Unsafe products on Amazon, Ebay and Co?
New EU rule now helps consumers
Created: 2022-12-02 13:06
By: Stella Henrich
The EU strengthens the rights of consumers when shopping online.
Consumers should be protected from traps.
And online retailers are being saddled with more responsibility.
Munich ‒ Consumer protection is not only very important in this country.
It is now comprehensively regulated throughout Europe by the legislature to protect consumers in the euro zone.
Now the EU is also strengthening consumer protection when making purchases on the Internet.
Because everyone should have already noticed that some bargains that landed in the online shopping cart with a click in no time turned out to be defective, faulty or even dangerous to use.
Online retailers are now supposed to take more responsibility for the products they sell.
The aim of the regulation to protect consumers is that dangerous products can be recalled from the market quickly.
The best example of this is the global corporation Amazon.
The Internet giant sells goods from all over the world on its platform.
Many articles therefore also come from non-EU countries.
As a result, a number of products end up on the domestic market that do not meet safety standards.
No longer acceptable, apparently thought the chairwoman of the EU Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, Anna Cavazzini.
The Green MEP now speaks of an overdue adjustment to the requirements of online shopping for consumers.
The agreement means the overdue adjustment of our high standards of product safety.
Consumers need to be reassured that the products they buy are not dangerous, with the same level of consumer protection online and offline.
MEP Anna Cavazzini in a press statement on the new product safety rules for online shopping
Online trading is not only lucrative for Amazon and Co. The deliverers also make good money from it.
Consumers are now ordering goods online all over the world.
(Iconic image) © Arnulf Hettrich/imago
Online shopping: Responsible person must check manufacturer information in the future
Products that come from third countries and enter the EU market via online marketplaces such as Amazon, Ebay or the Chinese online platform Alibaba now account for a large proportion of unsafe products in the EU.
In the future, there must be a responsible person who checks whether manufacturer information on EU safety standards is correct and whether these are also met.
Der Spiegel
quotes SPD MEP René Repasi
as saying that this can mean that this person is then also liable for damage caused by defective products .
More protection for consumers when shopping online
In the future, online consumer marketplaces will need to set up a one-
stop shop for product safety
.
In addition, the operators must ensure that the traders who operate on their platforms are aware of the items they offer.
At the same time, the recall procedures will be bindingly regulated throughout Europe for the first time.
An extended warranty period is also provided for buyers, during which they are entitled to have dangerous products replaced, repaired or refunded.
In future, there will also be the option of
punishing violations
of the new regulation with
fines
.
However, the new regulation does not make any uniform Europe-wide specifications for such sanctions - but only formulates very vaguely that these should be a deterrent.
Europe-wide harmonization is still pending.
The regulation is intended to ensure that customers will be informed better and faster about product recalls in the future.
The current regulation on product safety dates back to 2021. With the new directive, online marketplaces would have to remove products classified as dangerous within two working days, says Marion Walsmann at
Tagesschau.de
.
The CDU politician negotiated the new EU directive.
The new regulation now also applies to furniture, textiles or childcare items that were not previously subject to the new product safety rules.
Such as doll beds and children's beds.
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Even if consumers are currently saving more when shopping online.
At the same time, online retail has been cannibalizing the shopping streets for a few years.
