An investigation by the Guardian reports that illegal weapons including stun guns, pepper spray pistols and knuckledusters are routinely sold on the Amazon UK website. You can read the report in full here.
The items listed were being sold by third-party sellers, possibly using FBA, on Amazon.co.uk but some of the items were not just against Amazon’s listing policies but also UK law.
Needless to say, all the items have since been removed and Amazon issued this statement: “Sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don’t will be subject to action including potential removal of their account. The products in question are no longer available.”
Obviously, keeping tabs on the multitude of listings on Amazon is a herculean task and it’s inevitable that a few bits will fall through the net, when it comes to weapons like this, you’ve got to wonder how Amazon was so remiss.
8 Responses
That’s not a torch, it’s a lightsaber 😉
Is it illegal to buy these weapons or just to sell them? Because if the Guardian has indeed bought them, and if they are indeed illegal, surely they can be expecting a call from the rozzers sometime soon?
When is Amazon going to stop all these Chinese sellers evading VAT on these weapons. I can’t compete!
No system of monitoring is perfect — at least not one that permits the vast amount of legitimate trade.
The task is herculean. Sure you can run searches and monitor for stuff, but that’s always fighting last year’s war. Search for guns and you’ll find knives are listed. Search for guns and knives and it will be shuriken.
When it was pointed out, they did the right thing. Do we really want to be encouraging the marketplaces to be more draconian by being the shrill mob? I think not.
Amazon are now so big these things get fudged and kicked into the long grass
if it were you or I we would be off to Gbay not Ebay