ebay knives policy applied to forks.

prowla

I've just gone to bid on some used table forks on ebay and the following popup appeared.

Dear Bidder / Buyer Due to stringent laws, the purchase or sale of knives is subject to certain restrictions and/or requirements on ebay.co.uk and ebay.ie. To keep eBay a safe place to buy and sell, eBay may ask you for additional verification when purchasing certain items. If you’ve done this recently you won’t need to do it again. Please enter your credit card details below in order to proceed. It only takes a few moments, and your card won’t be charged. Note: This information is for eBay verification purposes only. We don’t share this information with the seller. If you win the item you can pay by any payment method the seller accepts. Information regarding our Knives Policy can be found here.

They're getting daft!

I'm not entering my credit card details in order to bid.

Are they just trying to drive customers away?

pbartlett

No it is an age verification process ie you have to be 18 to have a credit card.

p3ncilsharpener

pbartlett said:

No it is an age verification process ie you have to be 18 to have a credit card.

Unless you're a secondary cardholder...

prowla

The thing is you have to be over 18 to register for an ebay account and anyway I've had mine since Feb 2001, which is more than 18 years, with regular use and a transaction count of over 1500 spanning that time.

(Plus the item was some table forks, not knives.)

kalsha

So they are asking the buyer to verify.  Wondering if ordinary person like me can sell knives?  Just came across a good set of kitchen knives which I was planning to list.   Something tells me I won't be allowed to list?

MalMonroe

kalsha said:

So they are asking the buyer to verify.  Wondering if ordinary person like me can sell knives?  Just came across a good set of kitchen knives which I was planning to list.   Something tells me I won't be allowed to list?

Some knives are allowed, as per this from ebay : 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/knives-policy?id=5047

But not kitchen knives, sadly.

soolin

kalsha said:

So they are asking the buyer to verify.  Wondering if ordinary person like me can sell knives?  Just came across a good set of kitchen knives which I was planning to list.   Something tells me I won't be allowed to list?

As has been already answered you can’t sell them on ebay or on Facebook marketplace , in fact they will be a hard sell due to restrictions. I wouldn’t try and get round any restrictions, it isn’t worth a warning on your account. 

p3ncilsharpener

prowla said:

The thing is you have to be over 18 to register for an ebay account and anyway I've had mine since Feb 2001, which is more than 18 years, with regular use and a transaction count of over 1500 spanning that time.

(Plus the item was some table forks, not knives.)

I mean, nobody would ever put a false DOB in when registering for an account...

Pollycat

p3ncilsharpener said:

prowla said:

The thing is you have to be over 18 to register for an ebay account and anyway I've had mine since Feb 2001, which is more than 18 years, with regular use and a transaction count of over 1500 spanning that time.

(Plus the item was some table forks, not knives.)

I mean, nobody would ever put a false DOB in when registering for an account...

Even if the OP had managed to register for an eBay account when he was a newborn baby in 2001, he'd be over the age of 18 now...

prowla

Pollycat said:

p3ncilsharpener said:

prowla said:

The thing is you have to be over 18 to register for an ebay account and anyway I've had mine since Feb 2001, which is more than 18 years, with regular use and a transaction count of over 1500 spanning that time.

(Plus the item was some table forks, not knives.)

I mean, nobody would ever put a false DOB in when registering for an account...

Even if the OP had managed to register for an eBay account when he was a newborn baby in 2001, he'd be over the age of 18 now...

Exactly - thanks for taking the trouble to read what I wrote! :-)

(Plus, if ebay do or don't do proper validation of age on sign-up, then why would doing it at this point be any further protection?)

soolin

It's lazy policing. There are laws governing the sale of blades in the UK so rather than spend hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to weed out those sales not allowed, and those sales allowed it is easier to ban everything. I have got Kukri knives here that I have no idea what to do with, they often turn up in mixed auction lots and due to rules around blade length, licenses, age of buyer etc I can't actually sell them anywhere. Instead I wrap and store them all in the loft until I can find a way of giving them to a museum or collector (they are old and some are historical so I don't just want to dump them)