Amazon Agrees to Enhance Efforts to Prevent Illegal Vaping Sales to Vermont
Attorney General Charity Clark today announced a settlement with Amazon, resolving a dispute over violations of Vermont’s Delivery Sales Ban, which prohibits shipping any tobacco products, including e-cigarettes or vaping products, directly to Vermont consumers. The dispute centered on Amazon’s failure to thwart efforts by third-party sellers to circumvent Amazon’s internal rules to prevent sale of tobacco and vaping products.
“The youth vaping crisis commands each of us to follow the rules put in place to protect children from harm, and Amazon failed to do that,” Attorney General Clark said. “Online sales of vaping products provide minors with a path to obtaining these harmful products without age verification, and I won’t stand for it. In addition, illegal sales of vaping products into Vermont lets sellers bilk the State by avoiding paying taxes on tobacco products.”
In the course of its investigation, the Attorney General’s Office found that over the past several years many tobacco products, and especially vaping and electronic cigarette products, were being sold by third-party sellers on Amazon’s platform. These third-party sellers circumvented the inadequate systems Amazon put in place to prevent the sale of vaping and tobacco products by listing products with innocuous titles and pictures that were revised to show prohibited products after Amazon’s systems had approved the listings. As a result of the Attorney General’s investigation, Amazon has already taken steps to better guard against and detect manipulation by third-party sellers.
Under the agreement, Amazon will pay $400,000 to the State of Vermont, improve its controls to prevent illegal sales into Vermont, and pledge to work with the Attorney General’s Office to aid enforcement against any third-party sellers that continue to evade Amazon’s tobacco controls. A copy of the settlement agreement is available here.
Anyone who is aware of illegal online sales of vaping products to Vermonters can report sellers to the Attorney General’s Office at AGO.TobaccoEnforcement@vermont.gov.
CONTACT: Amelia Vath, Outreach and Communications Coordinator, 802-828-3171