'Buckyballs' magnate says feds took him down for speaking out

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

Craig Zucker believes he had a "great American success story" until federal regulators shut him down for speaking up, but now the entrepreneur is fighting back.

 

Scraping together $2,000 with a partner, Zucker in 2009 began importing small, high-powered magnets from China. Dubbed "Buckyballs," the BB-sized magnets could form all kinds of shapes and quickly became a hot seller. A year of trade shows, blog posts and word of mouth brought sales to $10 million, and Zucker projected more than doubling that by 2012. With his product in 1,500 stores, the 34-year-old Zucker was living his entrepreneurial dream.

 

"It was the great American success story," Zucker recalled.

 

But then the complaints started coming in. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission warned that small children - younger than the 14 and over age group Zucker was targeting - could swallow the powerful magnets, then pull them against their stomach walls with other Buckyballs. They were a danger, the agency declared. In fact, since 2009, the CPSC says, some 1,700 children have been hospitalized after ingesting Buckyballs or similar, high-powered magnets.

 

Zucker says he worked vigorously with the agency and had five warning labels on the product. Maxfield & Oberton, Zucker's company, quickly complied when the agency sought a recall in 2010, asking to adjust the warning label on the product. But in 2012, the agency sought a "stronger recall of the product."

 

"Essentially, it was a declaration that we were going out of business," Zucker said.

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Putting entrepreneurs out of business is what big government does best...