I lost my Ebay account for selling "hateful" books that I got no warning about whatsoever

[themeissnerlibrary]

Hello everyone, 

I really appreciate everyone hearing me out. We are absolutely devastated today. We are going to lose our account, and if you listen to me you'll realize that there's truly nothing we can do about it. 

So we are a book seller. We own about 50,000 different books in our book warehouse. We are just a bookseller, that's it, no other items. We have been completely safe and fine on Ebay for 6 years without any issues selling large amounts of books. 

We were doing fine, until about 3 months ago. About 3 months ago, we started getting notifications from Ebay that we are selling "hateful" books that need to be removed. Absolutely no issue with that. I totally understand, and we will remove any banned books. But here's the thing: They're suspending our account every single time a single "banned book" gets listed and THERES NO LIST FOR US TO REFERENCE TO KNOW WHAT'S BANNED. 

And so, as a seller of 50 + thousand titles at any given moment, we cannot avoid listing things that are banned. 

In 3 months, I've had my account restricted with a suspension 7 times now for listings "hateful" items, and we cannot get a list of items to not list from Ebay. I cannot find anybody at Ebay that can give me a list of things that I can't list. 

And so today, I received a notification that I am suspended for 10 days for having a book about O.J. Simpson listed. I had this book listed for a long time without issues. No warnings from Ebay whatsoever. They didn't ask me to remove it, they just suspended my account for 10 days. 

I am flabbergasted as a person and as a seller. I feel like my entire account is gone now, because at any moment I'm going to be told I'm listing a "hateful" book that I have no idea about. There's no list, there's no warning. You're just suspended and there's nothing you can do. 

I messaged and called Ebay and there's nothing I can do. I am lost and feel absolutely thrown away. 

I am just an honest person trying to sell books, and the bookselling model for bulk booksellers is completely threatened by the method by which they're removing books like this. 

I really hope someone see's what I'm talking about. I don't know what to do. I can't do anything. The next time I get a warning about these Ebay has told me that my account will be suspended for a month. 

I'm lost guys, and my business is over until I can figure this out. 

Thanks - Chase, the Meissner Team

[bonjourami]

Yes..just another gem of knowledge on the boards. Not.

[pargran3]

It is a rough world on eBay for booksellers, especially for those that are trying to move thousands of books. I have no idea if entering an isbn number would trigger anything. I do know that buying from a warehouse that has no clue about condition is a carp shoot.  On the other hand, it really is not that hard to figure out what might be unacceptable.  

There are NO BANNED BOOKS in the United States. There are books that eBay powers that be have decided for us poor idiots that we should not be exposed to. 

Sorry, a little of topic perhaps.  If the book might offend someone, don't list it. ... Wait, all book listings just disappeared

[kensgiftshop]

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@themeissnerlibrary wrote:

I am literally, according to Ebay, responsible as a book seller to understand the material and the content of every single book that I list. I can't even believe that. 

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True.

As a seller, it's your responsibility to know what you can and can't sell here.

[rfmtm]

@themeissnerlibrary  You might want to check out the seller board for books.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Books/ct-p/Books

[kensgiftshop]

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@themeissnerlibrary wrote:

I 100% agree with you. Thank you for listening to us and chiming in. More than anybody I don't want banned books to be sold and I will immediately take anything down if it's not ok with Ebay. It's the fact that I'm now in a vicious cycle of endless suspensions that has escalated to 10 days in a matter of months. It will happen to every large bookseller if it hasn't happened to them already. Watch out for any controversial subject. 

It started with us with Dr. Seuss. Total accident, our mistake, we removed it and I removed everything that had to do with Dr. Seuss. We made a business-wide rule not to list Dr. Suess. I just took the 3 day suspension, and moved on. 

Then it happened again with a book about knifes, another suspension. Then a book about OJ simpson. I haven't in my research seen anything in any forums or list anywhere on the internet about this OJ simpson book ban before I got a suspension for it. 

It just can't be the case that a seller gets the suspension for having it up before getting a removal. 

Amazon, for example, will just not let you list things that are suspended by isbn. Ebay lets you list it without a list of banned items, and then will take your account away and suspend you. That Oj simpson book was up for a long time for us without any issues. 

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It isn't just books, it's pretty much anything that might offend one person.

Look at all the item names they are having to change, because the names offend some people.

Look at how many sports teams are changing their names, because some are offended.

Here in Oklahoma, they are changing names of state parks, because some are offended by the names.

Before long, we won't be able to look at other people because someome might get offended.

[maxine*j]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

... And as mentioned above, it was the Seuss family who decided to stop publishing the affected titles, not eBay.

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True, the estate decided to stop further publication of certain titles.  Under the First Sale Doctrine, however, the owner of any of the books already published has the right to sell them and do so on manh other venues.    eBay made the decision that the books could not be sold on eBay, however.  

Not trying to quibble but, to me, it's an important distinction between publishing and selling.

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[maxine*j]

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@pargran3 wrote:

...  If the book might offend someone, don't list it. ... Wait, all book listings just disappeared

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Bingo! 

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[ed8108]

It is my considered opinion Ebay's director of enlightenment should make it's list of banned books available to all sellers to help avoid those ebay banned titles from appearing for sale on ebay.

[carolynnq]

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@kensgiftshop wrote:

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@themeissnerlibrary wrote:

I am literally, according to Ebay, responsible as a book seller to understand the material and the content of every single book that I list. I can't even believe that. 

---

True.

As a seller, it's your responsibility to know what you can and can't sell here.

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But what you can and can't sell her varies. A book that was okay to list 6 months ago, may not be okay to list today and you've got a strike. That happened to me a few years ago. Had something with a photo of Hitler and Franco shaking hands with text asking people to write their senators to tell them to stop funding Franco. It clearly was not glorifying Hitler. I read the regulations several times and it met all of the points as being okay to list. Then Charlottesville happened and pretty much everything with Hitler was taken down.  I complained about this take down on the PS board, and an eBay rep said nothing with Hitler could be listed. Another seller asked if it would be okay to list a comic book with Superman punching Hitler in the face on the cover. The ebay rep said no.

It's unfair to to sellers to take down book listings without having a list of what ebay deems to be offensive books. The policy is so broad as to be useless. They should take the what they think is an offensive listing down with a warning to not list that title again.

Amazon does the same, by the way. Only worse. There, the listing doesn't even need to be active. If you have sold a book in the past and have it sitting in your sold/inactive inventory, it will be removed and you'll get the same demerit as if it had been an active listing.

[neotsd]

Maybe we should just gather up all the offending titles, gather round, and chuck them in the bonfire? The more people tell me I shouldn't read something the more I want to.

[s.scharmu0]

HI!   

       Your listings are still up.

[rugerskick]

Just another day with ebay helping out good long-term sellers as only ebay can.

I feel for you.  Every seller here is in the same boat as you, whether they know it or not.  

This kind of deliberately idiotic behavior by ebay is what is hampering sellers, removing good sellers off the site, and damaging ebay financially and undermining business quality.  It creates a massive, unnecessarily punitive, paranoid adversarial relationship with sellers.  For NO GOOD REASON AT ALL.

Congrats Ebay, you've done it again.  Bravo.  Looks like you're right on track to alienate and hemmorhage millions more buyers/sellers for 4th quarter.  Bravo.

[rugerskick]

This is not to justify ebay, but a possible explanation.

The orders cancelled may not have prompted any warnings or emails from ebay folks, it may have been automatically noted by their algorithms checking seller accounts, however.  I don't know but it may have caused more behind the scenes scrutiny to go on concerning your account.

[rugerskick]

Ebay bans and suspends people for VERO items even when they aren't on ebays vero list.  So even knowing a list won't help if they target you or its a new addition no one knows about until you get the item pulled and you're shut down awhile.  Ebay says well, its an incomplete list,we can't know all the vero's because new ones can come in at any time.  But you as seller, you must know this info ahead of time, else we will execute unnecessarily punitive responses to you for not knowing the same things we say we can't know because its impossible to foretell vero's not yet known.

Yep, its a grand time to deal with the inquisitors of ebay.

[rugerskick]

I think its more important to know what ebay thinks is excessive, not what any one individual thinks.  Because that's what impacts everyone and what everyone is measured against, not our own subjective criteria.