In the era of online shopping comes a cautionary tale for parents: Online retailers like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart have been selling a car seat that is illegal to use in Canada and is potentially deadly for children.
An online advertisement for the Yosoo portable infant car seat priced at $28.99 on Walmart’s website seemed too good to be true and Katherine Hutka, a health professional specialist for Child Safety Link in Halifax, says it is.
“Some of the big differences between this fake car seat product and what a real Canadian certified car seat would be are a real car seat would have the instructions included, that would have labelling and warning labels fixed to the car seat warnings in English and in French, it would have a product registrations card,” said Hutka.
“You know a box would also be nice but it is not required. You know there are car seats that are sold in bags and other things as well so that’s not uncommon.”
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The portable baby safety car seat for infants ranges from $15 to $30 and is advertised for children between the ages of nine months and five years on multiple websites.
Britax is a leading supplier for car seats and strollers across the world.
In 2014, they crash tested this type of car seat and the results were devastating with the child being thrown from the backseat out of the front windshield and proving that there would be very little protection at all.
Child Safety Links, an injury prevention program at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, N.S., says consumer should look for safety markings on the car seat as well as a five-point harness, a chest clip and an attachment to the vehicle’s seat.
Hutka did reach out to the provider to inform them of the risks attached to this car seat.
“We did file just a little email comment just to say that this isn’t a safe product and to take it down. But we didn’t hear back and we also filed a report with Health Canada and Transport Canada to make sure they were aware,” said Hutka.
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Hutka bought the car seat online from Walmart.ca and Walmart has offered her a full refund and the car seat is no longer listed on their website.
Walmart also released the following statement:
“Product safety is a top priority at Walmart Canada and we take any concerns of this nature very seriously. Walmart Canada provides an online marketplace for third-party sellers to sell products directly to customers. We require all products sold by third-party sellers to comply with legal regulations and safety standards.
“As soon as we were notified of this issue, the product with brand name “Yosoo” for sale by third-party seller Junchao Trading Inc. was immediately removed from the online marketplace for not complying with our policy.
“We are working with the seller to address this issue and ensure anyone who purchased this product is notified of the issue and receives a full refund. We urge anyone who may have purchased this item to not use it and return it to the seller.”
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