Ebay Has Banned The Sale of Magical Items, Now We’ll Fail Potions For Sure

What happens if I want to sell my Tarot cards, I wonder. 

Actually, that’s a very, very good question.

If you’re selling a deck of cards, you’re selling a deck of cards. If you’re selling them as part of a  “Good karma MOJO Good Luck Love Wicca Pagan Charm” (Buy It Now US $12.88) then you’d better sell it by the end of the month.

I bet it has a lot to do with complaints regarding the items not being what was advertised or working as advertised, and it being very difficult for eBay to adjudicate that.

No more haunted items from Latvia? Oh no! What will I buy my relatives for Christmas?

It sounds like Tarot cards are fine- as are books of spell and/or blessings, spell ingredients,  tools and the like. Just you promising to cast a spell on someone’s behalf for the small price of $9.99 is banned.

I wonder how desperate one would have to be to buy a money or love spell? It’s not something tangible and then if your hot neighbor from upstairs never falls in love with you- it’s not like you can enforce that.

Way to piss off the Wiccans, Ebay… ugh… did they learn nothing from Buffy?!

Now, let’s just take a moment to note that this sentence effectively places work from home information and “magic spells” in the same bucket.  And, IMHO, quite right.

In all these cases, I can see the reason for the change. In all these cases, there is EVERY possiblility the items won’t work.  And eBay has a blanet guarantee.  I’ll bet there’s more than a few Maic Lucky Juju wands that eBay had to eat the cost of when the poor suckers came back complaining they still haven’t found their true love.

More at my blog:

http://itrd.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-is-post-is-not-intended-to-provide.html

Potatoes?

Ebay is ridiculous! lol

There’s always Etsy.

So, What if I want to sell my authentic vampire killing kit? It has holy water and blessed garlic and field notes ?

You could probably just sell them as collectibles or artwork, with “TAROT CARDS” in the listing title. Should be fine as long as you don’t actually vouch for their effectiveness (or lack thereof, given that you’re selling them ;) ).

There’s a bunch already over there. Might be interesting to see what it does to pricing as sellers are forced from one venue to another.

hm. perhaps they’ll ban crosses. 

Only if it’s advertised as a special cross bathed in the blood of some Guatemalan miracle-child which can heal the sick. Otherwise, it’s just a cross, prayers not included. If they wanted to ban all representations of Our Lord and Savior, they’d also have to ban wine and crackers.

The reason for the ban is to avoid seller selling non-tangible items.
All of those things are non-tangible – prayers and spells are included
in the same category in this case. Religion is not the issue, it’s an inflammatory headline gimmick. If you want to sell a cross, go for it – you could also sell a pentacle, a star of david, etc.

It’s tangible and if the legends are true, most likely to work. I say, go for it.

Darn and here I was going to sell my miracle perfume of powdered toenail clippings and  back sweat.  It’s medicinal i tell ya!

I believe in NONE of that stuff…but I do believe in Capitalism. ebay gets it’s pound of flesh from each sale. Beyond that, it should get out of the way of commerce. ebay should be happy collecting their fees for providing their service. PERIOD. Other than that (as long as nobody is being injured) it isn’t ebay’s business.

You know…again, I think all that stuff is total hokum, but, if a seller believes…and/or a buyer believes…then it isn’t up to ebay to police them.

EXACTLY. Where to draw the line? Some 20 year old ebay employee is going to judge for us? ASININE.

Jaime…why does something need to be tangible to be legit? I agree that religion has nothing to do with it. However, there isn’t ANYTHING “inflammitory” about that stuff at all. If you don’t want to see it, don’t click on it. And if you don’t wish to buy it…DON’T BUY IT! But don’t try to stop others from having the same freedom that you do–the freedom to decide for themselves.

Eh, have everybody who’s selling juju bags and wands slap “for entertainment purposes only” on everything and they should be fine.

 It’s their site and thus their rules.

 Uh…the line’s pretty easy to draw actually. At the end of this transaction, will the bidder/buyer receive something they can hold in their hand? If yes, great, carry on; if not, then sorry, take it to Etsy, I guess. It’s not like this is a ban on religious items or whatever; it’s clearly meant as a rule against listing non-tangible (and probably scam-related) things like souls and thoughts and whatnot.

“it isn’t ebay’s business.”
Um… it’s ebay’s website, how is it not ‘their business’? In fact, this is literally the *business* they are engaged in!

Now, you can criticise them for introducing these new restrictions if you want, although as other commenters have noted there are good reasons for them. But to suggest that ebay somehow has no business deciding what people may sell through its website is absurd.

Sell it as a prop, don’t promise that it will really kill vampires? Or something?

Paganism is a very old religion and has been around and practiced much longer than say…Christianity. A spell book or grimoire is no different than a Bible or book of hymns. I have much respect for it but I do think there are probably plenty of people (practicing or frauds) who maybe take advantage of the more naive people on the Internet. It’s like giving a priest $50 and he’ll pray for your soul- what’s the guarantee? It’s taking advantage and it’s not okay so people like that ruin it for everyone.

 “I believe in NONE of that stuff…but I do believe in Capitalism.”

Quite clearly. Arguing for tolerance of one faith-based worldview based on your own belief in another ideological worldview (you even capitalized the name of your religion) is therefore pretty unsurprising.

Banning the sale of non-existent items is a bare minimum to ensuring consumer confidence in Ebay. But it sounds as though you adhere to an extreme (and outdated) version of Capitalism that supports the sale of snake oil: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/loadingreadyrun/6188-Snake-Oil

Another version of the Quack Miranda Warning (http://www.skepdic.com/quackmiranda.html). We so don’t need any more encouragement of that…

They ARE being injured. They’re being scammed. It is unethical for Ebay to profit from a percentage of sales on “prayers” or “spells” or “hexes” or “work from home/get-rich-quick” or whatever language the scam is cloaked in.

That’s an interesting thought. What *are* the market pressures on the supply and demand of woo? I’m going to make a guess that anyone willing to “purchase” intangible promises probably doesn’t shop around first!