LittleFarm
New member
Hi Everyone! This is my first post to this forum, so I'm apologizing ion advance if I do something wrong. It will be a bit of a novel because there has been a lot going on with this mess of a recall.
I noticed there was a thread started regarding the Via recall in Canada. The recall has been a bit of a debacle, so I wanted to post here because I know how many moms come looking for information and TOMY (the parent company) is doing a poor job of providing any.
So just briefly, Transport Canada issued a full recall of these seat on December 19th. http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert…/…/42973r-eng.php
Further investigating through Transport Canada revealed that the seats did not meet the 'new' 2012 standards, and in addition the recline has the potential to shift positions in a crash causing the seat to become loose. We were told by TC that Car seat manufacturers were informed of the changes in 2010 and had two years to become compliant. TOMY flat out ignored the new standards. No seats that did not meet the new standards were supposed to be sold after January 2012, but many people (myself included) purchased them as late as Summer 2014.
OK, so back to the recall. This is a voluntary recall, which means that TOMY agreed to contact the registered users of the seat and advertise the recall. Had they not agreed, it would have become a Mandatory recall and Health Canada would have taken out ad space to find people who owned the seats and then billed TOMY for their time and expenses. A voluntary recall required the company to inform consumers of the recall with 24 hours of the recall being posted (the company is informed a couple of weeks before the recall comes out).
Here is a breakdown of what has been going on (or rather what hasn't):
Dec 19 - Recall issued by Transport Canada. Consumers may or may not know about it, but those who find out start contacting TOMY customer service. They are told to leave their information and they will be contacted back shortly.
They did not send out letters to their registered users, and did not post any recall information on their website or social media sites.
Januaury: (Not sure of the exact date as I did not get a call) a website is set up to handle the recall. The website states that the seats were compliant when they were manufactured, but new standards were implemented and the seats don't comply because of TC "Interpretation" of the new standards (greatly downplaying the actual situation). Consumers are instructed to take pictures of the seat and then cease use, and told they will be contacted in 5-7 days.
In my case, I was only contacted 15 business days later, and only after calling repeatedly to harass them. Some people are still waiting, and have been for a month.
The compensation is either a $50, $82 dollar or $100 voucher for the TOMY website (no affiliate sites). The voucher needs to be used in one shot, and free shipping will apply only if the exact amount (or less) of the voucher is used. Many of us feel this "compensation" is insulting as A) the seats cost much more than that and B) we don't need toys, we need car seats.
TOMY has still made NO effort to inform consumers of this recall. Transport Canada has been made aware, and the issue has been passed to Health Canada who will likely issue some heavy fines. At this point TOMY is breaking a number of Canadian laws.
This is the same seat that is still being sold in the U.S. as far as I can tell.
There is a FB group set up to discuss the details of this recall. A class action suit is being investigated at this point.
If anyone would like more information please let me know and I will send you link to the FB group.
Thank you, and I apologize for the lengthly post!
I noticed there was a thread started regarding the Via recall in Canada. The recall has been a bit of a debacle, so I wanted to post here because I know how many moms come looking for information and TOMY (the parent company) is doing a poor job of providing any.
So just briefly, Transport Canada issued a full recall of these seat on December 19th. http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert…/…/42973r-eng.php
Further investigating through Transport Canada revealed that the seats did not meet the 'new' 2012 standards, and in addition the recline has the potential to shift positions in a crash causing the seat to become loose. We were told by TC that Car seat manufacturers were informed of the changes in 2010 and had two years to become compliant. TOMY flat out ignored the new standards. No seats that did not meet the new standards were supposed to be sold after January 2012, but many people (myself included) purchased them as late as Summer 2014.
OK, so back to the recall. This is a voluntary recall, which means that TOMY agreed to contact the registered users of the seat and advertise the recall. Had they not agreed, it would have become a Mandatory recall and Health Canada would have taken out ad space to find people who owned the seats and then billed TOMY for their time and expenses. A voluntary recall required the company to inform consumers of the recall with 24 hours of the recall being posted (the company is informed a couple of weeks before the recall comes out).
Here is a breakdown of what has been going on (or rather what hasn't):
Dec 19 - Recall issued by Transport Canada. Consumers may or may not know about it, but those who find out start contacting TOMY customer service. They are told to leave their information and they will be contacted back shortly.
They did not send out letters to their registered users, and did not post any recall information on their website or social media sites.
Januaury: (Not sure of the exact date as I did not get a call) a website is set up to handle the recall. The website states that the seats were compliant when they were manufactured, but new standards were implemented and the seats don't comply because of TC "Interpretation" of the new standards (greatly downplaying the actual situation). Consumers are instructed to take pictures of the seat and then cease use, and told they will be contacted in 5-7 days.
In my case, I was only contacted 15 business days later, and only after calling repeatedly to harass them. Some people are still waiting, and have been for a month.
The compensation is either a $50, $82 dollar or $100 voucher for the TOMY website (no affiliate sites). The voucher needs to be used in one shot, and free shipping will apply only if the exact amount (or less) of the voucher is used. Many of us feel this "compensation" is insulting as A) the seats cost much more than that and B) we don't need toys, we need car seats.
TOMY has still made NO effort to inform consumers of this recall. Transport Canada has been made aware, and the issue has been passed to Health Canada who will likely issue some heavy fines. At this point TOMY is breaking a number of Canadian laws.
This is the same seat that is still being sold in the U.S. as far as I can tell.
There is a FB group set up to discuss the details of this recall. A class action suit is being investigated at this point.
If anyone would like more information please let me know and I will send you link to the FB group.
Thank you, and I apologize for the lengthly post!
