Fitness and exercise equipment company Peloton Interactive has agreed to a voluntary recall following a series of accidents involving its Tread and Tread+ treadmills.
The move comes after regulators issued a consumer warning over reports of accidents involving children and pets being pulled underneath the machines.
The company reportedly signed a recall agreement Thursday with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Under the agreement, Peloton is to halt all sales of its Tread and Tread+ machines. The company is also required to provide customers who want to return their treadmills with a full refund.
Peloton previously refused to accede to the recall recommendation by the agency even after one of its devices resulted in the death of a 6-year-old. The company argued that its products were safe as long as it was "operated as directed." Peloton reversed that decision and its chief executive, John Foley, admitted that resisting was a mistake.
"The decision to recall both products was the right thing to do for Peloton's Members and their families. Peloton made a mistake in our initial response to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's request that we recall the Tread+. We should have engaged more productively with them from the outset," Foley said in a statement accompanying the recall.
CPSC Chairman Robert Adler said it was a "nearly insurmountable" challenge to get approval to issue the initial safety warnings against Peloton's products. He said the agency had to adhere to a statute that required it to negotiate at length with companies before it can issue any public warnings.
"No other federal health and safety agency faces this restriction. It is plain to see how bad it is for consumers that we are so limited in how we can protect them," Adler said.
Adler's statement echoes similar calls made by consumer advocacy groups for Congress to give the agency greater power to enforce consumer rights laws. U.S. Public Interest Research Group said manufacturers have too much control over recall decisions and Congress should act immediately.
"When federal agencies make such recommendations, they often have sufficient reason to believe the product is defective. It's typically in the company's best interest to accommodate," analysts at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business said.
