CPSC Launches Complaint Database
Vol. 798 
March 15, 2011

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Friday unveiled its new online complaint database. The site, www.SaferProducts.gov, for the first time gives consumers a place to log safety complaints about specific products. The new searchable database was authorized by Congress within the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 to offer consumers an opportunity to review complaints about allegedly unsafe products before they buy them.

In the new database, each filed complaint is reviewed by the agency for up to five days, and then manufacturers are given 10 additional days to add a comment on the report, or request a modification, before it is published online in the database. "CPSC stayed on time and on budget in building this new database," said Chairman Inez Tenenbaum. "Through SaferProducts.gov consumers will have open access to product safety information that they have never seen before and the information will empower them to make safer choices."

The database launched on time on Friday, despite a recent House of Representatives effort to shutter the effort entirely. In fact, the House recently approved legislation that would block the CPSC from spending any funds to operate the new product safety database. But the measure is part of the House’s approved budget plan, which is now being debated in the Senate. Last week, Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee released their own version of the budget that specifically called for restoring the CPSC database funding.