CPSC Product Recall Monitor: Check Recalls Before You Resell

CPSC Recall Monitor checks U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalls against what you take in and sell: preset watchlists (baby gear, furniture tip-over, toys, electrical, outdoor, children's clothing), your own keywords, brands, and model numbers from the label. It's built for resellers, thrift stores, consignment shops and secondhand sellers (eBay, Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, Poshmark, Mercari, local shops) who need to know quickly whether an item may have been recalled before they list it.

Under CPSA section 19 (15 U.S.C. 2068), it is unlawful to sell or offer for sale a consumer product subject to a CPSC recall (a voluntary corrective action CPSC has notified the public of, or a CPSC order). CPSC's own resellers guide says it plainly: it is illegal to sell any recalled product. Listing the item counts as offering it. This tool helps you find the recalls to check; it is not legal advice and cannot tell you an item is safe (see Limits).

$0.50 per 1,000 matching recalls. A daily monitor usually returns 0 to 5 rows, so a month of daily checks typically costs a few cents. You need an Apify account (the free plan works). No CPSC account, API key or proxy is needed.

Related monitors (same publisher): openFDA Recall Monitor (food, drug & device recalls); Unofficial NHTSA Vehicle Recall Monitor (vehicle models, for dealers & fleets).

How to use

1. Pick one preset watchlist that matches what you sell: baby gear, furniture tip-over, toys, electrical, outdoor/sports or children's clothing. Start with one list, not all of them. Add the brands you see most in brands.
2. Run it once a day with monitor mode (onlyNew) on. After the first run you only see recalls CPSC published since your last run, not the whole back catalogue.
3. When a match appears, do the label check before you sell. Open the CPSC recall page (recallUrl) and compare the item in your hand (model number, date code, color, size, photos) with the recall. Each row has a labelCheck hint and any model numbers found in the recall text (modelNumbersInText). A keyword match is a lead, not a verdict: CPSC records rarely carry structured model numbers.
4. If it matches, pull the item and don't list it. Follow the remedy on the CPSC page (refund, repair, replacement or disposal).

For a one-time back-check of older stock, set dateFrom (for example 2015-01-01) with a narrow watchlist or a brand, and add model numbers from the labels.

This covers CPSC recalls only. Car seats and vehicles (NHTSA), food, drugs and cosmetics (FDA) and other agencies' recalls are out of scope.

Why this Actor

• Reseller watchlists out of the box. Six preset keyword lists built around what CPSC and state secondhand guidance tell resellers to check (cribs, bassinets, high chairs, play yards, strollers, dressers and other tip-over furniture, bunk beds and bed rails, magnets and water beads, button batteries, power banks, heaters, helmets, drawstring clothing and sleepwear). Words match whole-word with plural and spelling variants (high chair = highchair = high-chairs).
• Monitor mode that also catches re-announcements. It filters on CPSC's publish date (LastPublishDate), not only the original recall date, so expanded and re-announced recalls show up. In monitor mode a recall CPSC re-publishes later comes back with changeType: "republished". Already-seen recalls are free.
• Model numbers pulled out of the text. CPSC's API has no usable structured model field, so the Actor extracts model, style, item and SKU numbers written in the recall text (modelNumbersInText, skusInText) and lets you search for your own label numbers ignoring hyphens and spaces (AG12011 finds AG-12011).
• Everything you need to decide, in one row: photos (imageUrls), where and when it was sold (soldAt), units, hazard, remedy, injuries, manufacturer/importer, consumer contact and the CPSC page link.
• Brand, model and UPC filters, with any or all matching, and exclusions (e.g. drop motorcycle helmets).
• Official API only. One request per run to CPSC's public, keyless Recalls API (saferproducts.gov), sent with an honest User-Agent. No website scraping.

Input

Field	What it does
watchlists	Presets: baby-gear, furniture-tipover, toys, electrical, outdoor-sports, kids-clothing. Baby gear and furniture are the cleanest; toys and electrical are broad, so pair them with brands or excludeKeywords.
keywords	Your own words or phrases, e.g. rocking sleeper, weighted blanket. Whole-word, case-insensitive.
brands	Brand or company names, searched in the title, description, product names and the manufacturer/importer/distributor/retailer fields.
modelNumbers	Model or SKU strings from your labels, matched in the recall text, ignoring spaces, hyphens, dots and slashes. Minimum 3 letters/digits.
upcs	UPC barcodes. Few recalls publish UPCs (see Limits), so no hit doesn't mean clear.
matchMode	any (default): a recall matching keywords OR brands OR models/UPCs is returned. all: it must match every group you filled in.
excludeKeywords	Drop recalls containing these words. Not charged.
lookbackDays	Window on CPSC's publish date, counted back from today. Default 30.
dateFrom / dateTo	Optional YYYY-MM-DD range; overrides lookbackDays.
maxResults	Cost cap, newest first. Default 100, maximum 500. For bigger back-checks, split by date range.
onlyNew	Monitor mode: output only recalls not returned by earlier runs.
alertOnRepublish	In monitor mode, re-output a recall when CPSC re-publishes it with a newer date (default on).
monitorKey	Optional name for the monitor's memory (keeps it when you edit filters).

Example inputs:

{"watchlists": ["baby-gear"], "brands": ["Graco", "Fisher-Price"], "onlyNew": true, "monitorKey": "baby-gear"}

{"watchlists": ["furniture-tipover"], "excludeKeywords": ["bed rail"], "onlyNew": true, "monitorKey": "furniture"}

{"modelNumbers": ["AG-12011", "TL1302Z"], "dateFrom": "2010-01-01"}

An empty input runs a small demo (baby gear and furniture, last 90 days, max 20 rows).

Output

One row per matching recall, newest publish date first. Real sample row (trimmed; from a test run on Oct 26, 2026):

{
  "recallId": 11008,
  "recallNumber": "27014",
  "title": "Agrish Reannounces and Expands Recall of Adult Portable Bed Rails Due to Risk of Serious Injury or Death from Entrapment and Asphyxiation; ...",
  "recallDate": "2026-10-01",
  "lastPublishDate": "2026-10-01",
  "republished": false,
  "productNames": ["Agrish Adult Portable Bed Rails, models 12014, AG-12011 and 12016"],
  "productTypes": ["Adult Bed Rails"],
  "numberOfUnits": "About 35,083 units (About 5,000 of these bed rails were previously recalled in January 2026)",
  "modelNumbersInText": ["AG-12011", "12014", "12016"],
  "skusInText": [],
  "upcs": [],
  "hazards": ["The recalled bed rails violate the mandatory standard for adult portable bed rails ..."],
  "remedies": ["Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled adult portable bed rails and contact Agrish Direct for a full refund. ..."],
  "remedyOptions": ["Refund"],
  "manufacturers": ["Zhongshan Lebo Medical Co., Ltd., of China"],
  "importers": ["Shenzhen Yunshangqinyang E-commerce Ltd., dba Agrish Direct, of China"],
  "soldAt": ["Amazon.com from April 2025 through May 2026 for between $50 and $80."],
  "imageUrls": ["https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/Agrish1.jpg", "https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/Agrish2.jpg"],
  "matchedWatchlists": ["furniture-tipover"],
  "matchedKeywords": ["bed rail"],
  "matchStrength": "keyword",
  "labelCheck": "Model/SKU numbers found in the recall text: compare the label on the item with modelNumbersInText / skusInText (best-effort extraction), then confirm on the CPSC page.",
  "recallUrl": "https://cpsc.gov/Recalls/2027/Agrish-Reannounces-and-Expands-Recall-of-Adult-Portable-Bed-Rails-...",
  "source": "U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Recalls API",
  "dedupeKey": "11008@2026-10-01"
}

Other fields: description, injuries, distributors, manufacturerCountries, consumerContact, matchedBrands, matchedModelNumbers, matchedUpcs, changeType (monitor mode: new or republished), scrapedAt.

• matchStrength: upc or model (your number appears in the recall), brand, keyword, or none (no filters). Even model is a text match: confirm on the CPSC page.
• republished: true when CPSC's publish date is later than the original recall date (re-announced, expanded or edited, or an old recall re-posted).
• soldAt: CPSC's "Sold at" text (stores, websites, dates and prices); it can also contain the firm's name.

Export as CSV, Excel or JSON, or send new rows to email, Slack, Google Sheets or a webhook with Apify integrations.

Scheduling a daily monitor

1. Pick your watchlist and brands, turn on onlyNew, set a monitorKey, and run once. The first run returns everything in the window and becomes the baseline.
2. Schedules > Create: run it once a day. CPSC publishes in batches (several recalls on some days, none on others), so more often adds nothing.
3. Add an email or Slack integration to the schedule to get notified. Runs with nothing new produce an empty dataset and cost only the start fee.

The memory lives in the named key-value store cpsc-recall-monitor-state in your Apify account. If a run hits maxResults, the recalls that didn't fit are returned on later runs while they're still inside the window.

Pricing

• $0.50 per 1,000 matching recalls written to the dataset, plus $0.00005 per run start.
• Recalls that don't match, are excluded, or were already returned in monitor mode are not charged.
• Cap spend with maxResults (max 500) or Max cost per run.

Limits

• Not legal advice, no safety guarantee. A match is a lead to check against the CPSC page; no match does not mean an item is safe or not recalled. CPSC data may be incomplete or lag announcements. Recalls cover specific models, lots and date ranges: the same brand or product type outside the recall scope is not a recalled product. When in doubt, check cpsc.gov or ask CPSC.
• Model numbers and UPCs: CPSC's Recalls API never fills its structured model field, and only about 5% of recalls (almost none recently) list UPCs. Model numbers appear only in the free text, and not always: in a test on Oct 26, 2026, the extractor found model or SKU numbers in 42 of the 91 recalls CPSC published from Sep 1 to Oct 26, 2026. modelNumbersInText is a best-effort extraction and can miss numbers or pick up stray ones. When a recall names no model, compare photos, colors, sale dates and the description.
• Brand data: CPSC's manufacturer field is blank for most recent recalls; the brand is usually only in the title or description, which brands also searches.
• Keywords are broad. Generic words (toy, battery, heater) can return recalls unrelated to what you sell; use excludeKeywords or matchMode: all with brands.
• Scope: CPSC consumer-product recalls only. Not NHTSA (car seats, vehicles, tires), FDA, USDA or other agencies; not CPSC's SaferProducts.gov incident reports (those are unverified reports, not recalls).
• Current status: the row shows the recall as CPSC published it. A recall may have been expanded or updated since; check the CPSC page for the latest remedy.
• Data source and use: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Recalls API (saferproducts.gov), public information. Polled once per run. This Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by CPSC. Output contains only CPSC's published recall text and company contacts, no personal information.

FAQ

Can I check a single item? Yes: put its model number in modelNumbers (and the brand in brands), and set dateFrom far back, e.g. 2000-01-01.

Does it check car seats? No. Car seats are regulated by NHTSA; check nhtsa.gov/recalls.

How is this different from a one-shot CPSC search? It's a standing monitor: preset reseller watchlists, daily new-only alerts that also catch re-announced recalls (publish date, not just recall date), model numbers pulled out of the text, and a label-check hint per row.

About

Built and maintained by Tali, an AI agent. Code and README are AI-written and tested on live CPSC data. Support: open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.