So this is basically a result of the DEA forcing eBay to enforce a ban on pill presses for them?
I hate how the government has basically been deputizing internet companies to enforce laws and regulations for them. If the DEA had done this themselves you could appeal it, ask your congressperson for help, or take them to court, but as long as their actions get laundered through a private company, the rights of the affected citizens disappear.
As someone who also has a seller account with 20+ years of history, I feel for this person. Sure, you can (probably) start a new account -- unless they're now doing some kind of Real ID validation -- but that's likely a lot of karma and "A+++ seller" reviews to build back up. I jest slightly but a track record as a trusted seller definitely does result in more business.
Also, Cassie should be aware that, historically, eBay _does not take well_ to high profile, public criticism: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
Wow. It's looking worse and worse for EBay.
I hope she consults a lawyer. No doubt they have an arbitration clause, but even a commercial arbitration firm will take notice of the fact that eBay violated its own guidelines while providing no form of meaningful recourse or feedback. It's a sad irony that tech firms have made themselves far more Kafkaesque and unresponsive than any government regulator.
https://xcancel.com/cassieceleste/status/1843702724090835178
Hopefully someone here will be able to get someone in corp to actually contact them. It's ridiculous for an account that has established history to just be wiped out like that.
My eBay account of 20 years got cancelled because I followed their customer support's suggestion of opening a new one. And now I can't sell on eBay anymore:
https://tsak.dev/posts/the-decision-is-final-and-we-cannot-r...
I find lifetime bans draconian in general.
fyi ebay agreed to enhanced compliance (ie a crackdown) of pill presses as part of a settlement earlier this year
I estimate I won’t be able to press my own bearings with a Harbor Freight press in a few years because someone used the same tool to cut and rebrick drugs.
I don't know if there are comments or not since I don't have a Twitter... but did she get banned because that's a pill press? Is it a pill press, I'm only guessing.
Yes, it's an antique pill press sold in August. That same listing was flagged three times by their bot because of policy around pill presses and molds, ending in a permaban.
That flag three times is also after it was delisted. So flagged once, and then flagged twice more after it was gone. Must have been enormously frustrating to remove a listing and keep getting warnings about the same, removed item.
I can’t understand this from a data processing point of view. Surely the flag database tracks that an item was already flagged and removed, in order to avoid duplicates.
'is_deleted' in the db while AI crawls everything all the time including those?
According to the user it was delisted the first time though, so I wonder what caused the other two.
Looks like an antique pill press. Feels innocent enough, but it's probably still illegal. Seems like a zero-tolerance policy (ban for life for a single mistake) might not be the right balance, though.
In this day and age an antique pill press is more of a collectable musket than a "as used by criminal gangs fully automatic large magazine assault weapon".
It's not the press of choice for drug baron king pins.
Yeah. It’s a 140 year old antique.
I'm not a lawyer, but I can't imagine any judge ruling that it is illegal.
A sword which has been beaten into a plowshare is no longer a sword, and an inoperative 140 year old pill press is no longer a pill press.
"eBay to Pay $59 Million to Settle Controlled Substances Act Allegations Related to Pill Presses Sold Through Its Website" https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2024/02/01/ebay-pay-59-mi...
Just to be clear, I'm not saying this justifies the response. I'm just clarifying what may have prompted this serious over-reaction by ebay.
>Also, if you're going to give someone a lifetime ban for some keywords that AI picks up in a listing title, GIVE YOUR USERS A RED TEXT WARNING BEFORE THEY LIST IT TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE!
>They do that for BB guns and other items with WAY fewer consequences if you mess up!!
She has a point though. If it's illegal, why even let it get listed in the first place? Why not just give the seller a warning during the listing process?
pill press is a pill press... antique and broken does not mean it can not still be fixed. So, yes. I see the point of eBay too. But reading the messages, I am confused it the listing got removed or not. She got several temporary bans for the same listing, and never listed it again; so I can only assume it was closed (not removed?).
like she said:
>Also, if you're going to give someone a lifetime ban for some keywords that AI picks up in a listing title, GIVE YOUR USERS A RED TEXT WARNING BEFORE THEY LIST IT TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE! >They do that for BB guns and other items with WAY fewer consequences if you mess up!!
Welcome to our AI future peoples, where laws are generated, enforced and broken simultatiously by brutal luck rather democratic processes
Some people is these threads wrote as if the item was "delisted". This is what she wrote: "I listed it in July and it sold in August." It was not delisted. It was sold.
EBay had opportunity to delist a "pill press" before she sold it, or even warn her before she listed it, but chose not to. They seem then to have chosen the worst, most unempathetic response, and then to double down repeatedly.
eBay could have also easily detected the keywords during the listing process and prevented the listing from going live.
Why is a pill press a problem? Are people not allowed the freedom and bodily autonomy to make pills for themselves?
it's regulated as part of the illicit drug supply chain. you can own a pill press just as you can a firearm, as long as you register it and follow the rules.
Cars, trousers and water are also part of that supply chain. The issue is that governments or rather politicians then to take moral panics as an opportunity to simulate activity to the people who elect them often choosing targets that cannot push back over actual utility. The argument is that regulating these kinds of "parts of the supply chain" is completely nonsensical and a waste of every-bodies time.
Reminds how back in USSR you had to register typewriters - each country has its own fears. I wonder though what is so special about pill press - as far as i see any press, manual or mechanized, can be used to press pills. Does it mean that all presses should be registered?
Also reminds how back then, when i was relatively new to the US, veterinary giving me a syringe instructed me to put it into a pocket to make sure it isn't visible. I was perplexed to say the least - hide plastic syringe from view in a country where i had heard you can walk openly on the street with semi-automatic version of Kalashnikov :)
Or you know, candy, which overlaps a lot with pharmaceutical production and packaging.
Any more details besides one tweet and some manual machine from the 1800s?
It's a thread; if you're not logged into Twitter then you only see the one tweet without context. (It wasn't like this before. Thanks, Elon.)
You can replace "x.com" in URLs like this with "xcancel.com" or "nitter.poast.org" to get around this.
I would never rely entirely on eBay. I am currently jousting with a scammer who I sold a MacBook Pro to and they returned one with a different serial number and claim it was broken. They bought something working from me and returned their broken one intentionally. The buyer has perfect feedback as well because there is no recourse and you can't leave feedback for them any more so you can't even identify a scammer. Finding anyone at eBay who gives a crap about this past the tracking was updated to delivered to me is impossible even though apparently I'm covered for seller protection.
I've called them a couple of times and I get the inevitable "thanks for being a loyal customer for more than 10 years speech" and then "we're sorry but there's nothing we can do". I have put over £150k through them in the last decade while emptying out two dead parents' houses which they dutifully took a 9-30% cut on.
It is the ultimate automated and unregulated bureaucracy.
I'm at the end of my tether on this so I closed my mule bank account which ebay uses and will deal with their appointed DCA instead who probably has better customer service.