Buckyballs Makers Responds to CPSC Complaint Product: Buckyballs and Buckycubes If you keep up with the news even a little bit, you likely have heard something about the claims that Buckyballs are dangerous and that children have gotten injured after swallowing them. However, there's also a good chance you haven't heard the whole story... Buckyballs and Buckycubes are magnets shaped like small spheres and cubes, respectively. They are small and are sold in packs of a reasonable quantity to allow you to use them to build small sculptures or simply play around with magnetics. They are not labeled as toys and are explicitly labeled as not being intended for children under 14 years of age and as being a choking hazard. For that matter, M&O don't sell their products in stores that only sell toys. Not only that, upon discovering online stores that market their products to children, M&O have asked the online stores to stop and have even filed a complaint to the CPSC... and the CPSC did nothing. Now, the CPSC is taking actions to create additional rules specifically targeting the sale of magnet sets and would require M&O to recall all of their previously sold magnet products. Recently, Maxfield & Oberton (M&O), the manufacturers of Buckyballs and Buckycubes, have formally responded to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) administrative complaint, terming it arbitrary, capricious and wholly without merit. The CPSC's lawsuit seeks, in essence, to shut down M&O by requiring it to halt sales of its primary products, Buckyballs and Buckycubes, and to recall all existing products in consumers' hands. No company could withstand that type of action, and especially not a small one like M&O. M&O denies all allegations that its products are defective or create any unreasonable risk. In fact, we have gone out of our way to minimize any risk through our CPSC-reviewed safety program. There is no applicable rule, regulation, standard or ban with which M&O has failed to comply. CPSC seems intent on creating a new rule to ban our product and put us out of business. The complaint is arbitrary and capricious because it is not based on any reasonable assessment of risk and is clearly inconsistent with the CPSC's own mandatory standards. There are so many truly risky products that the CPSC allows to be marketed with warning labels that we are at a loss to understand how they assess relative risk among the products they oversee. The CPSC itself contributed to the issue by failing to take action against online retailers, as requested repeatedly by M&O, to force them to cease offering ours and similar products for sale to or use by children under 14. After our direct efforts with these retailers were rebuffed, we appealed to the CPSC to take action and they did not. The CPSC staff did not fairly and adequately consider, and the Commissioners may not have been made fully aware of, a comprehensive voluntary corrective action plan which Maxfield and Oberton submitted, at the request of the CPSC staff, the day immediately preceding the CPSC staff's filing of its Complaint. Not only that, but the CPSC staff subsequently included elements of Maxfield and Oberton's voluntary corrective action plan in the CPSC staff's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for a Safety Standard for Magnet Sets, dated August 8, 2012. In summary, M&O believes the CPSC's rush to judgment is both unfair and unprecedented and Maxfield & Oberton will mount a vigorous defense. Buckyballs and Buckycubes are the number one selling brand names in high-powered magnets - recently called America's "fave desk accessory" by the Washington Post (July 13, 2012), and named "the next big thing in cubicle fidgeting" by New York Magazine (July 16-23, 2012). "We are more emboldened than ever to continue fighting this egregious action, and today have posted nearly 2,500 comments related to this proposed ban. We have collected some of the thousands of comments that are being posted online and sent to us, as well as many that were sent directly to the CPSC. We have posted them unfiltered and you will note that almost 99% of these are in favor of our efforts and against taking away this product that is marketed to and enjoyed by millions of adults." - Craig Zucker, Founder and CEO of Maxfield and Oberton. As full disclosure, I should mention that I do own a set of Buckyballs. I have seen the warning labels and I keep mine out of the mouths of small children and pets. I handle them with care and have not had any problems. I am a programmer and a bit of a science geek - the main target demographic of this product. Until M&O's response, I thought the issues were strictly a case of bad parenting (it's the responsibility of the parent, not the child, to read and observe warning labels) - but for M&O to have registered a complaint about certain stores and the CPSC not to have taken action means that parents weren't able to see these warnings until the purchase had arrived in their home. The parents still should check the product for age appropriateness, but their exposure to the warnings is diminished in this case. For more information or to show your support for M&O, visit the related links, below. -Geck0, GameVortex Communications AKA Robert Perkins Related Links: M&O's Official Save Our Balls Campaign Website Responses From the People Website M&O's Official Response to the CPSC Like Buckyballs on Facebook Follow Buckyballs on Twitter Special Offer: Buy 3 Sets of Buckyballs, Get Free Goodies