Featured Mom Business: Recall Guardian

Recall Guardian Provides Consumers with Peace of Mind.

Recall Guardian is a new service designed to help Consumers contend with the current ‘recall pandemic’.  by four Canadians. (Self-described ‘ordinary consumers’ – Kriston Ware, Anthony Horton, Bohdan Baluta and Tara Baluta).

"We started noticing the incredible number of product safety recalls this year. Not only in toys, but every product the average Consumer uses – vehicles, home appliances, food and beverage, etc.,"  explains Ware:  "What was alarming was when we started really digging into it…"

What did Ware and his partners find? There were over 1200 distinct product recalls in 2007 in North America – representing more than 25 Million products!   

"What is distressing is the approach of the manufacturers. They generally do the ‘bare minimum’ in alerting Consumers. They will notify the retailers and the media – but the media is swamped with recall safety notices – they can’t possibly report on all of them. The average Canadian is aware of only 10-20% of safety recalls and the average Canadian household has approximately 5 items that have been recalled for serious safety reasons."

Ware suggests that the media and, believe it or not, the Federal Government are making real efforts to be responsible and communicate recall information as effectively as possible. Health Canada has made investments in communication and the media has been drawing attention to the dangerous Recall Epidemic that North American Consumers are just now recognizing.

Ware claims the responsibility lies with the manufacturers of the products we consume. "Think about the growing awareness of tainted products from China (toothpaste that will kill you, lead-laden toys, home appliances that explode). Well, everyone turns and lashes out at China. Meanwhile, it is North American manufacturers that have outsourced their production to China. And what do they do when a product they have put on the market starts harming people?  They issue a couple of media releases, inform the retailers and offer to replace the products. Then they sit back and say ‘we’ve done what the law requires’ and rely on the media and government agencies to do the rest."

Recall Guardian was founded in order to put Recall information directly in the hands of Consumers, immediately and in every product category. It was the intention to make the product available and affordable to everyone, so it was priced at only $4.95 per month. The service enables members to pick their product categories and types and then receive recall alerts by phone, text message or email. 

"Let me give you an example of why this works," explains Ware: "in the first week of December, over 1.2 million vans and SUV’s were recalled by Ford and another 600,000 by Chrysler. Why? Not minor issues but serious problems that could cause injury or death. Did most of these vehicle owners receive a phone call from these manufactures telling them about the safety issue and recall? Did they hear it in the media?  Not likely. However, those Recall Guardian subscribers who owned Ford or Chrysler vans and SUV’s were notified immediately."

"We are not a big multi-national firm – just a small team of Consumers, with some technical and business experience.  But we recognize the need for proactive communication of critical information that has to do with the health and safety of individuals and families. So, we chose to take action and launch a service that everyone could access and improve their chances of not being harmed by a dangerous product."

Find out more at www.recallguardian.com.