Imagine being told that the crib your child is sleeping in is unsafe and you should stop using it immediately. 

 

At the end of June, that’s exactly what happened to many parents when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of over 320,000 cribs by Jardine Enterprises.

 

If you’re not a parent, you may not realize all the problems this will set in motion.

 

Let’s assume most parents are worried enough that they will take CPSC’s advice and stop using the crib right away. 

 

So now where is the baby supposed to sleep?

 

Generally speaking, cribs are expensive.  Too expensive to go out and buy another one if you’re going to wait to go through the recall process and get compensated somehow.

 

Many are resorting to using portable baby cribs.  Some kids are okay with them and some kids hate them.

 

So now, besides the problem of a defective crib to deal with, parents also have a potentially unhappy baby and more disturbed sleep at night…for the whole family.

 

You would think that most baby product manufacturers and retailers would know this and do everything they can to expedite the recall process and make the product replacement as easy as possible.  A refund, for example, would be most valuable and helpful to parents.

 

That’s not happening here.  Our story details the complaints and problems people have been facing with the Jardine cribs recall.

 

Here are some practical tips for responding to a product recall:

 

• Read the recall directions carefully and follow them (in the beginning of a recall, this may be a challenge if the directions are unclear, but get as much info as you can).  For example, the Jardine cribs recall site has special instructions for owners of multiple cribs.
  
• Don’t get rid of the recalled item until you are sure you don’t need it to get the replacement.  One consumer got rid of the crib immediately, thinking that a receipt would suffice, but then discovered that they needed to send back parts of the crib. 
  
• Document everything.  Make a copy or print a copy of any forms you return.  Take a photo of everything that you’re sending. This idea came about because one mom said the company told her that she didn’t send one of the required parts, and she said she was 100% sure that she did. 
  
• If possible, return the items using a trackable source…such as UPS.  This is in case the company claims that they never received your package.  (And in this recall, Jardine actually asks people to send the requested materials via UPS.)
  
• Document any calls you make to the company, including who you talked to and when, and what you were told. 
  

 Babies R Us finally posted information on its website for the recall. It clarifies some issues that consumers were getting conflicting information on; it provides a resource for people who can’t wait for a voucher and can’t afford a new crib; and it offers a phone number and email address for consumers who are having problems with the recall.

 

 

KEEPING UP TO DATE ON RECALLS

It’s not easy to keep up to date on recalls.  Email alerts are helpful.  You can sign up for free email alerts for recalls from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Food & Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration (tires and child restraints).   The government website, recalls.gov, has an email alert sign-up page that covers all of those departments. 

 

 

 

One tip about the email alerts:  specify what products you want to be notified about or you might get a lot more emails than you intended. On the recalls.gov sign-up page, you can click the “lists and options” link for both CPSC and FDA, which will allow you to choose exactly what types of recalls you want to know about.