Target Halts Sales Of Hoverboards Amid Safety Concerns: Report

Target Corp. has “paused” the sale of hoverboards on its website and is offering to accept returns, Mashable reported Monday. Just last week, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) declared almost all hoverboards to be unsafe.

Target offered hoverboards only online, with none sold in its brick-and-mortar outlets, according to the retailer. If a user searches for a Swagway hoverboard on Target.com, the user is redirected to a page reading, “sorry, that item is unavailable.” Saturday, Toys R Us also announced it had halted sales of hoverboards “out of an abundance of caution.”

“We take product safety very seriously at Target and are proactively working with our vendors to ensure they are compliant with the new safety standards and hoverboard certification protocol provided by the Consumer Product Safety Commission,” a Target representative told Mashable.

Last week, the CPSC deemed the popular devices to be unsafe and sent letters to manufacturers, importers and retailers of hoverboards that said the devices pose an “imminent hazard” and may be recalled or seized by the government, as the Verge reported. To market hoverboards, sellers now must go through two certification processes.

The CSPC has received 52 reports of hoverboard-related fires in 24 states.

Swagway, one of the leading hoverboard brands in the U.S., told Mashable Saturday it was requesting that customers stop using its hoverboards until they are deemed safe.

In December, both Target and Amazon.com Inc. temporarily halted sales of the trendy tech toys amid similar safety concerns.