GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Counterfeit and fake car seats are a growing concern for child safety specialists. Kelly Miller, the Safe Kids coordinator of Greater Grand Rapids at Corewell Health, said she has seen more parents try to leave the hospital with a new born in one in the last six months than ever before.
"They're just a car seat that parents think is a good deal," said Miller, "It might have a cute pattern or go with a stroller they like, and they purchase it, and come to the hospital or one of our seat checks to find out that it's not a legitimate seat."
A legitimate seat means it meets the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, including crash tested and properly labeled.
The fake car seats are often sold online on sites such as Temu, AliExpress, eBay or even Amazon and Walmart through third party sellers.
Often, the counterfeit seats will be modeled after a well-known brand, possibly at a much cheaper price. It can also come as part of a travel set with a stroller, or be a different brand and not even much cheaper.
"We know when you buy a car seat that is tested and approved to be sold in the U.S. market, it's gonna do its job," said Miller, "If it's used properly and installed properly, it's going to do a pretty good job of making sure that child stays safe in a crash. These online retailers are selling these car seats that we don't know even if it would keep the child in the car. Would it? Would it completely break? We just, we just don't know."
According to Safe Kids, a few red flags if a car seat is fake are:
- Unrecognized manufacturer name with a foreign physical address.
- Non-U.S. telephone number.
- Foreign languages on labels that do not include English.
- Incorrect grammar, spelling or sentence structure.
- Foreign Compliance Labels.
- Missing U.S. mandatory information on labels and in instruction manuals.
"It's very convincing, even for myself," said Miller, "I sometimes have to really look."
The U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213 has very specific labeling requirements. Proper labels include:
- Able to locate the labels on product.
- Label is in English, in letter sizes not smaller than 10-point type.
- Include model name or number.
- Manufacture's name, address and telephone number.
- The statement: "Manufactured In" followed by the month and year of manufacture.
- Place of Manufacture.
- The statement "This child restrain system conforms to all applicable federal motor vehicle safety standards."
- Minimum and maximum weight and height requirements labeled in English imperial (pounds and inches) and metric.
- The statement: "For recall information, call the U.S. Government's Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY:1-800-424-9153, or go to http://www.NHTSA.gov."
- Spelling, grammar and punctuation must be correct.
A full list of approved car seats for sale in the U.S. can be found in a comprehensive list on healthychildren.org/carseatguide.
If you discover a car seat bought is unsafe or fake, let the retailer know and return it if you can. Do not donate the unsafe seat. It should be reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
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