Illegal ‘killer’ car seats still sold online UK watchdog warns

Illegal car seats for babies and children are still being sold by online retailers ten years after safety firms issued warnings about them.

Consumer watchdog Which? found the seats on sale on marketplaces including eBay, Little Dreams, ManoMano, Shein and Wish, 10 years after it first discovered them in 2014.

The seats were pulled from websites at the time, but it’s since found more than a dozen new examples of them on the websites.

Police have also found them during car seat checking events, it said.

Which? said it was concerned that families struggling with the cost of living could be tempted by the cheap but dangerous seats, whose prices range from £12.50 to just under £40 – far below the standard price starting from around £80.

Buckinghamshire and Surrey Trading Standards have previously dubbed the products as ‘killer car seats’ over the danger they pose to kids.

The safety defects include a thin base and a failure to have one central point of release for the harness – a fundamental flaw as since car seats must raise a child’s height to position the seat belt correctly across their lap, and multiple buckles can make it difficult to rescue a child in the event of a crash.

The dangerous car seats are seen on the website Shein without any proper protection for children (Picture: Which?)

There’s also no side impact protection, which is need to protect a child’s head from hitting the inside of a car.

Car seats must have labels with R44 or R129 labels to be sold legally in the UK.

Product listings on eBay, found by Which?, describe the items as car seats, the full descriptions warned against using them in cars.

A listing on eBay reads: ‘Note: it is best not to use it on high-speed cars. We recommend that it be used in non-motorised products such as electric vehicles, two-wheelers, and electric vehicles. Because it is not a child safety seat that complies with traffic.’

Sue Davies, Which? head of consumer protection policy, said: ‘It is appalling that these deadly car seats are reappearing on online marketplaces more than a decade after Which? first exposed them, but it is not surprising.

eBay also has the car seats listed despite being warned about their lack of safety years ago (Picture: Which?)

‘This is just one in a long list of dangerous products that Which? has identified and have been taken down only for them to later reappear for sale.

‘Children’s lives will be at risk, with less affluent households most likely to be affected, until online marketplaces are forced to take responsibility for the listing of these cheap but deadly car seats.

‘The Product Regulation and Metrology Act is a welcome start for strengthening product safety laws, but secondary regulations are needed to impose clear legal responsibilities on online marketplaces, with tough enforcement for those that fall short.’

An eBay spokeswoman said: ‘Consumer safety is a top priority for eBay. We work diligently to prevent prohibited listings through seller compliance audits, block filter algorithms for unsafe items, and AI supported monitoring by in-house specialists, who work closely with regulators and Trading Standards.

‘We swiftly removed these listings and notified buyers, and we continue to strengthen our preventative measures.’

A sale of the unsafe car seats are seen for sale on Little Dreams’ website (Picture: Which?)

Shein said: ‘Shein takes product safety very seriously and is committed to offering safe and reliable products to its customers. In this case, the product had been mislabelled by the third-party seller.

‘Upon being notified, Shein immediately removed it from the site. Shein vendors are required to comply with Shein’s code of conduct and stringent safety standards and must also abide by the relevant laws and regulations of the markets where we operate.

‘Shein has taken action against the seller of the product according to the penalties set out in our guidelines.’

Little Dreams told Which? it would review the product in question, remove the listing from its website, and ‘conduct a thorough internal investigation to understand how this occurred.’

Wish | Shop and Save and ManoMano are being contacted for comment.

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