Craigslist Sells Dangerous Products, Investigation Reveals — CPSC Urges Company To ‘Step Up’


Following a recent investigation into the operations of Craigslist by ABC News, the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission has asked Craigslist to improve their platform and protect customers from potentially dangerous products.

According to KTIC Radio, Elliot Kaye, the chairman of the CPSC has issued a challenge to Craigslist to make their products safer for consumers, especially children, who can unknowingly purchase hazardous materials. Kaye released a statement to Craigslist over the weekend in response to the ABC investigation of Craigslist’s recalled products.

“[ABC News] independently corroborated the fact that Craigslist allows the sales of dangerous, recalled products,” the chairman said. “[ABC] also appears to have contributed to a potential new stance on safety by Craigslist.”

Elliot Kaye is scheduled to meet with Craigslist representatives and is hoping to address the issue of recalled products, and the potential threat they pose to consumers. He claims that Craigslist has taken insufficient measures to remove hazardous products from the website’s listings.

“To the extent that Craigslist is finally ready to step up in a genuine fashion to protect children from the sale of recalled products, my team is more than willing to work together with [Craigslist CEO] Mr. [Jim] Buckmaster’s team,” said Kaye. “I look forward to receiving his letter and communicating with him directly on a possible path forward that will protect consumers, especially children.”

The ABC News investigation revealed that Craigslist regularly sells a litany of illegal items that were previously recalled due to serious safety defects. According to Kaye, Craigslist does not go to the same lengths as other online retailers like eBay and Amazon to block and remove these defective products. However, thanks to the investigative work of ABC News, Craigslist could be forced to step up their game and improve safety measures.

“I am aware that Craigslist has posted a letter regarding some new steps they finally plan to take to prevent the sale of recalled products — many of which can be deadly to children,” said Elliot Kaye. “I am hopeful that CPSC and Craigslist can work together to make the online marketplace far safer.”

Dangerous products aren’t the only problem Craigslist users face when logging on to the website. Craigslist has been known to pose threats to the safety of people setting up meetings and trades with other users in person. In one case, a police officer used Craigslist to commit murder.

As if that weren’t enough, Craigslist also had a recent security breach when hackers compromised the company’s system. According to Gizmodo, Craigslist was hacked just last night (November 23) to redirect users to a site called DigitalGangster.com. “The craigslist domain name service (DNS) records maintained at one of our domain registrars were compromised, diverting users to various non-craigslist sites,” said Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist.

What do you think about all the problems Craigslist has been facing lately? Have you ever used Craigslist to purchase an item that needed to be recalled?

[Image courtesy of ABC News]

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