NZME fined $87,750 for selling banned magnetic toys through Grab One
Friday, 26 May 2023
NZME Advisory has been fined $87,750 for supplying unsafe magnetic puzzle toys, commonly known as buckyballs, via the GrabOne website.
NZME has since sold the site.
The toys are made up of small, high-powered magnetic balls. They were sold between October 2020 and September 2021 in breach of an unsafe goods notice which bans the supply of any magnets, sold in sets of two or more, that are a particular size and strength.
It sold 213 of the magnetic toys. But after being contacted by the Commerce Commission, NZME recalled the sets and contacted customers to notify them of the recall.
The Commerce Commission took the company to the Auckland District Court where it pled guilty.
Commission general manager of fair trading Kirsten Mannix said the magnets were banned because if they were swallowed they could attract each other within the body.
“Tragically, we are aware of one case in New Zealand where a child did swallow two of the magnets from one of the magnetic toys supplied by NZME and significant surgery was required to remove them,” she said.
Michael Boggs, NZME chief executive officer, said the company was “horrified” to hear about the situation involving the child and immediately recalled the product.
“Last year, I personally reached out to the girl’s mother to apologise, and to offer any assistance to help with her daughter’s recovery,” Boggs said.
NZME made a donation to Starship Children’s Hospital, which provided medical care for the girl and had made a support payment to the family.
Mannix said product safety was a priority area for the commission, and it was committed to ensuring that businesses complied their product safety obligations.
“Every year we carry out unannounced visits to retailers engaging with them about the product safety laws in place and checking that the toys on the shelves are compliant. Since 2017 we have prosecuted 30 businesses and issued formal warnings to another 32 businesses, relating to the supply of non-compliant products.”
Mannix said that while the obligation to supply safe toys sat with businesses, this case also provided an opportunity to raise awareness among consumers about the risks of small high-powered magnets or other unsafe products.
“If you are concerned that a product is unsafe or doesn’t comply with product safety laws, we encourage you to remove it from the household, return to the seller and inform the Commerce Commission.”
Similar products can be found on online retailers such as Temu and MightyApe, but only certain sizes and strengths of the magnets are banned.
The comission said it would continue to monitor the sale of similar toys and send any away for further testing if it believed there was a potential breach.
In 2014 Grab One was 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.