EBAY REMOVED MY CHINESE SNUFF BOTTLE LISTINGS CLAIMED I VIOLATED ILLEGAL DRUGS & PARAPHERNALIA

[antiquesnbooks]

I have sold for ten years and sell many Asian antiques. Today, two of my antique cloisonné snuff bottles were removed and I received a message that stated :

"We had to remove your listing because it didn’t follow our Illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia policy. Illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, and drug-like substances are not allowed."

I tried to speak some sense into personnel in the "Trust & Safety Team" of eBay and nobody could tell me why my two listings were singled out of the 15, 479 other snuff bottle listings under the Asian antiques category. The listings they claim did not follow policy were:

184590302668 - Chinese Snuff Bottle Cloisonné Old Style Original Spoon & Topper IMPERIAL MARK
184593136673 - Double Gourd Old Chinese Cloisonné Snuff Bottle Original Spoon & Topper PERFECT

I have purchased and sold many snuff bottles on eBay and frankly I do not understand. In no way did my descriptions make any reference to drugs or drug use. Despite 3 long calls with the "Trust & Safety" team of eBay, nobody could tell me what was prohibited in my listings nor offer me a way to relist my items as they do not appear in the "Unsold Listings" of my eBay account. eBay just "disappeared" my listings with no explanation. I kept trying to talk to someone "higher up", like a supervisor but found out that was like trying to speak with the "Wizard of Oz".  I was told that their department was as high as I could go and they could not give me my listings back nor could they tell me what policy I violated. They are just old Chinese snuff bottles with nothing inside them except the original spoons that are attached to the original cloisonné toppers. I do not understand how my two snuff bottles are any different than the other thousands of snuff bottles for sale on eBay. "Snuff Bottles" is actually a category for eBay listings. Has anyone ever had this problem before and I am looking for suggestions on who else I can contact in eBay's hierarchy to rectify this problem. It is not just these two listings that I am concerned with. You see, I have a large collection of old and valuable snuff bottles and I hate to invest all the effort and time to list my items when my listings can be indiscriminately removed by eBay for no rightful cause. Any suggestions or input from the eBay community would be appreciated.

[slippinjimmy]

Probably flagged due to a bot misreading something in your Title or Description.

Post that info for others to review.

[xedicl-0]

That is correct, most often a keyword or keyphrase is responsible for all the headache.

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

Geez, makes you wonder doesn't it? The word snuffbox has been around since 1600s. Something set the bots off, was it snuff and spoon & topper together? I was going to suggest to replace " snuffbox" in English to Spanish...then I seen what it was!!!! NOOO..that would really get the bots flying!!!!

     Cannot realist them until you find out why and you may never hear the reason, so sorry they sound lovely.

[pburn]

Rightly or wrongly, you're never going to be allowed to relist those. Once they remove a listing, they're pretty unlikely to allow it again, and it just puts your whole account on their radar.

I'd find somewhere else to market them and move on. Not worth the hassle. Maybe a local antique shop (oh, let's spell it "shoppe," just for fun) or a hip, trendy boutique that caters to a younger set?

[jayjaspersgarage]

It depends.  I sell matchbook covers that occasionally one might have some obscure offensive word that used to be innocuous 60 years ago.  My solution is to revise the wording and continue the listing with updated photos.  

[pburn]

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@jayjaspersgarage wrote:

It depends.  I sell matchbook covers that occasionally one might have some obscure offensive word that used to be innocuous 60 years ago.  My solution is to revise the wording and continue the listing with updated photos.  

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You're saying you revise the wording and update photos after your listings for those items have been removed and a warning has been issued by eBay not to list them? Glad it works for you, but I'm not sure that's the very best advice to give the OP . . .

[slippinjimmy]

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@pburn wrote:

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@jayjaspersgarage wrote:

It depends.  I sell matchbook covers that occasionally one might have some obscure offensive word that used to be innocuous 60 years ago.  My solution is to revise the wording and continue the listing with updated photos.  

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You're saying you revise the wording and update photos after your listings for those items have been removed and a warning has been issued by eBay not to list them? Glad it works for you, but I'm not sure that's the very best advice to give the OP . . .

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I suspect they are referring to the word filter warnings that pop up and by "revise" means rewrite before listing and replace the image with the offending part obscured.

I have seen those warnings once or twice and done the same.

Not really relevant to the OP since they had no trouble listing, for them it was a takedown that came later.

[slippinjimmy]

If you search the OP's completed listing there are a whole bunch of snuff bottles showing that ended in early December. I'll assume they are the same ones but relisted more recently and pulled.

I don't see anything in those listings that would trigger a drug paraphernalia violation. Those bottles graphically are different than most of the others listed on eBay, they are caricature like and perhaps in the supercharged PC world considered offensive but that is an entirely different policy.

[ra_201044]

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@slippinjimmy wrote:

If you search the OP's completed listing there are a whole bunch of snuff bottles showing that ended in early December. I'll assume they are the same ones but relisted more recently and pulled.

I don't see anything in those listings that would trigger a drug paraphernalia violation. Those bottles graphically are different than most of the others listed on eBay, they are caricature like and perhaps in the supercharged PC world considered offensive but that is an entirely different policy.

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Only thing I can think of is that the OP used 'with original spoon' in the title. If you search for them, most show a photo of one if present, but never mention it in the title, and most don't mention it in the description either. 

Listing like that would be like listing those little glass jars with the spoon in the lid(umm, of course, all this is conjecture on my part ... 😏).

[luckythewinner]

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@antiquesnbooks wrote:

I have a large collection of old and valuable snuff bottles and I hate to invest all the effort and time to list my items when my listings can be indiscriminately removed by eBay for no rightful cause. 

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Any listing can be indiscriminately removed by eBay for no rightful cause. Every seller agrees to that in the User Agreement:

"Additionally, we reserve the right to refuse, modify, or terminate all or part of our Services to anyone for any reason at our discretion."

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behaviour-policies/user-agreement?id=4259

[gilligans]

Had same thing happen to me.  They said "spoon" possibly was the culprit and shouldn't be in title.  "Spoon" is a common word in your titles.    Don't mention spoon in title.  I told ebay that spoon are common in antique versions of the snuff bottle.  Guess their drug policy doesn't understand that.

[kh-leslie]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.