no more psychic readings on ebay

soolin

I'm not sure if anyone on MSE is running a business selling psychic readings, herbs spells etc but in case you wer enot aware this is no longer allowed on ebay: Also affected are the old 'wholesale' lists malarky, drop ship lists and digital art.

http://sellerupdate.ebay.co.uk/autumn2012/category-item-specifics-changes


From 11 September, the following categories will be removed and the following items will not be allowed on eBay.co.uk:

• Home & Garden: Metaphysical & New Age: Spells, Charms & Magic
• Home & Garden: Metaphysical & New Age: Clairvoyance & Readings
• Everything Else: Information Products: How-To Guides
• Everything Else: Information Products: Wholesale Lists
• Art: Artists (Self-Representing)digital Art
• Art: Digital Art

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/fallupdate2012/categoryupdates.html

The following items are also being added to the prohibited items list: advice; spells; curses; hexing; conjuring; magic; prayers; blessing services; magic potions; healing sessions; work from home businesses & information; wholesale lists, and drop shop lists.

Rochdale_Guy

I didn't see that one coming.......




:rotfl:

soolin

Rochdale_Guy wrote: »

I didn't see that one coming.......




:rotfl:

I think there's about 3 pages of that on the community boards , the psychics are getting pretty cross about it.

esuhl

People buy... spells and curses?! Wow. I had no idea that kind of thing went on!

How would you know if your curse was mis-delivered...?

soolin

esuhl wrote: »

People buy... spells and curses?! Wow. I had no idea that kind of thing went on!

How would you know if your curse was mis-delivered...?

Looking at the
very long thread on the community boards it was a real money spinner, people were making a proper living out of it.

techspec

Hope they all put a curse on Ebay - cos i curse them every day

sharpy2010

Thats all those business plan sellers out of luck then!

I wonder why eBay closed these types of listing down. If someone wants to sell "spells", and someone wants to buy them, wheres the problem?!

RHemmings

soolin wrote: »

Looking at the
very long thread on the community boards it was a real money spinner, people were making a proper living out of it.

In my opinion psychics in particular are often awful people, with many cases I've seen being psychics deceiving and abusing the desperate, lonely, and stupid for the psychics own financial benefit. I personally fully approve the changes.

I think it's like drug pushers complaining about increased police presence ruining their "trade" or "business" selling drugs to addicts.

sharpy2010 wrote: »

I wonder why eBay closed these types of listing down. If someone wants to sell "spells", and someone wants to buy them, wheres the problem?!

IMHO, in context that's like saying "if someone's out to scam and someone is stupid enough to fall for it, where's the problem?"

Crowqueen

It's closing down a loophole in the 'digital delivery' system - whilst I sympathise with the psychics losing their jobs (I wanted to do readings for a while, as I'd done quite well when but I was too down-to-earth with my advertising, I had one sale and then abandoned it), the powers-that-be have obvious issues with intangibles (and to be fair, the potential for sellers being scammed is huge) and this is a loophole that should have been closed years ago when eBay banned digital delivery, as by far the most efficient way for a psychic to do these things is to do it via email rather than posting the buyer a piece of paper containing the reading. Also of course there is no buyer protection on intangibles so that puts the person paying at risk of non-delivery.

I kind of believe in these sort of things and it's not casting aspersions on anyone's belief system here, but there are better and safer ways to advertise to do this, and there are hundreds of sites out there to work with if you have a genuine talent.

It's also a category which makes people de jure a business when using it, and I suppose eBay want to make sure their categories are open to both business and private sellers, which is actually quite laudable. You can say a tangible item is an unwanted gift but you can't claim just to be giving readings or casting spells as a hobby or because your auntie Meg gave you them for Christmas.

Or maybe they don't want to do the work policing it.

Crowqueen

RH - perhaps if I said Muslims were evil people, I would get reported. To some Wicca is a religion - not to me, but I would not, for instance, discuss the pros and cons of having a monarchy by making hateful comments about the Queen.

Whilst we are talking about some people's belief systems, please keep it respectful. As Soo says, there may be people out there who make their living this way, just like there are people who make their living as priests or imams or rabbis. It's not much different when you talk to genuine witches. As with everything, there are charlatans, but this is not a thread which I want to see degenerate.

If I made such comments about your interests, no doubt you would find it offensive. Please don't see it as some easy, acceptable target.

Much of the industry is now centred on help, support and guidance rather than trying to predict the future. While I think some things possible and have had experiences, some pretty profound, some which I would like to forget, I take an even-handed view and support this move. So bringing such hateful words into the discussion is going to turn it in a direction in which no-one wants to see it go.

If we want people affected to participate in the discussion, calling them drug-pushers is not going to encourage them to do so.

Thank you.

RHemmings

Crowqueen wrote: »

RH - perhaps if I said Muslims were evil people, I would get reported. To some Wicca is a religion - not to me, but I would not, for instance, discuss the pros and cons of having a monarchy by making hateful comments about the Queen.

Whilst we are talking about some people's belief systems, please keep it respectful and don't savage a worldview that you don't understand.

If I criticised them solely because of their "religion", that would be prejuduce. But, I'm criticising them for what they do, which is deceive and scam people. Here's a listing for pendulum based baby gender prediction which claims a 95-97% accuracy rate.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Baby-Gender-Prediction-Clairvoyant-Psychic-Reading-/270875163341?pt=UK_Metaphysical_New_Age&hash=item3f116afacd

I do not believe that these claims of accuracy are true, and hence I believe that this auction is out to obtain money through false pretenses - i.e. the everyday definition of fraud in my books. Anyone who could predict a baby's gender with 95-97% accuracy using a pendulum would easily be able to prove accuracy well above chance and prove that their psychic/divination powers actually exist. But they don't because they can't.

It's equally valid to criticise e.g. faith healers, who may believe this as part of a religion, but what they are doing is wrong. E.g. the faith healers who were censured by the ASA in Bath.

I do not criticise "psychics" and "faith healers" for who they are or because they have a particular belief, but because of what they do. And that, I believe, is a valid criticism. It could be answered by providing properly conducted evidence to show that claims for the effectiveness of spells, psychic readings, etc. are true. This would be trivial in a case where someone is able to predict the gender of a child with 95-97% accuracy. But it never actually happens.