Kids get vapes delivered straight to their front door

There’s no question that vaping has a grip on too many of our young learners.

And Fair Go has found that with vape sales online, every mobile phone, every laptop, in every bedroom is also a vape shop – and one that many kids are accessing.

Despite the signs at stores and laws and fines of up to $10,000 for selling to under 18’s, kids are getting hold of vapes via the internet and courier services – it’s just way too easy.

Patrice Morris could be any mum with a teenager. Her boy got hooked at 13, and she described to Fair Go the horrors of coming off nicotine.

“Horrible hot sweats, not sleeping, anger, flipping out at parents, flipping out at siblings, not concentrating at school … it’s just sabotaging themselves, really.”

Patrice reckons, “It’s the law that’s allowing this to happen and the lack of any form of control.”

Patrice says hacking the payment method was the key to uncovering the source of this trouble.

“I found a Prezzy Card in the rubbish bin, and being the mum I am, I thought ‘woah, I haven’t seen that’, so I picked it out of the rubbish bin, had a look at the code, searched it online, had a look at the transactions, and there was a transaction at Shosha online.”

Fair Go asked Patrice to try the purchase again, this time with a camera keeping watch at the door. And sure enough the courier turned up, package in hand, and there it is, chucked over the fence.

This was a vape cartridge – R18 – which should not be left for just anyone to collect.

So what’s failing? What are the rules? And how are vape companies applying them?

Fair Go tested four online sellers – two which Patrice had tested and which failed – and two more for comparison.

To prevent online sales to minors, the regulators encourage five steps.

One: The website has an R18 declaration on entry.

Two: Proof-of-age documents are verified by a staff member before payment is made by the customer – only one company asked that.

Three: The retailer ensures the delivery name aligns with the name on the payment method. Well, you can put anyone’s name on a Prezzy Card, or no name at all, it’s like paying cash online.

Steps four and five are that all deliveries are meant to be signature only, and, retailers must use R18 courier services – where IDs are checked at the door.

But Fair Go’s little haul from online vape stores showed that products were delivered, apparently in breach of the law.

Test One: The Vape Shed

Despite a bold clear label warning that it was a vape, NZ Couriers dropped a Vape Shed package off with no questions asked.

The Vape Shed had tried the hardest to check out the buyer, insisting on a driver licence scan and a scan of the Prezzy Card, and, the owner of the Vape Shed says staff there actually checked out our producer online to make sure she was over 18.

Owner Pearce Stephens said: “We are confident that our internal processes were effective. Regrettably, in this instance, the courier driver failed to adhere to the agreed protocols. We will follow up with our delivery partners to ensure these events are mitigated as much as possible.”

NZ Couriers admits that the courier should not have left the parcel at the door, but says the business did not purchase the additional service ticket which verifies proof of age and which also reimburses their courier drivers for the extra time this takes.

Test two: VAPO

Retailers VAPO, Shosha and Vapourium didn’t need to see any ID before purchases online.

And, before NZ Post dropped a VAPO package off, no check at the address, and before that no request for ID on the site.

Also, because we’ve used a Prezzy card, the company had no idea who bought it and no guarantee of age either.

VAPO said thanks for letting them know this had slipped through. They say it is the nature of e-commerce that customers can disguise their identities when placing orders, and that:

“This is why we have focused our efforts on the delivery end of the sales process and invested in an expensive age verification solution from NZ Post, which has unfortunately let us down.”

NZ Post says it is clear, following Fair Go’s tests, that they have “failed to meet our security standards in these instances, and we sincerely apologise for this”.

“We will be conducting further training and improving the technology to make it easier for our delivery partners to make these deliveries correctly, as well as improving our reporting to monitor compliance.”

Test three: Shosha

NZ Post did the right thing for the first time with one of the packages. No-one home so it wasn’t left, but our mystery shopper got a link to redeliver and back came the package, with a fresh label over the top which omitted the all-important age restricted info.

Which might explain how it was then delivered successfully – but with no ID check. And the person answering that door – and getting the parcel – was 16, too young to be receiving vapes.

The retailer was Shosha – the same retailer Patrice had spotted selling vaping product online to her then-13-year-old son, more than a…