Burned By A Defective IKEA Oven Mitt, I Seek Justice… But What Kind?

Scott tells Consumerist that he used some new oven mitts from IKEA last night, and found out that one of them is defective. Unfortunately, he learned this the hard way: by burning his thumb. Now, he’s not really sure what to do: the store is a few hours away, and he’s not really sure what he wants from the store in return for the incident. What would you do?

He writes:

My wife purchased oven mitts from Ikea, and I was the first to try them out. Taking a baking sheet out of the oven, I immediately felt searing pain in my thumb, and threw it on the stovetop. For the next 7 hours I put it in ice to help with the pain, and then had a pretty tough time falling asleep as I couldn’t keep in the ice.

Called Ikea, and was told to return the item to the store. I said that I live 2 hours away, and wasn’t taking a day off to do that. Then I was told to call the store the next day.

Upon inspecting the gloves, it’s apparent that one of them is thinner than the other and defective.

So I woke up today and have a blister forming, and am about to call the store. My question is: do you have any advice on how to go about getting some resolution to this? What can I expect? I don’t want to sue them, but I want … something. And of course they need to be aware of a faulty product. I got the sense that I may receive a runaround.

It sounds like the defective mitt had the wrong type of batting, or its maker omitted the batting altogether. Bad move.

As for dealing with the company, ask yourself: what would be an acceptable resolution? Suing for pain and suffering is too much, but is a replacement oven mitt not enough?

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