A couple of weeks ago I placed my first order with Oriental Trading, a company which specializes in selling small toys and crafts in relatively large quantities. My moms get their catalogs, and I’ve often browsed through them, but I never had much interest in buying from them until I decided that I wanted to get the kids some self-adhesive “jewels” to decorate stuff with. I found them at their website and ordered them along with other stuff.
Well, I received them today and with them an invoice that noted that the jewels “contain a chemical known to the State of California to cause Cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm”. WTF? This in a product intended for children!? Of course, they don’t disclose such important fact on the product webpage – though they do warn about they being choking hazards. The invoice does not specify what the chemical is, so there is no way of ascertaining how high the danger is, or what other consequences exposure to such chemical might have.
I have no doubt that the company will allow me to return the product, but they don’t refund shipping charges so it’s impractical to actually mail it back. I will call them tomorrow and complain, but meanwhile you are warned against buying anything from Oriental Trading. I know I definitely won’t ever again.
Update
A costumer service representative from Oriental Trading contacted me after seeing this blog posting and I had a nice talk to her. Basically their position is that as only California requires that they state when a product they sell is cancerous or can lead to reproductive or birth defects, they don’t need to include the warning on their product pages. They seem to have little worry about the fact that regardless of the law, those products are potentially harmful. The representative tried to make the case that prop 65 is overly broad – which indeed may be – and told me how many products, including electric cables and hair irons have similar warnings. I responded that I don’t let my children play with those products.
Of greater importance is that she stated that many of their items include substances known to increase the risk of cancer or reproductive defects, something which they will only disclose on those invoices sent to California. So, indeed, it seems that it’s safer to stay away from their products in general.
The customer service representative could not tell me what substance in particular is in the self-adhesive jewels that can cause cancer. She will try to research it for me. That is important, as without knowing what the substance is there is no way of ascertaining its danger level.
Bye not buy