eBay Wipes Out Tobacco Sellers?

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sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,621
44,833
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
eBay has been a popular place for both sellers and buyers of hard-to-find, extinct, or obsessed over, tobaccos, despite eBay's policy that bans sales of tobacco, a policy that eBay has largely ignored enforcing.
SOMETHING happened recently. I haven't looked at eBay's tobacco listings for a couple of months and when I went to check it out there were hardly any listings. Instead of the usual 300+ listings of McClelland, there were a total of 11, none of whom were the usual scalpers.
Anyone here have a light to shed on this?

 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,621
44,833
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
screen-shot-2019-08-04-at-15037-pm.png


 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,621
44,833
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
Perhaps they simply cracked down on what was already a long standing policy.
Evidently. I don't much care, except for having a casual interest in what tobaccos are going for on the secondary market.
Could it be they started to actually enforce their own policies?
And miss making all that money? eBay sells all sorts of illegal stuff, such as pirated DVD's and various items of intellectual property theft. Who woulda thunk they would develop any ethics!

 

morgansteele

Can't Leave
Mar 23, 2018
313
427
SOMETHING happened recently.
Agreed. I noticed the change about a week ago. I was waiting to learn if someone received a negative eBay or PayPal hit. I stopped selling in May because there was some scuttlebutt about PayPal cancelling accounts and I decided that I didn't want the potential headache. It will be interesting to know if any negative ramifcations follow these cancelled listings.

 

georged

Lifer
Mar 7, 2013
5,491
13,920
And miss making all that money? eBay sells all sorts of illegal stuff, such as pirated DVD's and various items of intellectual property theft. Who woulda thunk they would develop any ethics!
Ethics, schmethics... some risk assessment accountant political-wind-sensitive snowflake manager at corporate HQ realized they could LOSE more money than they could MAKE if a bunch of whiner activists ever came after them with pearls a-clutch and cell phones a-recording for NOT THINKING OF THE CHILDREN!!!! because... [all together now!] E-V-I-L T-O-B-A-C-C-O was involved.

 

cossackjack

Lifer
Oct 31, 2014
1,052
647
Evergreen, Colorado
And miss making all that money? eBay sells all sorts of illegal stuff, such as pirated DVD's and various items of intellectual property theft. Who woulda thunk they would develop any ethics!
I agree, but eBay has done this in the not-too-distant past, at least for awhile.

If PayPal is involved, then it may be a longer moratorium or a permanent cessation of these sales.
Perhaps Steve pipestud will opine. His eBay store is also devoid of collectable vintage tobacco tins.

 

alan73

Part of the Furniture Now
Apr 26, 2017
666
653
Wisconsin
I was am actively buying and selling McClelland and Dunhill . A few weeks ago, it started with fake bidders running up auctions and not paying. Then many auctions started to get cancelled by eBay . I received two warning from eBay about not selling collectible tobacco , then having account cancelled ... more or less all auctions are getting cancelled. This too shall pass .

 

logs

Lifer
Apr 28, 2019
1,873
5,069
I've bought/sold tobacco on eBay a handful of times in the last couple months. Sold a bag of Penzance a few weeks back for crazy money. When I tried to sell another bag of Esoterica, Ebay took it down and sent me a warning.
I still see McLelland and GLP tins on eBay all the time that sell without problem. My theory is they fall into the category of "vintage" tins, whether the tins be empty or still sealed. Anything sold in a bag or a jar is likely to get removed. Enforcement seems to be pretty loose. If you have a hot item and it sells fast you have a better chance of eBay ignoring it than if you have something that lingers on the site for several weeks.

 

burleyboy

Part of the Furniture Now
Jul 30, 2019
862
4,473
Europe
I don‘t know if this helps, but here on the German eBay, auctions for tobacco are forbidden. Tobacco offers here must be “buy now”. It is kind of ridiculous...

 
It is bittersweet
1. Bitter because it will be hard to find a blend, which someone really wants to try, in the secondary market

2. sweet because without a secondary market like eBay .., it might discourage hoarders to do a price arbritrage, taking tobacco away from real smokers

 

ashdigger

Lifer
Jul 30, 2016
11,378
70,055
60
Vegas Baby!!!
it might discourage hoarders to do a price arbritrage, taking tobacco away from real smokers
:crazy:
This discussion drives me nuts. I'm a real tobacco smoker who stocked up when the getting was good. I've also sold tobacco.
I do not think anyone is a scalper.
I think that people are suckers in fear of missing out so they get upset when someone sells something out of their comfort range.

 

alan73

Part of the Furniture Now
Apr 26, 2017
666
653
Wisconsin
What’s nice about eBay is it’s theoretically a free market. If someone values Dunhill emp or 965 far above what it’s worth to me, my auction is doing no harm and one could say a service to people in general.

And if someone wants to sell me aged Christmas Cheer for a price I find reasonable who is to say they are a scalper or bad person?? Willing participants on both ends .

 
There is nothing wrong - I recently bought a tin of Dunhill London Mixture from someone in eBay. I paid 20$ shipped ... which is a fair price to me since, if I visited any of the BMs in NJ, I would score a tin at about the same price. So I saved time, effort gas and got the tin at home.
There is theoretically nothing wrong with scalping as well - but you can ask a neuroscientist - It is psychological and violates many people’s sense of fairness. If Smoking Pipes sold Penzance at 75$ then a lot of people would not bat an eyelid to pay 75$. But if it is sold at 15$, someone hoards it at 15$ and then sells it next day at 75$, it will violate many people’s psychological belief.
Tobacco is a discretionary purchase - so there is nothing morally wrong in scalping. However there have been historical incidents where scalpers have hoarded non-discretionary items like baby food, medicines - which I would argue is a moral slippery slope.

 
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