FYI - eBay Metaphysical category may be changing

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Magnolia
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http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/lis ... -item.html
Items where the value is placed on an intangible factor. For example, listings that offer someone's "soul" or a container that claims to have someone's "soul" are not allowed.
This is cut & paste directly from their policy page...

And, from the inside of eBay, it means that the "intangible factor" can mean spells, magick, haunting, or spirits that are on a vessel. And "soul" can also be defined as to mean spirited vessels. eBay employees are given, right now, the mode of discretion... they can choose whether to deem your listing in violation or not. However, eventually you won't even be able to list it if your listing contains certain keywords like "haunted", "enchanted", "spelled", etc.

They aren't officially saying that they are going to be removing listings, en masse, that are spelled or spirited, but that it MAY be coming sooner than you think.

If eBay takes this step you can expect other, large retail sites like Etsy, to follow suit. Amazon already has this policy in place and will not allow such things to be sold on their site.

I've been saying it since we opened the Marketplace, that as always, it's going to require the community sticking together, stop picking at each other & causing each other problems, for the community to have staying power and to thrive at all.

This move from eBay could come next month, or next year, regardless, it's coming. I'm told it's going to go back to the pre-2005 days when all that was allowed in that category was non-spirited, non-spelled, non-haunted items. Most of you may not know that when we & other founding members started listing spirited bindings in the Metaphysical category we had to fight eBay to keep the listings on the site and we petitioned them to allow the sale of spirit bindings.

However, it's been a constant battle for those who still have eBay as their primary source of sales because the entire category was over run in 2006 by a massive wave of new sellers & listings, and unfortunately, a lot of fraudulent activity. Since then, the number of complaints, chargebacks, etc has been such a headache for them they had to put new policies in place on eBay & Paypal to accommodate the issues. Apparently, the problems are causing them to take new steps, and those steps are going to be coming down the pipeline.


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Morag Rockwind
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Then keep fighting. Some of you should sue them.

Edit: I kinda see where they're coming from. There are people that will complain regardless of weather or not it's tangible or not. Call it fake or what not. They might just be covering their rear ends.


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They might just be covering their rear ends.
That's exactly what is going on.


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I can sort of understand where they are coming from... though it really sucks that the honest sellers will be the ones hurt the most because of the fraudulent actions of the uncouth sellers. It is truly sad that we live in an era that is lawsuit/profit hungry... places like eBay are prone to lawsuits (whether just or unjust) and a large number of "sleazy" vendors are out to make a profit at the expense of honest consumers. All of that puts a major hurt on both the legitimate vendors and customers who expect nothing less than what they pay to receive.
I, for one, choose to deal with and support only the truly legitimate vendors, and will report the charlatans when I encounter them.


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From a business standpoint of the headaches and complaints (which are truthful due to scam artists), I can understand this. But only from that factor. This feels to me like such devolving. It's like man going back to amoeba. I'm sorry to be bitter but it's just another taste of let's push out everything that is not mainstream out of our business, and in effect what it does is lessen exposure to, knowledge of, and lessen support for the existence of the metaphysical community. Not that everyone wants the world to know that they are spirit keepers or paranormal collectors, but it just feels like we are forced to hide it, if not by our own situations, by society ranging from business venues to education. grumbles. ::bleh::


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I am not sure whether this makes me seem a bit idiotic or not, but honestly, I would have never considered or expected the fact of permanent refusal of haunted/spelled/spirited on websites such as Ebay. I say idiotic because I just can hardly believe that I never really thought of it...I mean, obviously, people do rebel. And maybe some sellers who do not believe in the paranormal/magical and think that everyone who sells paranormal things and magical things are thinking, "FRAUDS", and want to ban sellers from selling. I am thinking, maybe there are those who are jealous. Jealous of the great amount of profit some make from selling paranormal or magical items on Ebay, and perhaps, there have been a lot of complaints lately. People may be using the excuses like, "My paranormal item shows me no results," or "my magical artifact is B.S.", and Ebay does not want any more problems for certain customers. If Ebay does continue to allow the selling of paranormal and magical items on their site, or if any other site does, which has not placed the 'paranormal' or 'magical' as their main way of pleasing some people and making profit, the unhappy and irritable customers/sellers could sue Ebay for not going along with what they believe to be best. Which of course, is the ban of all magical and paranormal items.


Unfortunately, there are sellers on Ebay who do take advantage of their customers, but CH is definitely NOT one of those sellers! Just try to keep your heads held high and stay proud of what you do and who you are; if more rebel for than against anything, anything SHOULD survive. I am not positive of when Ebay will change their rules, along with any other site like Etsy as well, but I know that I will sorely miss browsing Ebay for paranormal and magical items. Whenever I do search on Ebay, I love to look at the paranormal/magical and I often think about buying some things, and often will decide on things! Like I stated above, I will SORELY miss those things sold on Ebay. For those who have been getting ripped off by other sellers on Ebay, I am not sure whether or not this idea/action of Ebay's is going to be so great. What if they have not seen CH yet? They do not realize the benefits of CH and could be buying from CH...I feel very horrible for those people who have never seen CH and would be very interested in spirit keeping/magical items/paranormal items. :( *sigh*


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From what I'm being told it has to do with several factors... mainly, the number of chargebacks occurring as the claims in the listings are not being realized by the people buying the items. Because of the number of chargebacks and claims of fraud against sellers in the metaphysical category from people buying items that are supposed to do these over the top things, eBay is doing a cost-benefit analysis. While they are definitely making money on the charges for listing items and the percentage they get from each item sold, it's weighed against the man hours being dedicated from the Trust & Safety department to investigate all of the issues.

Secondly, which is a more distant reason that factored in with what we went through in 2005, is public perception... which is, you can get anything on eBay & they'll let you sell anything. Which, we argued even back then, isn't necessarily a bad thing. I suppose though, with some public pressure about the category & what it allows to be sold, allows for claims to be made in listings, etc that it was bound to come to an end eventually.


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I agree with Mags, and also wanted to add. There have been a few cases of a buyer/buyers coming into the metaphysical part of ebay just to place negative feedback and chargebacks onto sellers of paranormal items. I do not blame ebay 100%, as ebay does have to look at costs and if they can manage the man hours for claims verses the amount they make in said category. It is sad, yes, but that is the business side of things.


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This is sad, but knew it would soon come to an end, actually I am suprised it lasted this long!!!!

I am glad that CH has the market place and their own store, or otherwise we would be out of luck!!!!

For we know that not everyone can conjure spirits!!!!

It is also sad that a few bad ones, make things like this happen :(

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Morag Rockwind wrote:Then keep fighting. Some of you should sue them.
I agree with this. Where's the fighting spirit? Ebay is where a lot of people throughout the past 7 years have come to discover such spelled and spirited items! If we let them put an end to it then think of all the people it will impact who will possibly now never be introduced to this side of the paranormal?

I don't buy it's a cost issue, because they take such a large chunk, and there are so many sales, some even in the range of thousands of dollars alone. So I do think it is an issue of freedom, perhaps framed in the sense of religious freedom or freedom of beliefs.


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