Safety Agency Goes Public With Complaints

More than 12 years after the first privately-financed consumer complaint sites made their debut, the U.S. government is getting into the act. Over the objection of its two Republican commissioners, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted to establish a Web-based database of consumer complaints about potentially dangerous products.

The CPSC has collected such information at taxpayers' expense for years but does not make it accessible to the public. Press inquiries typically require the filing of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, a process that can take many months.

The new Web site, to be called SaferProducts.gov, was mandated by Congress in 2008 as part of a reformulation of the CPSC. It will essentially do what independent sites like Rip Off Report, MyThreeCents and ConsumerAffairs.com already do - collect, organize and display consumer comments on a wide range of products and services.

That duplication of effort was derided and the fact that complaints will be posted without being investigated was derided by Republican Commissioner Nancy Nord, who called the plan "highly flawed." Nord and fellow Republican Anne Northrup voted against the proposal.

Nord and Northrop had supported an alternative proposal that would have limited what information could be posted and viewed in the database.

"Another sink hole"

"We had the chance to make the database a helpful tool for consumers, but instead it will potentially become just another sink hole for complaints, but with the apparent 'seal of approval' that comes from being on a federal government Web site," Nord said in a blog entry entitled "Here's Your Turkey, Early."

CPSC Chair Inez M. Tenenbaum called the vote "a major victory for consumers and supporters of open government" and said it would "provide the public access to critical product safety information."

"We believe that responsible companies that produce or sell consumer products will have the opportunity to use this new resource to inform their quality control programs and ensure that safer products are available on store shelves," she said.

Nord said the information would be of little use because anyone will be able to file a complaint, opening up the potential of abuses and inaccuracies.

Consumer advocates generally supported the plan. "Consumers deserve to know the safety record of the products they buy," said Ami Gadhia, policy counsel for Consumers Union.

Businesses, predictably, were less enchanted.

Rosario Palmieri, vice president of the National Assn. of Manufacturers, said the database would be "filled with bogus reports inspired by political or financial motives rather than safety."

"Anybody who wants to can put garbage in this database that slanders me, and there's nothing I can do to stop it," said Richard Woldenberg, chairman of Learning Resources, a manufacturer of educational material quoted in The New York Times.

When the database goes live, it will be the first time the CPSC has displayed product-related information to the public. Since its establishment in the 1970s, the agency has had to get manufacturers' permission to reveal such information - a restriction thought to be unique among federal agencies.

Dangerous diapers

Legislation reformulating the agency followed a 2007 rash of recalls of toys containing high levels of lead. But whether the revamped CPSC will become more effective when the database goes public remains to be seen.

Democratic Commissioner Robert Adler voted for the plan but cautioned that the agency doesn't have the resources to investigate the thousands of complaints that the database will likely generate.

In fact, manufacturers have already become adept at spinning consumers' complaints to their advantage , thanks to the many privately-operated consumer sites that routinely expose issues that would otherwise remain secret.

In her objection to the Web site plan, Northrup provided an excellent example of how companies use their public relations muscle to ride roughshod over consumers who complain about their products. She cited the unsubstantiated claim by Procter & Gamble in May 2010 that parents had lied when they reported that redesigned Pampers Dry Max diapers had caused serious rashes similar to chemical burns.

ConsumerAffairs.com received nearly 300 complaints from parents who said their children had broken out in a severe rash while wearing the new diapers. The CPSC said it had received nearly 4,700 complaints. P&G simply dismissed the complaints as "completely false rumors fueled by social media."

In September 2010, CPSC basically shrugged and said it was unable to identify "any specific cause linking Dry Max diapers to diaper rash." It noted that complaints had fallen off rapidly after May, although ConsumerAffairs.com continues to receive complaints about the problem.

"Last week I accidentally purchased Pampers Swaddlers with Dry Max. My baby had a total of 3 diaper changes in an eight hour time period by the last diaper change she had the worst diaper rash I have every seen on a baby, said Holly of Deptford, N.J., in an Oct. 8 complaint. "My poor baby girl was in so much pain. It was heart-breaking. I don't know if it was a chemical burn but I can say that my daughter had a blister where you could see that the layer of skin was missing."