Grab One fined $40k over bubble machine

Monday, 6 October 2014

Online retailer Grab One has been fined $40,000 after it failed to stop selling a bubble machine that gave a woman an electric shock and threw her across a room.

The internet retailer, which offers limited-time deals to its subscribers, appeared for sentencing in the North Shore District Court today after it pleaded guilty to charges under the Electricity Act 1992 and the 2010 Electrical Safety Regulations.

The maximum penalty for the Electricity Act charge was a $500,000 fine and the maximum for the regulations breach was a $50,000 fine.

Judge Eddie Paul said Auckland woman Sheree Kennedy bought the bubble machine off the site in November 2013.

She informed the manufacturer Kmall in December that she had been shocked by the machine while it was turned off.

The prosecutor said Kennedy woman had been thrown across the room.

A WorkSafe New Zealand statement today said Kennedy received an electric shock which threw her backwards and left her with aches in her arm and chest muscles for several days.

Judge Paul said Kennedy emailed Grab One between December 27 and January 5 and was given the 'woefully inadequate' response that she should return it for testing.

A prosecutor for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said the company had had previous warnings that the device was unsafe.

Grab One's lawyer Paul Wicks, QC, said the company should have identified the inadequacy of safety certificates on the machines and it was accepted that it was reckless not to notify other customers.

Wicks said it was not a conscious decision to take a risk but rather it was a series of 'shortcomings and oversights'.

Judge Paul said the company's response had been 'woefully inadequate' as it did not notify any of the 439 people who had bought machines and it did not withdraw them from sale.

The machines were still being advertised in February and were only withdrawn after the company was contacted by MBIE.

Judge Paul made deductions for the company's prompt guilty plea and fined it $40,000.

WorkSafe said in its statement that a safety inspection of the bubble machine found 'a raft of safety issues' including no voltage markings, it was not earthed and there was only basic insulation of exposed metal parts

WorkSafe spokesman Brett Murray said the bubble machines were 'anything but the harmless bit of family fun that people buying them would have expected'.

'These machines were simply unsafe,' he said.

'They did not provide adequate protection from contact with live parts - and there was little separation between the water used to make bubbles and live electrical components.

Murray said it was the first time an on-line marketplace had been charged for such an offence

'They are more than just a sales venue and are responsible for the actions of merchants that use them,' he said.

'Sheree Kennedy suffered a nasty electric shock, but given the shoddy nature of this product she is lucky it was not far worse.'