Anglia - ITV News: Over 100 dangerous climbing harnesses have been seized by Suffolk Trading Standards following a tip-off that previously destroyed equipment was being sold on e-bay.
Suffolk Trading Standards were alerted to the possible danger on 2nd April 2016 when West Yorkshire Trading Standards informed them of “Surplusandlost online”, a Suffolk based business selling safety harnesses (advertised as cut, repaired and tested) on eBay for £12.99.
4 comments:
This is just a whole lot of drama going on. First of all, I am very happy that when these companies dispose of these rejected harnesses make them physically unusable to anyone who may go dumpster diving like this “surplusandlost online”. I also cannot believe the audacity of this company to so crudely repair and then claim quality and safety of under-tested and inspected products. The next level that I am concerned with is serious climbers or potentially companies purchasing harnesses at £12.99, which equates to roughly $20USD. Climbing equipment just doesn’t come that cheap, and the idea that climbers would be willing to purchase harnesses at that price without a secondary inspection is almost insane to me. The public statement Suffolk Trading Standards put out in response to this event is a good one, especially since it warns climbers of their usage of these products, as well as expressing their concerns over the products.
I think its great that the companies that make these harnesses make the discarded ones unusable in attempt to prevent potentially unsafe equipment from being used. As commendable as those companies are, the people who should really be praised in this situation are the members of the Suffolk Trading Standards committee. It would’ve been all too easy for them to dismiss the reports and not look into anything. Now that I’ve gotten the praise out of the way, I really don’t understand people like the people who run Surplusandlost online. Do they not realize that their efforts to undercut the legitimate retailer could kill someone, or do they just not care? The thought process they’d have to go through to reach that point just seems totally alien to me. Especially since the people their scam is likely to affect are not the ones who could potentially get themselves out of a situation caused by their harness failing. The experienced climbers that could do that would probably know better than to buy and trust climbing gear this cheap but the inexperienced ones, the ones most like to be injured or killed by something going wrong wouldn’t necessarily know any better.
I saw this article on Facebook a few days ago after my friend (who I can always trust for rigging-related articles) posted it with a link to the conversation around these harnesses. I suppose this article just piled into all the others that scream out "inspect your tools before you use them". Yes, this company is sleazy and terrible. But it should be immediately obvious when something wasn't repaired correctly. You can tell when a strap has been stitched back together. And honestly, this wasn't even the scariest article this week. An ill-repaired harness is easy to catch. They can be recalled, confiscated, as they were here. There was an article and discussion early this week about new counterfeit shackles. The original company has no power to confiscate or stop the distribution of all these shackles. The article I'm commenting on addresses the existence of 100 unsafe harnesses. The shackle article was an alert put out into the industry about thousands of bad products that differ subtlety from the origionals. Those shackles do not have the rating/strength of the origionals and they continue to exist and be bought. People can die because of the failures of these products. It's terrifying that this is a problem the industry has to face. And it horrible that anyone has the capacity to intentionally sell an unsafe product for the sake of turning a profit.
I’m going to assume first of all that no one at the retailer intentionally sold these harnesses knowing that they were unsafe and that all deception happened in the third party in France the article mentions. Even with that assumption in mind. Are you fucking serious. I am astonished no one managed to even attempt to investigate the repairs or validate that they were actually completed by someone licensed to do it. It seems like the repairs were pretty obviously not up to par not to mention that they were being sold for a tiny fraction of the retail cost. I really can’t believe the kind of turning a blind eye greed that has to drive people to sell devices that could actually kill someone. It amazes me to no end that rarely do cases like this ever even end up with prison time but more likely the entire blame will be placed on the company not the people who did this.
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