In short:
A Queensland girl sustained significant burns when wind blew sparks onto a jumper purchased from Temu, which ignited “in a split second”.
Temu recalled the jumper for failing to meet mandatory safety standards.
What’s next?
CHOICE is calling for more proactive protections for Australian consumers, in line with international legislation.
“She can’t even watch a candle be lit now on her birthday cake; she screams. Fire scares her.”
The young girl spent eight weeks in hospital in Brisbane undergoing skin graft operations.
She faces another decade of skin grafts as her body grows.
The ACCC said Australian consumer legislation did not contain a “direct prohibition on the supply of unsafe products”.
Since 2005 CHOICE has been calling for the introduction of a general safety provision (GSP), which would legislate a requirement for suppliers to ensure their products were safe before they could be sold to consumers.
“Unfortunately, Australia’s product safety regime is reactive and it can take someone being seriously injured or killed for a product to be recalled,” Mr Kelly said.
“The current reactive, largely voluntary, approach to product safety is clearly not working.”
A 2017 review of Australian consumer law also recommended the introduction of a GSP, saying it would match other OECD countries, including the UK and Canada, which had responded to the proliferation of online shopping platforms.
My sister, with great intentions, bought a lot of gifts for us from Temu. They’re all of “instant landfill” quality. Not unexpected. Nothing quite so dangerous as that jumper though.
Her grandmother must be feeling awful
Who the fuck buys shit off temu? Those sites are a dumping ground for products that don’t meet the already lax quality and regulatory requirements of our retailers. China can make very high quality products to equally high standards but where is the incentive when consumers are brain dead and buy mountains of crap instead of save to buy quality then look after it.
All my family apparently. Temu and Shein. They all browse those apps a lot.
500 million people have installed Temu on an Android device. Temu have gone ham with advertising - every second ad on my phone is them. They’ve taken over the shopping tab on Google. It’s fucking stoopid
Old retired Floridians
Oh. More reasons to avoid the scourge that is Temu.
Regulations are written in blood. Corporate industry can add another “accident” the pile :/
I think I foresee a future headline:
“Temu recalls power bank after it exploded in a plane, causing rapid decompressurization, severed flight control cables, and ultimately leading to the plane crashing, killing all passengers”
😖
When I was a child in the 70s, I hung my pajamas by the wall heater, the one installed in the bathroom. Yeah. Turned into molten plastic, horrifying. I should note, GFCI circuits did not exist and we did not have grounded sockets in that 50s home.
We were bombarded with fire/electrical safety in school, houses burned down on the regular. A huge apartment building by us burned down, killed a bunch of people, because they had used pine shake shingles. Ever lit pine on fire? It burns so very bright.
Yes, dangerous products exist. Yes, government should do more to test and recall, as well as putting that onus on manufacturers. Yes, shit was far worse just a few decades ago.
Industry always tries to get around regulations though, look at the cheap flammable cladding on some newer buildings.
Good reminder for today’s survival tip. If you are ever stranded in the woods, collect hardened pine sap. It’s an excellent fire starter. If you are the ultimate survalist, turn your pine sap into turpentine for a wider range of uses.
Pine roots as well!
C’mon. Your ONE job as a parent is to protect your kid. At no point you went “hmmm, maybe this hoodie is too cheap for a reason?”
No. That is a fucked up way to look at this. It is a good thing that regulations exist which means I don’t have to be an electrical engineer, microbiologist, thin film chemist, soil scientist, hydrological engineer etc etc in order to avoid being hurt by shoddy products.
People who skirt regulations and sell inferior goods are bad people and the blame lies with them. There are heaps of cheap things that won’t cause harm and people have sold expensive shit that fucking kill you (cosmetics is a hellscape). Your stance is one of the extreme privilege of living in a world made safe by hard workers trying to fix things after terrible crimes by awful people.
My stance is one of caution. If something seems to good to be true it usually is. You want to rely on protections of government enforcement and buy from overseas retailers that’s your right. Doesn’t make it smart though.
Course TEMU are to blame here. But this has got real “the GPS told me to drive into the lake” energy to it. Gotta take SOME responsibility in your choices.
Course the whole Kmart sheet recall is very different, thats an aussie retailer.
Vendors selling to Australians in AUD must obey Australian standards. You take this for granted all the time when you e.g. buy an item off Amazon and it isn’t full of lead.
If you install an application through an official channel, it treats you like any other retail store, it shows you AUD prices, and you pay in AUD without filling out any sort of import declaration etc it is entirely reasonable to expect them to be in compliance with Australian regulations. Whatever the legal reality is here (ianal).
right… case no ones ever been screwed by a a cheap shit internet retailer before. There are entire memes about wish crap.
This is goalpost moving, and you are being rude.
Yes, people take a chance on cheap things and expect them to tear at the seams, crack after a year in the sun, or not work on delivery. They do not expect them to go up like flash paper. You know this, you are clever enough to recognise the difference.
Man if you think this is rude wait till someone tells you your position is one of extreme privilege. But go on. Continue to take offense to other peoples shit parenting.
Ok big guy, that’s a weird thing to take offense at but you do you.
So, if the same item had been sold at twice the price, that would have been fine?
if it were retailing for within what kmart would sell it for I think you got a bit more right to be less concerned, sure. But its an online retailer, you’ve gotta protect yourself!
Putting all else aside, the hoodie was given as a gift by the kid’s grandmother (see first paragraph), so the parent(s) probably didn’t know the price or the retailer.
