A segment in tonight's episode of Channel 4's investigative series Dispatches exposes the sale of uncertified budget climbing gear online - carabiners in particular - via the shopping platform Temu, a Chinese app with over half a billion users worldwide. Throughout the cost of living crisis, Temu's bargain prices have attracted an estimated 15 million users in the UK to download its app. The unregulated gear market is not limited to Temu: UKC contributor Paul Sagar previously uncovered the circulation of uncertified - and hence potentially unsafe - climbing gear on Amazon.
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In 'The Truth about Temu', Dispatches examines the app's cut-price safety equipment, electrical and medical devices and clothing to investigate 'whether these bargain prices are too good to be true, exploring whether some of their products are made with high levels of harmful materials and whether other items, such as climbing safety equipment, are accurately advertised as holding recognised safety certificates.'
The programme involved input from the BMC's Technical Committee and features BMC/UIAA Safety Commission delegate Nick Galpin (UKC user galpinos). Nick told UKC:
"Journalist Ellie Flynn found carabiners on Temu that (apparently) held the UIAA safety label, so they got in touch with both the BMC and the UIAA, which led to my being interviewed."
The carabiners examined did not have a manufacturer's mark on them, making it impossible to determine their provenance. In order for climbing equipment brands to be granted permission to use the UIAA safety label, it must contain a manufacturer's mark clearly on the products.
"The UIAA would not have their mark, ever, on a carabiner or certified product that did not hold the manufacturer's mark," Nick said.
In response to the investigation, a Temu spokesperson told Channel 4: "Temu takes the safety of products sold by third-party merchants …very seriously... We have a comprehensive vetting, monitoring, and enforcement process to ensure that products meet platform rules and regulatory requirements. We immediately remove any product listings in question pending a review.
In the case of the carabiners... while the seller had provided the UIAA certificate, [they] failed to clearly mark the name or trademark of the manufacturer or supplier on the products. We will… allow the resumption of sales only after this issue is corrected."
Advice from Nick to stay safe:
1. Buy from reputable retailers and from reputable brands. If price is an issue, most reputable brands have a budget range that is not much more than the uncertified products being sold on these online marketplaces.
2. As a minimum, PPE sold in the UK must have a CE mark and the 4-digit code after it that denotes the notified body.
3. All safety label holders are on the UIAA website, so if something seems fishy, check!
How to watch - Channel 4, 8 pm, Thursday 30th May, or replay on Channel 4 On Demand.
Comments
Apart from the obvious safety issues, the unfortunate side effect of reporting things like this back to Temu is it helps them to improve their forgeries! They now know that they have to put a manufacturer's mark alongside a UIAA mark for them to better pass off as genuine. The article doesn't say (presumably so as not to post spoilers for the programme) if the carabiners actually passed a pull test or not. Were they, in fact, safe, or dangerous?
£6.79 what could possibly go wrong?
In this case, improving this would mean legitimately passing the standards. The branding is important for the reasons Nick says. Temu aren't passing off gear as some other manufacturer, they're not branding it at all, which makes tracing its origin (and hence production quality and certification) difficult.
Whether they were actually strong enough isn't really the point - the point is that consumers can't have confidence in this unless brands go through the proper process.
I use Temu. I’ve never seen any climbing kit with any certification or standards in product descriptions but I wasn’t in the market for that kit. I don’t think the product descriptions are written to claim anything fraudulently but I can totally understand how naive punters could be caught out. I got my son a new pair of climbing shoes for £25 the other day. They seem fine.
They're going to want to cinch that in a bit.