Lael received these for her birthday in July. She loved playing with them, creating things and spent a good deal of time doing so. Luckily, she never put them in her mouth, thank goodness! When the news of this recall hit, everyone scrambled to make sure we had heard. Then we had to find them and put them away so they would no longer be a danger. With that done, I started trying to find out what to do about it. None of the news stories I had heard told you what you could do. I know the company hopes that everyone just throws them away. But, that just makes me so mad, so I googled it and finally came up with a company name and phone number. I didn’t try to call until today, nearly a full month after the recall. Of course I had to jump through many electronic recorded hoops until I was finally told to hold – or I could go to a website to get an exchange form etc. The problem was I couldn’t understand the name of the website by the non-English speaking person who recorded the message. So, I decided to hold. In the meantime, I googled Aquadots more and found the parent company (SpinMaster) and a website. This website had details about how to get an Aquadots replacement – (the new and improved version of the Aquadots), by filling out the return/exchange forms and waiting the expected 4-6 weeks. Ummmm, I don’t think so! Why in the world would I want more of the same product that could have put my daughter in a coma? I don’t care if they say it is new and improved, HA! I’m not taking any chances. So, my other option was to choose another toy they would replace it with. Since the product we had purchased was the “Starter Set” there weren’t a lot of options available. There was actually only one choice geared for a girl – Moon Sand. I have read many, many bad reviews on that product, since I was planning on getting some for the twins for Christmas, so I knew I did not want that. So, then I had to move on to the toys geared for boys. I finally ended up choosing a Screamin, Stream’n Stomp Rocket I figured at least that was something the kids could do together.
Oh, I was still on hold after looking through all the toys that SpinMaster has in their arsenal………over 45 minutes of hold time. I just put the phone on Speaker and set it down near me. See, that is another way they are hoping that you just give up and throw the stupid dangerous toy away. Nope, not me! We will be the proud new owners of a Rocket that promises to turn our backyard into a launch pad! Whew! I can hardly wait the requisite 4-6 weeks to get it!
