Amazon Let My 4-Year-Old Niece Buy Deadly Weapons

For the past couple of years, I’ve been working on a film about Amazon called The Great Amazon Heist. I studied and scrutinised different parts of Amazon’s business – for example, I turned bottles of Amazon drivers’ urine into a #1 bestselling drink – in search of interesting ways to explain how it operates. Of course, there’s the stories around the company’s alleged mistreatment of workers, its murky tax practices and the unfathomable wealth of its founder, Jeff Bezos. But one part of the company that I’ve found people tend to have a real confidence in is the platform itself.

I get it – it’s an extremely convenient and intuitive website that provides access to a library of items no other retailer can rival. But the experiment I did around selling bottles of piss as an energy drink made me curious: What else is being sold on there and how safe is it?

I contact Moira Weigel, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, who’s been investigating Amazon’s platform for years. She tells me about extreme examples, like in Virginia, USA, where they found “37 food colourings for sale that had these two kinds of poison in them; 30 of which came from one place in China”. After Amazon were informed about this by Virginia’s District Attorney, it took them a month to take the listings down.

“The top selling one sold 266 units a day and stayed up for a month after they made the complaint. So that’s over 8,000 people a month buying that food colouring,” she says. Weigel still shops on Amazon from time to time, but her general advice is this: Don’t buy anything you would put on your skin, consume, or that your children can use.

So I started to wonder: Are all parents were as careful as Moira? To test it out, I draft in two of the most twisted individuals you’re likely to meet: My two nieces.

I want to see if they can help me with some shopping. Specifically, whether they would be able to order a range of dangerous items from Amazon – that should be age verified – via the Alexa assistant on an Amazon Echo device. When the Echo Dot launched in 2016, Mr Bezos himself said it would be “easier than ever to add Echo and Alexa to any or every room in your home.” So let’s see how that could go.

Now, here’s the law that specifies exactly which items, according to Trading Standards, should be controlled by age restriction. It includes categories like “alcohol”, “dangerous chemicals - cigarette lighter fuel, glue, aerosols”, and “dangerous weapons - air weapons, crossbows, knives” to name a few. Another clear rule that I’m following here is that every single item I order should be both sold and fulfilled by Amazon, not a third-party seller, so it is solely their responsibility.

So we’re gonna buy, for example, this knife, multiple times.

This scalpel, around 15 times.

These loose blades, no cartridge, loads of times. There’s seems to be no age verification. In fact, they’re listed as “Amazon’s choice”.

Also some crossbow heads.

And a pruning saw that’s so large that Trading Standards will later tell me it should be considered as a weapon.

Ok, so those items, plus around 10 more, make up my shopping list. And now I’ll move onto the law.

I speak to Paul Miloseski-Reid, a lead officer at Trading Standards, and he agrees that every item I’ve chosen should involve age verification. I explain my plan with my nieces, and he agrees that it’s clever, but adds that – in the eyes of the law – it doesn’t need to be a child making the orders, it could be me or your grandfather. In short: If a seller doesn’t age verify the buyer of an item that is on the list, it’s an illegal sale.

He tells me that for every purchase, there’s three opportunities for age verification. There’s one at the point of purchase, one at the moment of packaging, and, finally, one at the moment the item is delivered. That means for every purchase, there’s also three opportunities for trading standards offences. With Amazon’s system, for everything to function, it should be age verified at the point of purchase. That message can then be transmitted to those packaging the item in the warehouse to use respective codes that signal it’s an item that needs age verified. The final link in the chain, the delivery person, will only know it is a package that requires age verification if it states so on the outside.

In short: Age verification at the point of purchase on Amazon’s website is vital.

For this experiment, I’ve set up a brand-new Amazon account. There’s been no verification through the use of a credit card and I’ve never entered my age and details. These are the first items I’ve ever ordered from it.

Then, with the Echo device, I’ve left it on the default factory settings it arrives with. Again, there has been no age verification at any stage.

To start, I begin a test purchase for a bottle of vodka and it immediately asks me for me for age verification to complete it. Fantastic. Now let’s see how it does with my nieces and their shopping list.

They start with the stainless-steel carpenter knife. It soon arrives through the letter box.

Then the pruning saw, which has the Amazon logo right there on the side of it. It arrives, once again, with no age verification.

Miloseski-Reid from Trading Standards tells me that for each offence committed, there could be a £5,000 fine – that’s nothing for a company the size of Amazon, so we do a bit more shopping. Now, I set the default delivery address to an Amazon locker, making age verification completely impossible, and we order a cacophony of items. In fact, Penny calls it a “knife party”.

In total, my nieces and I order 67 items that we believe should’ve been age verified – and the officer from Trading Standards agrees. That’s three offences per order, and 67 orders. Three multiplied by 67 is 201. And 201 separate £5,000 offences equals… A £1 million fine for Amazon. Potentially, at least. So we leave it with Trading Standards, and take our knife party elsewhere.

Amazon is the biggest marketplace in the world, and while many of us feel a discomfort about certain business practices of theirs, we have a confidence in their platform. The work of Eve, Penny and I suggests that maybe we need to rethink that trust we have; well, unless you want to have a knife party of your own.

In response to this, Amazon said the majority of products we bought didn’t need age verification, but admitted that four of them did, and that they’ve now been reclassified. They said: “We take our responsibility to carry out age verification extremely seriously.” They also told me that customers can also turn off voice purchasing on Alexa or use a kids-only option with safeguards and restrictions on voice purchasing – and the account holder needs to have their age verified if buying something requiring requiring a minimum age over Alexa.

Fair play, Amazon. I see you’ve taken multiple items from the knife party down. And I take it very seriously too. So, to help out, I think I’ll spend 10 minutes making a new shopping list of other items I’ve found which are sold and/or fulfilled by Amazon that also don’t currently have age verification on them.

Like this pack of blades that can be sent straight to a nearby locker.

An “Amazon’s Choice” set of five inch scraper blades.

A spray paint containing solvents.

This butane gas refill (extremely flammable), which is sold by a different company but dispatched by Amazon.

This garden saw, which is, once again, technically classed as a weapon by Trading Standards because of its large size.

This tool kit containing a scalpel, which can be delivered to Amazon lockers and is promoted as “Amazon’s Choice”.

Yet more blades with no age verification that can be dispatched to Amazon lockers.

And finally, more blades, same again.

When Amazon was approached for comment, they speedily removed all the aforementioned products pending investigation. “We take our responsibility in relation to the sale of all age restricted items - including bladed products – extremely seriously,” a spokesperson said. “If we’re made aware of any instances where the controls and checks have not been correct at any stage, we investigate and take action.” Looks like I’ll have to assemble my shopping list another time.

The Great Amazon Heist is now available to stream on Channel 4.