selling some old twin and earth on ebay anyone know the rules

happyhero

Hi I am selling some old colours twin and earth cable on Ebay ie red and black cores, not the new brown and blue type to clear my garage, and another ebayer has told me I am not allowed to sell it, he says it is illegal, whereas lots of people are selling it on Ebay and I believe this is fine.

I used to be an electrician and I am retired now so not so up to date with regs any more, but as far I know you can still use it as long as the installation is marked up correctly.

I think the guy just thinks he knows what he's talking about and is wrong but it would be good if anyone can tell me for sure on here.

Any help appreciated.

macman

Selling it is different to installing it.
For all you know, the buyers could be using it as washing line replacement.
If it's not allowed on eBay then the other sales would have been taken down.

kippen_noedel

I very much doubt it's illegal to sell it. No doubt though it won't be an electrician that buys it, well, at least a registered one.

buglawton

With the current high price of copper, maybe it even has scrap value!

Fifer

It's not illegal to sell it. How could it be? There are lots of perfectly legal uses even if it can't be used in new domestic installations according to building reg's. I'm not even sure all domestic use would be illegal. Are you still allowed to use it to repair existing black and red installations for example?

davb

I would have thought you could sell it, but if in doubt you could always add some sort of disclaimer that it doesn't comply with the current wiring regs.
If people then buy it for say scrap, then that is up to them.

John_Gray

Surely the simple answer is to ask those people who say that "selling red/black twin-and-earth cable is illegal" which is the law that prevents it?

(And maybe point out they are exhibiting 'colour discrimination' ... :rotfl:)

soolin

macman wrote: »

Selling it is different to installing it.
For all you know, the buyers could be using it as washing line replacement.
If it's not allowed on eBay then the other sales would have been taken down.

Ebay do not police their site, the only listings that get removed are those reported often enough. There are a lot of items on there that do not comply with the rules.

The ebay 'prohibited' list is here but is not overly useful as it really only states the main categories of items that are not allowed.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/items-ov.html

f you decide to sell and are unsure as to whether it is allowed or not I would suggest as short a auction as feasible so you can get a sale before anyone reports it. If you do get an auction pulled then just step back and don't try to sell again as a single warning on an otherwise good account will not harm you, a repeat warning will.

AirCooledHeaven

Of course it's not illegal to sell it, you carry on, blimey, the ebay police are getting as bad as the forum police...

However, it can't be used in any new wiring installations, the new colours have been mandatory since March 2006. But who's to know?