Staying away of difficulty with eBay’s Listing Policies

While you are able to sell most things on eBay, rather a couple of things are banned. If you try to sell any of these matters then eBay will remove your auction and all offers will be void.

Here is eBay’s full list of prohibited or questionable points:

Academic software package
Airline and Transit Related points
Alcohol (besides see Wine)
Animals and Wildlife productions
Anti-circumvention Policy
Artifacts
Authenticity Disclaimers
Autographed points
Electric battery*
Beta software package
Bootleg Recordingstrade name Misuse
Catalog Sales
Catalytic Converters and Test Pipes
Celebrity substantial
Charity or Fundraising itemizations
Comparison Policy
Digest and Informational Media
Declarations and Tickets
Counterfeit Currency and postages
Counterfeit Items
Credit Cards
Downloadable Media
Drugs & Drug Paraphernalia
Electronics Equipment
Embargoed Goods and Prohibited nations
Encouraging Infringement Policy
Event Tickets
Faces, identifies and Signatures
Firearms, Ammunition, Replicas, and Militaria
Fireworks
Nutrient
Freon and extra Refrigerants
Gift Cards
Government IDs and Licenses
Hazardous, Restricted, and Perishable Items
Human characters and Remains
Importation of Goods into the USA
International Trading – Buyers
International Trading – Sellers
Lockpicking Devices
Lottery Ticketsnewsletters and Personal data
Manufacturers’ Coupons
Mature Audiences
Health check Devices
Misleading Titles
Mod Chips, Game Enhancers, and Boot Discs
Movie PrintsMLM, Pyramid and Matrix Programs
OEM Software
Offensive stuff
Pesticides
Plants and Seeds
Police-Related Items
Political Memorabilia
Postage Meters
Pre-Sale Listingsprescription medicine* and Devices
Promotional pointsreal property
Recalled Items
Recordable Media
Replica and Counterfeit Items
Satellite and cable television TV Descramblerscoin machine*
Stocks and Other Securities
Stolen Property
Surveillance Equipment
Tobacco
Traveling
Unauthorized Copies
Used Clothing
Guarantees
Artilleries & Knives
Wine (also see Alcohol)

Most of this is very obvious – naturally you can’t sell illegal things like drugs, pyramid schemes or stolen goods. Almost everything that is on the list is there because there’s law against selling it. Some of the reasons, though, are a small strange.

The ‘inscribed items’ entry, for illustration, doesn’t mean that you can’t sell anything that’s been autographed – it just means that you are able to only sell it if it goes with a certificate of authenticity. The ‘artifacts’ entry prohibits you from selling inborn American graves; ‘celebrity material’ means you can’t sell unauthorised pictures of celebrities; ‘embargoed goods’ means that you can’t sell anything that comes from Cuba… on and thereon goes, and most of it you never need to know.

If your chosen kinda item seems to get on the list, though, and you’re concerned that you might not be able to sell it, then check the full list at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/items-ov.html to see whether the item is banned entirely or there are just a couple of restrictions.

eBay says it will move out any items that it believes violate copyright law, but actually they don’t have that many people to monitor the site. You’ll generally only find that your auction gets removed if someone decides to report you – and even then, they might not go around to it.

Really, purchasing and trading on eBay can sometimes feel more complicated than it really is, thanks to all the rules surrounding it – let alone the jargon. Our next email is a ‘jargon buster’, to help you study the language of eBay.