These guys will put lead in children's toys but would never be so unscrupulous as to put a fake label on the product? Or lie to obtain certification?

I think most people would agree that a promise without verification is no real promise.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/china-executes...

Not the kind of thing that builds trust.

My friend who works for them has a lot of interesting stories to tell. One story, she visited a local pub and asked for a dairy free ploughman's, the waiter asked if she would like butter on her bread. My friend waited for it to be added, then she put the whole meal, plate and all into a plastic bag and took it away for analysis. The pub got fined and another visit from trading standards.

I've heard stories like this before. It sounds a bit stupid on the part of Trading Standards (TS).

Waiter: "Do you want butter"

Customer/TS agent: "Yes, please"

Then the TS agent prosecutes you for putting butter on their food. Well why did they ask for butter. I mean, I realise that people are sometimes absolute idiots but I don't think you should prosecute restaurants for serving what you ask for.

A story in our local press was that the TS agent said "no peanuts for me as I have an allergy, I'll have the lamb bhuna, ..." and then they ordered a load of dishes - as you would for a family - and they included in their order "chicken satay". They specifically asked for it.

Guess what the restaurant did, they gave them what they asked for. And Trading Standards prosecuted them and made them out in the press to be evil.

Now to me it sounded like the person was ordering a bhuna with no nuts and a load of stuff for other people, if they're stupid enough to order a nut dish isn't that their own fault?

I don't know what's happened to personal responsibility but the expectation for businesses to coddle people has gone too far IMO.

/rant

Am I missing something important here? This sounds like a textbook example of soulless, arbitrary bureaucracy that benefits no one but bureaucrats and their enforcers.

Lack of training. Stupid people. I dunno. She's got a lot of stories. The animal neglect are the worst. The pub food ones are the amusing ones. She gets a lot of food poisoning from dodgy food.

I'm all for labels, safety, and verification enabling people to be informed, consenting adults.

But if you asked to have butter on your toast, as an informed consenting adult, you get butter on your toast, and it ain't anybody's fault but your own. And I'm a liberal socialist pinkie commie Canadian, not even a redneck gun-tottin' libertarian :D

There must be / I hope there is something I'm missing from the story...?

TüV and UL are more reliable, but they are still a minimum standard of safety, not a sign of quality.

(Now I'm expecting some Bitcoin "investor" to jump in with "blockchain all the certification marks!" as though that'd solve the problem of people not caring...)

'The Commission responded that it was unaware of the existence of any "Chinese Export" mark'

This legend has to stop. CE is a self declaration marking, and it's just people applying the CE marking when they have not respected the relevant standards.

Like all those EU-compliant logos on the 1TB SDXC cards that sell for €10? Totally legit.

Things are different when buying domestically at a retail store. Retailers have supply chain or import the products themselves. Importing and selling products that violate safety standards, or products that show safety marks like CE without authorization, is not in the retailers' best interest, since the Customs Agents will come down hard on them. As large monetary sanctions are the only effective way to deter corporations from breaking the rules, the fines/reparations are proportional to the volume of the illegitimate products sold.

Not to speak of the civil liability when some kid gets electrocuted thanks to the hazardous phone adapter your company imported.