Complaint Review: Creative Playthings

While I was employed with the company managing a store we discovered that for several weeks we had been selling faulty swings from a shipment from overseas (China or Taiwan). These were being sold at all twenty three Creative Playthings locations. The problem was that the plastic had been mixed wrong, and although they looked fine, after several weeks in sunlight they would rip like pizza slices. The company mainly sells large swing sets we would install ourselves, so we had very good records of all of our customers. But rather than contacting all of these customers, and asking them to come in for an exchange.


Donald Hoffman chose the cheaper route of an internal recall and not selling them anymore, but doing nothing to protect kids from already sold swings. When I said that this was not enough because it was endagering kids, he explained that it was simply a financial decision. This was very hard for me to take, and I contacted the CPSC regarding this and they said that although they had several reports of injury from ripping swings, none were serious and they could not subpeana records without a serious accident. Companys are required to self-report, but unless something serious happens they don't get in trouble for not doing so. I moved on from the company shortly therafter, even though I had won awards for highest sales growth etc, this was not the "Family Friendly" company it promoted itself as. In addition on an unrelated topic, the Owner Donald Hoffman has been found by the EEOC to be guilty of racist business practices and fined for the same, of which I was personal witness on many occasion. He also railed against the EEOC as being an organisation whose goal it was to persecute white busineses and their owners, as that is what gives them an excuse to exist.

Afraid of retaliation
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts
U.S.A.