Warning: Fake Car Seats Popping Up in Cities Across the Country

A hospital in Idaho is warning parents about a new trend that could truly be the difference between life and death.  Officials at St. Luke’s Children Hospital reported coming across two knock-off car seats, both in the last week.  

These car seats were labeled as name brand but were in fact made of knock off materials and were not regulated.  Officials report that in these cases, the seats were purchased online making it extremely difficult to trace the real manufacturer and prove legitimacy.

Brittany Joplin, a car seat technician at the hospital is also a part of St. Luke’s Pediatric Education and Prevention Programs and is trying to spread the word to as many parents as possible about these knock off seats. 

“It’s pretty terrifying,” Joplin said. “There’s no way a child would survive a crash in a seat like this.

Joplin said she came to the realization that these seats were phony after examining the seats in person, and finding they were made from plastic.  Prior to discharging new mothers from the hospital with a newborn, St Luke’s completes a routine car seat check.  It was during one of these checks that Joplin found one of the phony car seats.  The seat was ordered from Amazon as a gift from another member of the family.

The seat lacked the standard warning/safety stickers that are typically found on most car seats, there was no chest clip (an item on all seats in the US) and the harness wouldn’t properly fit on the training baby when placed in the seat. She also noticed the harness adjuster of the counterfeit seat was situated at the bottom and used a loose piece of metal, which would never pass United States federal safety standards.

For those parents who still want to purchase their car seat online there are some tips and tricks to tell the real from the fake.  Real car seats will have an owners’ manual and card attached to the harness.  Fake seats usually won’t come with a manual or registration card either.  If the manual is in jumbled English, take this as a warning sign.  Real seats will also always have warning labels of some kind to let the consumer know when the seat was manufactured.  

Another tell-tale sign lies in the chest straps.  These straps should not fasten to the base of the seat and the metal clip should be sturdy and not malleable at all.

 For bargain hunters, online may be the best place to find a car seat in the price range you’re looking for.  Just keep in mind there are dangers to shopping this way and it’s always best when you can purchase your car seat from a reputable source.

SOURCE: Café Mom