eBay's N95 Mask Gouging Solution Inappropriate

[silvae]

So I listed an extra box of N95 masks I had sitting around, auction style, and started it at 99 cents for a three day auction. eBay then cancelled my auction with a stern warning to not relist any more N95 items.

I get that they want to stop price gouging, and I am 100% on board with that. Taking advantage of desperate people at an emotional time is not cool.

But it infuriates me that eBay is using broad and indiscriminate restrictions. Starting an auction at 99 cents is NOT price gouging as I am not dictating the sale price (it could sell for 25 dollars and I lose money). Also, this broad sledgehammer approach restricts access to items like N95s where eBay is often the only avenue to acquire such items for many people. As a consequence, a medically fragile person may not get the N95s they need to avoid getting sick, literally putting their life at risk. By shutting down every N95 auction, including ethical ones like mine, eBay could be putting people at risk.

I would have preferred if eBay instead restricted N95 sales to auction-style only, starting at a nominal price like 99 cents. This avoids unscrupulous price gouging and people who medically need masks can get them. Without the price gouging sellers, the overall market price for masks would drop and everyone wins (and lives).

[therogue-trader]

that situation assumes ebay has the inability to detect what you decided to charge for shipping.

[wesk_36]

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@silvae wrote:

Well, I agree with you that unscrupulous profiteers are a problem. But eBay is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The single box of N95s I have in my home for the past year isn't, by my ownership of it, depriving others like medical staff, but eBay's restrictions are preventing medical staff from obtaining it. If hospitals can't stock the masks to protect their employees, then the employees will look on eBay to grab some to protect themselves. eBay's reactionary and ham-fisted approach hurts the very people they are trying to help.

So I'll hang onto my masks and they'll collect dust in my attic, instead of being used by someone who actually needs them.

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If you don't want them, you could sell them locally to anyone, carpenters/construction workers need them for dust abatement, or you could donate them; Red Cross, relief organizations that gather and send them to wild-land firefighters, volunteers and cafeteria workers at senior citizen centers, nursing homes,  there are plenty of relief organizations that desperately need these...

but you would rather put them in your attic so nobody can use them? 

[textile_rescue]

I live in a rural area where personal protective equipment (PPE) is not easily accessible. I would have welcomed the chance to purchase masks from your auction. I could always stop bidding when the price exceeded my budget. The medical supply companies are already gouging. Pricing masks up to $80.00 for 100 surgical masks. usually approx 4.95. So only big corporate companies can  profit from this pandemic??? 

[candd205]

Whoever feels stuck with boxes of the masks can always return them to the Walmart or CVS when they bought out their entire supply of masks. They get their money back, and then masks are available for the normal price to the people that need them.

[kws_068]

There is always a solution to restrict the price. 

Ebay can restrict buyer to set flat shipping fee as well, to avoid +100 on shipping. 

With the bans now, all i can say is, good luck to the people who needs them, like CA state. 

You guys can wait and pray until June for the healthcare companies to restock ! If you can survive until then. 

And probably until June we still don't have mask because China stop exporting the mask materials.

So maybe in June 2021. 

[collector723]

They ended my listings too...saying they were taking them all down...the number of listings dropped...now they are letting more listings than ever on there! Why do some people get to sell them, and others not? My were some of the lowest priced ones on there..

[collector723]

I would love to have a "1913  liberty Nickel" for my coin collection...unfortunately, there are only 5 known specimens..(limited supply), but lots of people who want them (demand). So the price is 1.3 million or so, when they come up for sale. Maybe the government should "make them sell it to me, for a "fair price"...maybe 6 cents....yeah right! In a true free market, you should be able to "ask" any price you choose...people can buy it, or not. Those people who wisely bought them when they were cheap, should be able to profit from that, just as if someone bought a "stock" when it was cheap, and now is worth hundreds of times what it originally was.  As far as "profiting in an emergency or crisis", the stock market does just that, every day..

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@collector723 wrote:

They ended my listings too...saying they were taking them all down...the number of listings dropped...now they are letting more listings than ever on there!  ..

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When eBay announced that they were banning listings of N95 masks, there were over 30,000 listings. Now there are just 89 hits on that search, and most of them go to that "We've looked everywhere" error message with the kid in the orange jacket. That seems pretty thorough to me.

[loveyourimagination49]

4938 - 95 masks search

[andrew547]

A no cap auction for something people "need" in a natural disaster is de facto price gouging.

If I set up on a corner in the path of a hurricane with 20 $100 generators, auctioned to the highest bidders, who bid them up to $1,000 each, how am I not price gouging?

What you are doing is the definition of price gouging - profiting from the increase in demand in response to a natural disaster, and the resulting increase in price people are willing to pay.

[buyhere2day]

I agree. I understand why ebay is trying to stop sales of the N95 masks but why let the new listings continue? Why not make it so new listings can’t even happen? Look at all of the completed sold N95 masks that just happened today 3-8-20.

[movieman630]

See what regulations do. I say let the free market be FREE!!!! If someone wants to pay $10,000 for a box of masks that's their business. They have the right to not pay, just like the masks are YOUR PROPERTY. You have the right to keep them or name your own price.

Making "anti-gouging rules or laws" is anti-free market and unfair. If "people who medically need masks" don't have them and you do they are still yours even if you choose to keep them. Telling you, you can't name your price is a sort of theft in my opinion.

When you give an inch they will take a mile. It's always a slippery slope when you give people the ability to throttle your rights and freedoms. Now you see. They will just blanket restrict even honest sellers.

The best solution would be for ebay to but out and let sellers sell. If a person from the media wants to report on "gouging on ebay" all ebay has to say is, "This is America, we don't own the items our sellers are selling, they do, if they want to ask a ridiculous price and people want to pay that price that's between them." Period.

[movieman630]

How is it a "crime" if you OWN THEM!!! Can people come to your yard sale and tell you you're asking too much for something then threaten to lock you up? NO! Why because this is AMERICA!

[movieman630]

So by that rationale wouldn't it be the manufacturer's fault for allowing someone to buy them all? Or is that just the free market doing what it does? If the manufacturer has the right to sell them all to one person or company then that person or company should be allowed to ASK whatever price they want. They own them. People aren't forced to buy them but if they want to they should be allowed to.

[movieman630]

How come I don't hear anyone mentioning the fact that a hospital can charge us $50 for an asprin!? I say if a hospital has to pay double for a box of masks to buy them from a private owner who is "gouging" good for them. Supply and demand. I say the hospitals have been GOUGING us for decades!!