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A British jewelry consultant is calling out Amazon—again.
“This is an utter joke,” Jayne Bond wrote in a Sept. 16 LinkedIn post, criticizing U.K. enforcement authorities after discovering that a ring with the same design as one previously exposed for containing dangerously high levels of cadmium was back on Amazon—this time offered by a different seller.
The £3.39 ring was advertised as “925 Sterling Silver,” which means it should contain 92.5% silver. But Bond said preliminary testing of the ring she purchased detected cadmium, a toxic metal known to cause cancer.
Amazon told Fortune that the ring Bond identified in September has since been removed from its marketplace.
A ring that was 92% cadmium
Bond’s discovery came two months after The Sunday Times published an investigation into jewelry sold through Amazon and TikTok Shop in the U.K. Bond, who had spent months raising concerns with Amazon before alerting the newspaper, helped bring the issue to light.
The investigation found that a ring advertised on Amazon as 925 silver was an estimated 92.3% cadmium—more than 9,000 times the U.K.’s legal limit of 0.01% cadmium in jewelry. Charms on a bracelet sold through TikTok Shop, also advertised as sterling silver, contained about 33% cadmium, roughly 3,300 times the limit, according to trade publication JCK’s summary of the report.
In July, Amazon said it was removing the affected products following an internal investigation. TikTok Shop recalled the bracelet, notified buyers and said the seller, Perform Pearls, had been removed from the platform.
It isn’t the first time U.K. authorities have flagged cadmium in jewelry sold through Amazon. In one Office for Product Safety and Standards notice, a silver-colored ring and earrings sold on the platform exceeded the legal cadmium limit, and Amazon removed the listing.
Cadmium is a heavy metal used in products including batteries and metal coatings. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has determined that cadmium and its compounds are known human carcinogens, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Long-term exposure can damage the kidneys and weaken bones, although the health risks depend on how the metal enters the body. Very little cadmium is absorbed through the skin; ingestion and inhalation pose greater risks.
Too cheap to be silver
Bond argued that the ring’s £3.39 price tag should have raised red flags on its own. The ring weighed about 2.5 grams and was advertised as sterling silver—and that’s before accounting for manufacturing, plating, packaging, international shipping, marketplace fees and profit.
The price gap between the two metals is striking. Silver averaged about $38 per troy ounce in 2025, or roughly $1.22 per gram, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Cadmium averaged $3.90 per kilogram—about $0.004 per gram, the agency found. That makes silver roughly 300 times more expensive than cadmium by weight.
The gap has only widened. Silver was trading around $60 an ounce in mid-October, or about $1.93 per gram. At that price, the roughly 2.3 grams of pure silver in a genuine 2.5-gram sterling ring would be worth about $4.50 on its own.
Fortune also found a similarly styled ring listed on Amazon’s U.S. website. The listing advertised it as “high-quality 925 sterling silver” plated with 18-karat white gold—for $4.99. If it weighs about as much as the U.K. ring, that would leave roughly 50 cents to cover everything beyond the raw silver.
Fortune has not independently tested the ring or verified its metal composition.
A patchwork of U.S. rules
While the U.K. sets a legal limit for cadmium in jewelry, the rules are less straightforward stateside.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says there are no mandatory federal safety requirements specifically for jewelry, though voluntary industry standards exist and children’s jewelry must meet federal lead limits. Broader consumer product safety laws still apply, including requirements to report potentially hazardous products.
Some states have set their own cadmium limits. Minnesota limits cadmium in jewelry to 0.0075% by total weight, while California caps cadmium at 0.03% in children’s jewelry. Connecticut, Maryland, Illinois and Washington also restrict cadmium in children’s jewelry, though limits and testing requirements vary by state.
Separately, the Federal Trade Commission’s Jewelry Guides consider it deceptive to market jewelry as “sterling silver” unless it contains at least 92.5% pure silver.
Whose job is it to check?
The listing raises a broader question: How do online marketplaces verify the materials advertised by third-party jewelry sellers—especially when similar-looking products have already been flagged for containing toxic metals, and prices are so low that, as Bond pointed out, they should raise red flags of their own?
Amazon’s jewelry seller requirements say sellers must accurately describe their products and comply with its quality and safety standards. Sellers must also maintain quality control and inspection procedures.
Amazon has long argued that it isn’t responsible for products sold by third parties. As Fortune previously reported, the CPSC sued Amazon in 2021 to force recalls of hazardous products sold through its fulfillment service, and the company maintained it was merely a logistics provider handling storage and shipping, not a distributor.
In 2024, the CPSC unanimously rejected that argument, ruling that Amazon was legally responsible for recalling more than 400,000 hazardous products. Amazon sued the agency in March 2025 to challenge the decision.
Fortune asked Amazon about Bond’s latest findings, its efforts to prevent potentially unsafe jewelry from reappearing through different sellers, and how it verifies the metal content of jewelry sold on its platforms, including the $4.99 ring Fortune identified.
“We take customer safety very seriously,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “All products listed in our store are required to comply with applicable laws, regulations and Amazon policies, which vary by country, and we strictly prohibit false marketing claims.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
