Return of 'killer car seats' - fabric seats spotted at checking event

We’ve been flagging dangerous fabric car seats for more than 10 years. 

We first raised the alarm back in 2014, and made repeated calls to online marketplaces to remove listings for these products because using them could put your child in harms' way.

After our last report in 2019, we thought the message had got through. Unfortunately, we’ve spotted them being sold on eBay, Wish.com, Manomano, Shein, and an online retailer called Little Dreams.

Not only that, but one of these car seats was recently spotted at a car seat checking and fitting event. This is especially concerning as it proves that parents are buying and using these products in their vehicles, believing them to be safe.

Read on for what we’ve found and why they’re so dangerous.

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What's wrong with these car seats?

In 2014, Surrey Trading Standards dubbed these products ‘killer car seats’ for good reason.

When car seat manufacturer Britax crash tested this car seat at 30mph, the test dummy, which represented a three-year-old child, was flung through the windscreen as the straps securing the seat came loose.

If this had been a real child, it would have resulted in life-threatening injuries.

Concerns around these seats include:

• Age range suitability - many listings claim these seats are suitable for newborns.
• Seats are forward-facing only, but this is illegal for children under 9kg (for R44 seats) or 15 months (for R129 seats).
• Complete lack of side impact protection.
• The waist section of the harness sits across the child’s stomach - the softest part - which could cause internal damage in a crash.
• The harness should undo via one centrally located red buckle - these seats require unclipping at two points.
• They have no red or green seatbelt guides to demonstrate where the vehicle seatbelt should be threaded through.
• There are no orange labels on the seats to indicate which regulation they are approved to (R44 or R129).

They fold up compactly and are marketed as a practical solution for parents. What’s more, the seats are all priced extremely lowly compared to a typical child car seat, with some as cheap as £12.50. A typical infant carrier car seat usually costs from £80 or more for seats that are designed to last a few years.

Our concern is that in this cost of living crisis, parents trying to save money will buy these seats as they’re so cheap and think that, as they’re being sold through UK sites, they must be safe.

What has our investigation found?

We were contacted by Good Egg Safety - a community interest company that provides safety advice and training in a range of areas, including car seat fitting.

It trains local public services, such as the police, midwives or health visitors, in car seat laws and fitting. They were alerted by a member of Warwickshire police that one of these seats had been spotted during a car seat fitting and checking event.

PC Rachael Wonfor from Warwickshire Police said: ‘As a recently accredited child car seat check officer, I was shocked to find at a checking event I hosted in Rugby, a high number of fitting errors and inappropriate seats for children’s sizes.

‘However, I was not prepared for the frightening contraptions fitted in one vehicle I checked. They were a harness-type system intended to replace a child car seat to save space. The parent was of the understanding that these were perfectly legal as they could purchase them online.

‘Ultimately, these harnesses were not only illegal but would offer a child no protection in the event of a crash. I was able to educate this parent and ensure their children travelled safely by advising them of this dangerous product.

‘This leaves me wondering, how many other versions of this product are being sold and used daily, with precious children’s lives relying on them?’

Once Good Egg Safety had alerted us to this, we checked online and found many identical or similar products being sold on eBay, Manomano, Shein, Wish.com and Littledreams.co.uk.

Best baby or child car seats: make sure you use a car seat that has been through our rigorous tests and you can rely on

The law on child car seats

The law on child car seats states that only EU-approved seats can be used in the UK.

You should use a child car seat that: 

• Conforms to the United Nations standard, R129 (i-Size is a part of R129) or ECE Regulation 44/03 or ECE 44/04 (this is marked on a label on the seat).
• Is suitable for the child's weight or height (if buying an i-Size seat).
• Is correctly fitted according to the manufacturer's instructions.

We bought a fabric car seat from Littledreams.co.uk and it lacked any form of labelling or instructions on how to install it. When we’ve bought fabric seats from other online marketplaces in the past, they’ve also lacked any labels.

Janis James MBE, chief executive of Good Egg Safety, says: ‘We are deeply concerned about the rise in illegal child car seats being sold online - seats that do not meet the required R129 or R44 safety standards.

‘These products are promoted with glowing reviews, but they are nothing short of death traps. 

‘This is a real and present danger. We urge everyone to buy only from reputable high street retailers and always look for the orange EU approval label.

‘No bargain is worth the life of a child. Please check before you buy.’

How to buy a safe child car seat

If you need to buy a baby or child car seat, follow these tips:

• Check that the car seat has a label with either ECE R44-03, ECE R44-04 or ECE R129, which shows it's legal to be sold on the UK market.
• Buy your car seat from a retailer that can provide advice and help you fit the car seat correctly into your car.
• Never buy a second-hand car seat, as you can't tell whether it has been in any crashes just by looking at it. There could be internal damage, which could compromise the structural safety and isn't obvious from the outside.
• Car seats should come with instructions that are written in clear English.
• If a car seat seems extremely cheap, the price is probably too good to be true.

For more tips on buying a child car seat that's safe and durable, read our guide on how to buy the right child car seat.

What the online retailers told us

An eBay spokesperson said: ‘Consumer safety is a top priority for eBay. We work diligently to prevent prohibited listings through seller compliance audits, block filter algorithms for unsafe items, and AI-supported monitoring by in-house specialists, who work closely with regulators and Trading Standards. 

'We swiftly removed these listings and notified buyers, and we continue to strengthen our preventative measures.'

A spokesperson for Shein told us: 'We take product safety very seriously and we are committed to offering safe and reliable products to our customers. This product category is banned across Shein sites globally.  In this situation, the seller had undertaken specific and targeted measures to avoid detection, in violation of our code of conduct. Upon being notified of the non-compliant product listing, Shein dealt with the situation immediately and removed the product listing. 

'Shein vendors are required to comply with our code of conduct and stringent safety standards, and must also abide by the relevant laws and regulations of the markets where we operate. Shein has taken action against the seller of the product in question according to the penalties set out in our guidelines. The seller now also faces heightened scrutiny, undergoing additional checking for any and all products they have listed. Shein continues to invest in and improve our processes to strengthen product compliance.'

Little Dreams did not wish to provide a comment but assured us that it is committed to providing customers with high-quality, safe, and legally compliant products at the best possible prices. It told us it would immediately review the product in question and remove the listing from their website, and conduct a thorough internal investigation to understand how this occurred. 

It said it would be reviewing its current processes to strengthen checks before launching any new products, and ensure that all appropriate disclaimers are included on product descriptions. 

At the time of going to press, we had not received a response from Wish or Manomano, and the websites had not removed the links for the product listings we alerted them to.

Sue Davies, Which? head of consumer protection policy, said: 'It's appalling that these deadly car seats have reappeared on online marketplaces. The fact that it has been more than a decade since we first reported these tells us that online marketplaces won’t take responsibility for the products being sold through their platforms without tough new laws and enforcement.

'Children’s lives may be at risk, especially among disadvantaged households, until online marketplaces are forced to take responsibility for these cheap but deadly car seats. 

'The Product Regulation and Metrology Act is a welcome start for fixing online marketplaces, but secondary regulations are needed to impose legal responsibilities on online marketplaces, with tough enforcement for those that fall short.'