Illegal weapons are being sold by third-party sellers on popular online marketplaces including AliExpress, Amazon Marketplace, eBay and Wish, a Which? investigation has found, demonstrating why major tech firms need to take more responsibility and carry out better checks and monitoring on dangerous items.
The consumer champion carried out simple searches for banned offensive weapons on popular online marketplaces, including zombie and flick knives, knuckle dusters, swords and batons, and was easily able to find one or more of these potentially lethal items on the respective platforms – at prices starting from as little as 49p.
The law, including the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, makes clear that none of these weapons should be available for sale in the UK – and they cannot even be owned in a private home. If a person were to be caught with one of these products, they could face arrest and a prison sentence.
Searching on Amazon, Which? found more than a dozen listings for friction lock batons masquerading as ‘trekking poles.’ Friction lock batons are a banned offensive weapon. It is illegal to buy and to sell these batons in the UK.
Some of the listings Which? found used special characters, such as ‘bătõň’, in the title or only used the word baton in the artwork – presumably to avoid detection by Amazon. Some of the images on the listings indicated that they could be used for self-defence and fighting.
On eBay, Which?’s experts found a variety of illegal swords, zombie knives, and knuckle dusters, including a 23-inch steel serrated-edged zombie knife (£27) and a 27-inch zombie blade with a red fire design (£32). One seller was offering a combo deal on a karambit blade and a ‘paralysing spray’ for £13.99. According to eBay’s terms and conditions, none of these weapons should be for sale at all.
Which? found the widest selection of weapons for sale on AliExpress and Wish – with simple searches of the terms ‘flick knife’, ‘automatic opening knife’ and ‘spring assisted knives’ returning dozens of results on each, many priced at less than £10 and some even marketed for self-defence.
When it came to Wish, Which? was able to find a large number of flick knives and at least a dozen butterfly knives – blades that open out into a point – even though they are illegal. Researchers also found several belt buckle knives priced from £8, a selection of knuckle dusters and a number of concealed blades – including a £1 knife designed to be hidden inside a wallet. Other items included friction lock batons, one of which was disguised within an umbrella and another which was marketed for use in self-defence and had in excess of 30 UK reviews.
On AliExpress, Which? found a large number of flick knives, hidden blades, and a raft of ‘self-defence rings’ designed to be worn as knuckle dusters – one priced at just 49p.
AliExpress also targeted Which? with promotional emails for cut price blades after Which? searched on the site – including a variety of curved karambit knives, with one priced at just £1.79. Which?’s understanding is that karambits are not illegal to own but are illegal to carry in public. Researchers were also sent an email promotion for a knife with a skull design on the blade, priced at £9.63.
On all four platforms, additional banned weapons were recommended by the platforms’ algorithms after Which?’s initial searches for weapons. Worryingly, this suggests the marketplaces are not only facilitating the sale of illegal products but perpetuating the problem by recommending other illegal or dangerous products to users.
Amazon, eBay and Wish said they had removed all the listings reported to them by Which?.
Amazon said it would take “appropriate enforcement” against the baton sellers, eBay said it was investigating why the items were not blocked to UK buyers and Wish said it was “exploring remedial action against any offending merchants.”
AliExpress said it had removed the listings. However, Which? has received two further promotional emails from AliExpress since its initial response – one offering a ‘self defence’ flick knife for £2.83.
Which? believes that its latest investigation shows that online marketplaces must take more responsibility and carry out better checks and monitoring on dangerous items.
Sue Davies, Which? Head of Consumer Protection Policy, said:
“It is disturbing that our latest investigation has uncovered illegal weapons being sold on online marketplaces at extraordinarily cheap prices and that these tech firms are also pushing additional dangerous items to people. This raises big question marks over the checks and monitoring being done by these platforms.
“It’s clear that online marketplaces need to take more responsibility and prevent illegal weapons appearing on their sites.”
