Tag: recall management

Fake product recalls – unlike other claims of so-called “fake news” – are exceedingly rare. But they are not without precedence. Just last year, a car dealership in Washington, D.C., was heavily fined by the Federal Trade Commission for sending fake recall warnings to car owners in the hopes of drumming up more business for the dealership’s repair shop. The dealership sent out bright red mailers that mimicked official recall notices from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

ACConventional wisdom suggests that automation and robotics should make products safer by removing the potential for human error adding more precision to production. But some industries are finding that automation is a double-edged sword. The food industry, in particular, has experienced a string of product recalls whose origins can be traced back to automated systems. Take factory farming, for example. Food Quality & Safety Magazine

PA swift and thorough product recall is the best way to mitigate any legal liability risk from a defective product, removing inventory from the market before problems become pervasive. But in many cases, product defects or dangers aren’t discovered until after harm has occurred and liability cannot be avoided. Product liability laws enable consumers to sue those parties responsible when a product causes property damage, injury or death.

Most consumers are aware that it’s illegal for retailers to sell products that have been recalled—the large fines resulting from these violations, often totaling millions of dollars, tend to receive a fair amount of media coverage. After all, intuitively it makes sense that retailers would be responsible for ensuring that their customers don’t go home with potentially dangerous or hazardous products.

According to the Census Bureau, an average of 11.2% of the population changes their address annually, which means that a huge number of automobiles require updates to their registered addresses every year. Further complicating this issue is the fact that roughly sixty million vehicles are transferred from one owner to another every year (seventeen million new and forty-three million used). For these reasons and many more, access to accurate vehicle owner information is a serious challenge for auto manufacturers.