Ebay Banning Sale Of Spells Tarot & Psychic Readings.

As many of you know ebay will be banning the sale of spells, tarot and psychic readings as of September 10th 2012.  After talking to ebay 6 times in the past few days, I really don't think the right hand knows what the left is doing.  First I would like to talk about the metaphysical sellers, I am sure ebay has no idea, how this field works. 

I love selling on ebay, and do NOT want to leave, and most all other sellers feel this way to.  Our buyers don't want us to leave.  Over the past few days, I have received messages via facebook, twitter, and my personal email, and ebay messages, from buyers who are angry!   Our clients are very different from your average ebay user who, buys clothing.  What I mean by this is the honest sellers work very closely with our clients. 

For one thing all of my and most others, clients information is completely confidental.  They will tell us their situation, and we help them in purchasing what they need to achieve what they want. In some cases, it becomes a long term realtionship,  there really is a lot of counseling and helping others.  We are connected, so to speak to our clients, and work with them on a more personal level than other types of sellers do.  I don't think ebay understands this, and have considered how it will affect the buyers.  I know ebay has done a lot of bad things to sellers, but why punish our clients?

This personal touch  is what our clients want, and what I want to do. A few months ago, ebay insisted that we print shipping labels, I think this is when it started.  In order to keep our top rated sellers status, we had to ship something.   I think this was the first step to get us to change what we sell or leave.

I began to send certificates to all my buyers, needless to say this was a bad idea.  And I told ebay it was a bad idea.  99 percent of my clients, wish to remain "unkown" to their family friends etc.  They DO NOT want anything mailed to them   Many who got my "junk mail", asked me not to send them.   I called ebay and explained that the buyers did not want the junk mail.  They suggested, I print them then, keep them on file and never mail them unless asked to by the client.  So, this is what I did.  The part ebay missed was the buyers want to remain "unkown".  

Now it has come to this, no one is really even sure if we can sell beads, jewelry etc, with words like spell, haunted, psychic.  Regardless, if the buyers do not expect anything in the mail from me, and don't want anything in the  mail, why would they buy a Bead?  The simple answer is they won't.

 I do understand there are alot of frauds, and ebay could have handled this differently.  They chose to throw the baby out with the bathwater, never talking into consideration what the buyers want.  Any seller who gaurentees 24 hour instant results is not being truthful, no on can do that.  So, why did ebay not just ban all the bad sellers?  

I honestly have no idea, I don't think they thought this through before doing it.  Over the past several days, I have had many conversations with ebay.  The customer service reps, can't seem to figure out what the rules are.  They will tell you, you CANNOT use the word SPELL in your listing.  Then the next rep you talk to, will so, "oh yes you can".  I do think they are making this up as they go along, adding new rules when they need to figure out how to handle the mess they have created. 

To me, it would have made more sense to ban, words like INSTANT , 24 HOURS!  And also to ban bad sellers.  Or maybe not offer buyer protection to anyone who buys these things.  I was first told ebay did this, due to a cost effective problem.  That spell casters will costing to much, in refunds under buyer protection.  Ok, so then do away with buyer protection.  Or BAN a seller who has two many cases filed against the,

Then yesterday, i got a whole new story on why this is happening.  I was told by a rep, "we do not want to be seen as a flea market".  I really had no idea, what to say to that except, is that not how ebay started?  Where you could sell whatever someone wants to buy?   Many things people used  to buy on ebay are no longer there.  This is sad, as it is a great place to be, as long as ebay does not throw sellers off, who have done nothing wrong.  

I was also told, "ebay wants to rebuild thier reputation", to me this was just almost laughable.  How can that be done, when you are banning a service buyers want?  You are not only chasing off sellers, but buyers to.  And I am not talking about sellers who are buyers.  These are JUST buyers.

If they leave ebay and follow the sellers, then all of ebay loses, because those who would have bought a pair of shoes, and a few spells, Won't buy that pair of shoes.  I do hope that ebay will reconsider, but I really don't think they will.   

For all those who wish to contact ebay and let them know not to ban spells, etc, here is a link to a suggestion box.  Fill it up!

Ebay Suggestion Box