires and $4.5 million in property damage.
- Recalled models of Bosch dishwashers, also implicated in overheating and house fires.
- Recalled Lane cedar chests, blamed for the entrapment deaths of children, including the tragic suffocation of a Massachusetts brother and sister in January.
- Recalled Maclaren strollers, involved in fingertip amputations and injuries to children.
- When we started this project last May, I also found plenty of recalled Nap Nanny sleepers, a product against which the CPSC waged a legal battle that ultimately resulted in a voluntary recall. To date, the Nap Nanny has been implicated in six infant deaths and numerous lesser incidents, with the most recent death this past May.
- Consumer advocates like Nancy Cowles and Linda Ginzel of the nonprofit Kids In Danger, say recalls don’t help unless consumers hear about them. They say manufacturers and retailers could do a lot more to get the word out – including launching social media campaigns of the same magnitude used to get us consumers to buy in the first place.
- The sad fact is that with many recalls, compliance is as low as five percent. That leaves millions of products still in circulation.
- One woman from a Chicago suburb, who unwittingly sold me a recalled dehumidifier through Craigslist, was horrified to learn that the item she listed had been implicated in house fires.
- “The thought of passing it on to somebody else, and it could have possibly caused a fire, is devastating,” she said.
- The ABC News Fixer’s advice is this: If you’re thinking of selling something, make sure it’s safe – and legal – to sell.
- And if you’re concerned about products you may have in your own home, here’s where to get more info:
- For problems with consumer products, go to the Consumer Product Safety Commission website at SaferProducts.gov.
- For more info on recalls of baby and children’s products, check out the nonprofit organization Kids In Danger.
- For automotive recalls, go to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website SaferCar.gov.
- - The ABC News Fixer
- Got a consumer problem? The ABC News Fixer may be able to help. Click here to submit your problem online. Letters are edited for length and clarity.
