The latest product recall from Which?
Dangerous baby swim floats for sale on online marketplaces.
Inflatables that could pose a risk of injury and drowning for sale on online marketplaces including Amazon, eBay and Vinted.
A snapshot investigation has uncovered 171 inflatable swim floats for infants for sale by third party sellers on online marketplaces that could be deadly.
Many of these appear to match products in official safety alerts, or posed the same risks, begging the question of why marketplaces continue to list them when we uncovered them easily. We found:
Swim floats with canopies that could capsize, or risk falls, injury and drowning.
Inflatable neck floats that may risk neurological damage and drowning
25 floats that appear to be the same as a float involved in the drowning death of a 2 year old in the US.
We believe these products would not meet any safety standards. Marketplaces should be well aware of the dangers these floats pose, and yet we found them for sale by using simple search techniques including reverse image matches and keywords.
Find out how to avoid dangerous products online with our detailed guide. https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/online-shopping/article/online-shopping/unsafe-products-online-anSCx2M2Jooo
Floats with canopies that risk capsizing and drowning
There are at least 14 alerts for swim floats with canopies on the UK government’s recall site, plus another voluntary recall notice from TikTok shop for the entire product category. https://www.gov.uk/product-safety-alerts-reports-recalls?keywords=tiktokIn windy conditions, floats with canopies may be lifted or tipped over, creating risks of falls, capsizing, entrapment, or drowning.
We found 115 floats with canopies for sale across Aliexpress, Amazon, eBay, OnBuy and Shein. These included products that appeared to be identical or pose the same risks as those in safety alerts issued by the OPSS.
We found two unicorn floats with canopies for sale on Amazon Marketplace that appeared very similar to a unicorn float recalled from Tiktok shop in December 2025. Both were new on Amazon in the last month and one was dispatched by Amazon.
further concern of these products is that toy-like designs could lead to complacency by parents around water. A listing on eBay for a shark design float shows a baby alone in the water in the float while the parents sit on sun loungers by the side of the pool.
We also found several listings on eBay and Aliexpress for a float with a car design that matches another image used in the voluntary recall by TikTok Shop. We believe this product shouldn’t be for sale thanks to the toy-like design and attachments, and the overhead canopy.
Amazon AI chat warns against floats sold by Amazon
Another float for sale via Amazon features a shark design and canopy. We asked Amazon’s AI chatbot Rufus if it was safe to use on a windy day, and it told us that there would be a ‘significant safety concern’ on windy days as the canopy acts as a sail making it difficult to control.
We then questioned if the float was similar to any recalled products and it told us that we needed to be aware of an ‘important safety concern’ as multiple similar baby pool floats with canopies have been recalled by UK and US safety authorities, due to ‘serious drowning and injury risks’. It listed recent recalls, including the ‘Relaxing Baby’ float linked to a child’s death in the US. It concluded that it couldn’t recommend the product because of these safety risks. The shark float that Amazon’s own AI told us not to buy because of safety concerns remained for sale on Amazon Marketplace for several weeks.
Unsafe neck floats that risk drowning, suffocation and neck injury
Baby neck floats fasten around an infant’s neck and suspend them inert in the water. International consumer organisations, including Which?, and ANEC (The European consumer voice in standardization) working with ergonomists, pediatricians and product safety experts found that baby neck floats present a risk of drowning and suffocation, strain, and neck injury.
Industry bodies including the Swimming Teachers Association (STA) have also issued warnings about neck floats. Kaylë Brightwell, Director of Education at the STA, told us they do ‘not endorse or recommend the use of baby neck floats.’ In 2017, STA and Birthlight jointly published a report raising concerns about their use and the potential risks they pose to babies and the organisations continue to warn against them. ‘Babies should be closely supported in the water at all times, with constant and active adult supervision’, Brightwell told us, ‘but devices that support a baby by the neck do not align with this approach, and no flotation device should ever be considered a substitute for close adult supervision and physical support in the water.’
A recent voluntary recall notice issued by TikTok Shop, published on the government’s OPSS recall safety alert site, states that baby neck floats present a risk of drowning as they may place inappropriate pressure on the infant’s neck and may restrict normal movement or airway positioning.
Consumer organisations, industry bodies and even a marketplace agree that these products shouldn’t be for sale. But we found 33 items for sale across OnBuy (5) and Vinted (28). Several listings included images that matched the images in the category recall issued by TikTok. Some of the neck floats for sale via OnBuy had been removed at the time of writing, but had been live since at least October 2025 based on the reviews.
Find out more:second-hand and pre-loved baby products, what’s safe? https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/second-hand-baby-products-whats-safe-and-whats-not-am64b2n8vWhI
Float responsible for toddler death for sale in UK
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) warned consumers in April to stop using a float from ‘Relaxing Baby’ – sold on marketplaces including Amazon US and eBay US – immediately, following the death of a two-year-old child who was using the hazardous float. The floats could flip over and/or submerge the occupant underwater, posing a risk of drowning to infants and toddlers.
Separately two safety alerts were issued in the UK by Trading Standards for an almost identical looking float sold on Amazon in 2024, although the concern with that model was the potentially dangerous detachable canopy.
We found 14 floats with the brand name Relaxing Baby that appear identical to the CPSC alert – 1 on OnBuy and 13 on Vinted. A further 11 (1 on Aliexpress and 10 on Vinted) appeared identical but carried a different brand name or no brand name.
While there isn’t a UK alert for the same float with the brand ‘Relaxing Baby’, Which? believes that if online marketplaces really consider safety to be a priority, they should be on top of safety alerts for other sites and countries and actively taking down dangerous products.