Experts are warning parents to be careful when buying a car seat online.
ABC News’ Eva Pilgrim reported on Good Morning America on March 21 that the network’s U.S. affiliate news stations were seeing a rise in reports from hospitals and law enforcement officials of “counterfeit” car seats.
The differences between a dupe and the real thing can seem small, but they can majorly affect a child’s safety while in the car, experts told the outlet. With more people shopping for car seats at online retailers such as Amazon or Temu, it can be hard to inspect a car seat in person in order to to ensure that it meets the standards for use in the U.S. before purchasing.
ABC 7 Chicago bought three car seats online to examine for safety. Dr. Alisa Baer, a certified child safety technician who calls herself the “The Car Seat Lady” on social media, told the outlet that none of the three car seats bought at unspecified online retailers met the national standards.
Every car seat sold in America should meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) as laid out by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to ensure the safety of every child.
“Any dupe that you buy might have ramifications. If it’s a dupe of a car seat, your baby might not survive a crash that they could have survived had they been in a car seat that was a real car seat,” Baer said.
An Amazon spokesperson told PEOPLE, “Third party sellers are independent businesses and are required to follow all applicable laws, regulations and Amazon policies when listing items for sale in our store. We have proactive measures in place to prevent prohibited products from being listed and we continuously monitor our store. Those who violate our policies are subject to action including potential removal of their account. The items in question have been removed and we are continuing to investigate the bad actors.”
Temu did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment, though GMA reported that the online retailer said in a statement it would “promptly remove” any counterfeit products.
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Even with those measures in place from online retailers, there are some things that shoppers can look out for themselves when shopping for a car seat online.
Clare Pfotenhauer, the child passenger safety resource coordinator for the Illinois Department of Transportation and Rush Copley Medical Center, demonstrated a car seat safety check on a dupe.
For example, she showed ABC 7 Chicago that with a certified car seat, the strapping should be between an inch and a half wide and two inches long. On the counterfeit seat, she noted that the straps were smaller and made of a more “flimsy” fabric compared to the certified car seat’s straps.
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But you might not even need a measuring tape to see if a car seat you buy online might actually be a dupe of a certified brand. “Real car seats have all the details,” Pfotenhauer told ABC News.
She recommended looking for stickers with all of the information about the product plastered all over the seat. Pfotenhauer said that a consumer should be able to find when the car seat was manufactured, when it expires and its dimensions on the stickers or manual that manufacturers are required to provide under U.S. safety guidelines.
These days, she added, there are often QR codes provided with a new car seat that take you to the manufacturer’s website to confirm all of the information as well. Pfotenhauer noted that these are also the important details that parents need to see if their car seat has potentially been recalled for any reason. An uncertified car seat, she said. “will have none of” that information.
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