Hundreds of dangerous items sold on online marketplaces including Amazon Marketplace, eBay and Etsy, Which? finds
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Which? has found hundreds of potentially dangerous products that
could suffocate young children, electrocute users and even cause
house fires being sold through online marketplaces - even though
they match products that have been declared dangerous by the
product safety regulator. Online marketplaces claim safety is a top
priority, but a tool developed by Which? that uses a simple Google
image search quickly found hundreds of products for sale that
matched products...Request free trial
Which? has found hundreds of potentially dangerous products that could suffocate young children, electrocute users and even cause house fires being sold through online marketplaces - even though they match products that have been declared dangerous by the product safety regulator. Online marketplaces claim safety is a top priority, but a tool developed by Which? that uses a simple Google image search quickly found hundreds of products for sale that matched products previously reported as unsafe by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS). On average the products found for sale had been reported nearly six months earlier. Which? found nearly 800 products that were similar or identical to items flagged by the OPSS in the last year, 98 per cent of which posed a ‘serious' or ‘high' risk to consumers. Which? tested 15 of these products and all but one posed serious safety risks, with the remaining still failing to meet UK product safety regulations as it was illegally labelled. From wooden musical toys to 3-D printed dinosaurs, Which? uncovered a shocking variety of products marketed to very young children which contained potentially fatal choking hazards. Aside from toys, the consumer champion identified over 100 examples of baby sleeping bags that pose a serious risk of asphyxiation. Many of these sleeping bags include hoods which can cover a baby's face and suffocate them. Other designs were missing arm holes - this can cause babies to slip down inside the bag and smother them. Which? found 142 examples of a poorly designed aluminium ladder that has been repeatedly shown to collapse in safety tests. Meanwhile, knock-off cosmetic products including wax warmers and nail steamers pose a serious risk of electrocution. Innocent-looking everyday items such as heaters and bedside lamps contained faulty wiring that could lead to a house fire. Many of the dangerous products risk exposing consumers to hidden dangers. Which? found 594 listings on online marketplaces matching OPSS alerts for products that contained an ‘invisible risk'. For instance, there is no practical way for consumers to tell from an online listing if the telescopic ladder they bought is likely to collapse while they are clearing their gutters. A widespread example of an invisible risk is a specific design of electric saw that appears under 33 different brand names on marketplaces including Amazon Marketplace, AliExpress, and Temu, among others. Which? lab tests for one of these saws, sold under the brand name KATSU, found that it posed a risk of fire and electrocution. This design does not meet the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 and is illegal to sell in the UK. Online marketplaces have failed to take even the basic step of acting on official reports that products are dangerous to protect consumers from unsafe and illegal items. At the same time, people are buying from online marketplaces in ever-growing numbers, mostly unaware of the risk they are exposed to. Research by Which? in November 2025 found that 90 per cent of UK consumers have made purchases on online marketplaces in the last two years, and that 24 million people were regular users. Which? estimates that at least 8.8 million consumers have experienced harm from faulty, unsafe or fraudulent products bought from online marketplaces. As a consequence, people in the UK have lost their lives, homes and experienced serious physical harm as a result of dangerous products sold through online marketplaces. Online marketplaces should be taking action to remove products that the regulator has identified as unsafe, as well as lookalikes. Which? 's investigation reveals that it is entirely feasible for them to do this. They should also be making more proactive checks to prevent unsafe products from being listed in the first place. Which? believes that strong legal enforcement is needed to hold online marketplaces accountable. The Product Regulation and Metrology Act, adopted in July, enables the Secretary of State to impose product safety requirements on online marketplaces through secondary legislation, but these have been delayed. The government urgently needs to use these powers to ensure that dangerous products are prevented from reaching people in the UK. Sue Davies, Which? Head of Consumer Protection Policy, said: “Our latest research shows just how easily marketplaces could step up their efforts to tackle this problem if they were taking product safety as seriously as they claim. “When a product looks identical or highly similar to one declared unsafe by the OPSS, marketplaces should act with common sense and remove it immediately. “The government must urgently prioritise secondary regulations for the Product Regulation and Metrology Act to impose a clear legal duty on online marketplaces, with tough enforcement for those that fall short. -ENDS- Notes to Editors
Methodology: Which? collected 702 products safety reports from the publicly available OPSS Product Recalls and Alerts database, published between August 2024 and August 2025. From their reports, Which? extracted over 1,000 images of products found to be unsafe. Which? then used reverse image searching technology to find matching images on the web. The results were labelled by human analysts to establish whether matching products were currently available to UK consumers, and to establish whether they posted a risk that Which? could verify visually, or a hidden risk (e.g. faulty electrical wiring). Which? also conducted manual searches for a sample of products on 17 separate platforms, using these platforms' own reverse image searching technology where available. For each product that could be added to a cart with UK delivery, a timestamped screenshot and text record of the webpage was taken. In each case, Which? set a high bar for similarity between the products found online and those flagged in OPSS reports. Criteria for similarity included products with:
Which? discarded products where the flagged issue was with a batch number that could not be confirmed, products that were counterfeit where Which? could not detect this, or where the OPSS image wasn't of high enough quality to be confident of a match. To better understand the likely risk posed by seemingly identical products, Which? also ordered a sample of 15 products from the ones we found online, and sent them to accredited labs to be independently tested. While some online marketplaces have argued that products highlighted by Which?'s research do not fall under the scope of the OPSS alerts, the consumer champion believes that narrowly interpreting these notices could lead to further harm to consumers. If platforms only consider exact identifiers in a product safety alert, they will be likely to miss other easily identifiable factors that could pose a risk to consumers. Right of replies: An Amazon spokesperson said: "We require all products offered in our store to comply with applicable laws, regulations, and Amazon policies, and we proactively monitor our store for safety alerts and product recalls and remove relevant products and email customers who purchased them. “Safety alerts are specific to an individual products' unique characteristics, including brand name, model number or design features, and our initial findings show that the vast majority of products highlighted by Which?'s research do not fall under the scope of these alerts. “Out of an abundance of caution, we temporarily delisted the products tested by Which? and will remove any non-compliant items identified by our investigation and further refine our controls.” An eBay spokesperson said: "Consumer safety is a top priority for eBay. We have reviewed the listings identified by Which? and taken action where required, including removing items and notifying buyers where appropriate. We're reviewing the wider marketplace to remove any identical listings. "We work diligently to prevent and remove unsafe product listings through seller compliance audits, block filter algorithms, AI-supported monitoring by in-house specialists, and close partnerships with regulators. Several of the unsafe listings highlighted by Which? had been removed or ended before the investigation was shared with eBay, showing how existing filters and monitoring systems work to reduce unsafe products on the site.” The Range: The Range chose not to comment A spokesperson for Shein said: “On SHEIN Marketplace, all vendors are required to comply with SHEIN's code of conduct and abide by the relevant laws and regulations of the countries where we operate. When non-compliant items are found, SHEIN takes immediate action to remove them, and we are continuously working on improving our processes to prevent these items from reappearing on our site." Temu: Temu said they take compliance with their regulatory obligations very seriously, including by monitoring product recall and safety alerts issued by the OPSS and regulatory authorities. Temu said "We reviewed the 26 product listings as soon as we received your inquiry and found that none of them fall under the safety recalls. Twelve of the listings had already been discontinued before your inquiry. We have removed the remaining 14 listings as a precaution and are expanding our review to similar products to ensure they meet the required safety standards. We contacted the following marketplaces for comment and they didn't respond:
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