5 ms·

Cassie LaBelle: "eBay completely destroyed my life"

89 points by vintagedave 2y ago

johng 2y ago
I don't know if there are comments or not since I don't have a Twitter... but did she get banned because that's a pill press? Is it a pill press, I'm only guessing.
- superkuh 2y ago
  "eBay to Pay $59 Million to Settle Controlled Substances Act Allegations Related to Pill Presses Sold Through Its Website" https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2024/02/01/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-controlled-substances-act-allegations-related https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2024/02/01/ebay-pay-59-mi... Just to be clear, I'm not saying this justifies the response. I'm just clarifying what may have prompted this serious over-reaction by ebay.
  - gbraad 2y ago
    pill press is a pill press... antique and broken does not mean it can not still be fixed. So, yes. I see the point of eBay too. But reading the messages, I am confused it the listing got removed or not. She got several temporary bans for the same listing, and never listed it again; so I can only assume it was closed (not removed?).
    - kwanbix 2y ago
      like she said: >Also, if you're going to give someone a lifetime ban for some keywords that AI picks up in a listing title, GIVE YOUR USERS A RED TEXT WARNING BEFORE THEY LIST IT TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE! >They do that for BB guns and other items with WAY fewer consequences if you mess up!!
    - xtiansimon 2y ago
      > “pill press is a pill press... antique and broken does not mean it can not still be fixed.” This is valid reason for enforcement of the rule. What’s at issue, in all of these cases, is the lack of reasonable judgement of the case (appeal). eBay’s place in the market (different from, say, Amazon or Walmart) is private sellers selling used items, vintage, collectible, rare, antique. This is exactly what this item is. No average person would ever conceive of the item as itself being dangerous or harmful (like a gun or brass knuckles). Whats more, no one would object to selling this antique on eBay to, say, a pharmacy to sit as decoration on a shelf. On the face of it, it seem unlikely an impartial judge would rule the seller was not a good member of the EBay community, and deserves a restoration of their privileges.
      - gbraad 2y ago
        the device is unlikely to also provide at scale if restored, which probably would also be a consideration. if you are serious to use it as a pill press, you would not go for this inconvenient option. I wish her luck in getting it sorted, ...
        xtiansimon 2y ago
        "at scale" That doesn't seem to be a then and now part of this. I looked on Amazon and you can find a pill machine for ~$400 pressing single pills with identical design.
        gbraad 2y ago
        ... which justifies a possible argument that the device can be restored in working order/cause issues for eBay. Doesn't look good for her.
  - weq 2y ago
    Welcome to our AI future peoples, where laws are generated, enforced and broken simultatiously by brutal luck rather democratic processes https://www.phind.com/search?cache=va579yelqgkue97jka6cinzl https://www.phind.com/search?cache=va579yelqgkue97jka6cinzl
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    >Also, if you're going to give someone a lifetime ban for some keywords that AI picks up in a listing title, GIVE YOUR USERS A RED TEXT WARNING BEFORE THEY LIST IT TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE! >They do that for BB guns and other items with WAY fewer consequences if you mess up!! She has a point though. If it's illegal, why even let it get listed in the first place? Why not just give the seller a warning during the listing process?
  - fensgrim 2y ago
    Ooh substances - scary stuff. Must be very dangerous to allow selling a thing that could be made with any CNC router out of scrap, so let's also ban CNC routers.. eventually, let's ban hands as they can be used to do stuff. /s
- klyrs 2y ago
  Looks like an antique pill press. Feels innocent enough, but it's probably still illegal. Seems like a zero-tolerance policy (ban for life for a single mistake) might not be the right balance, though.
  - defrost 2y ago
    In this day and age an antique pill press is more of a collectable musket than a "as used by criminal gangs fully automatic large magazine assault weapon". It's not the press of choice for drug baron king pins.
    - vintagedave 2y ago
      Yeah. It’s a 140 year old antique.
  - cperciva 2y ago
    I'm not a lawyer, but I can't imagine any judge ruling that it is illegal. A sword which has been beaten into a plowshare is no longer a sword, and an inoperative 140 year old pill press is no longer a pill press.
    - JohnBooty 2y ago
      As others have noted it's illegal to sell pill presses unless you're registered with the DEA, and eBay has gotten slammed for millions of dollars over this. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-controlled-substances-act-allegations-related-pill-presses-sold https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-co... Their treatment of this seller sucks, but they are also forced to cover their asses by the government on this. So they are in a somewhat difficult position. I'm not defending eBay, mind you. As the seller notes on their Twitter thread... eBay should and could easily detect this kind of illegal item AHEAD OF TIME when the seller enters the item description. Just block the seller from listing the item, rather than letting them list it... and then banning them later. It is possible (don't know how likely) that maybe eBay is being total overkill on this stuff as a sign of good faith to the government to avoid future fines. A lot of those fines can be based on the perceived level of willful noncompliance. Not excusing them. Just thinking thru what might be happening.
- cranium 2y ago
  Yes, it's an antique pill press sold in August. That same listing was flagged three times by their bot because of policy around pill presses and molds, ending in a permaban.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    According to the user it was delisted the first time though, so I wonder what caused the other two.
  - vintagedave 2y ago
    That flag three times is also after it was delisted. So flagged once, and then flagged twice more after it was gone. Must have been enormously frustrating to remove a listing and keep getting warnings about the same, removed item. I can’t understand this from a data processing point of view. Surely the flag database tracks that an item was already flagged and removed, in order to avoid duplicates.
    - anonzzzies 2y ago
      'is_deleted' in the db while AI crawls everything all the time including those?
    - acje 2y ago
      So it is just buggy cache invalidation? I guess eBay will eventually fix it. Also the seller is perhaps at fault for not naming it wisely? Cache invalidation and naming stuff..
      - bobthepanda 2y ago
        On a platform like eBay i would hope listings are keyed by UUID or some other id and not title string. And “I guess, eventually” is generally not good enough for a court, which is really where this person should be able to send a dispute like this.
Semaphor 2y ago
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1843702724090835178.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1843702724090835178.html
dawnerd 2y ago
https://xcancel.com/cassieceleste/status/1843702724090835178 https://xcancel.com/cassieceleste/status/1843702724090835178 Hopefully someone here will be able to get someone in corp to actually contact them. It's ridiculous for an account that has established history to just be wiped out like that.
- Abishek_Muthian 2y ago
  Thank you so much for the nitter link, I didn't know that it still worked. I wasn't able to open the thread even in official 'X' app from Firefox android.
yawpitch 2y ago
[flagged]
- superkuh 2y ago
  Life in the sense of being able to acquire food and shelter to continue being physically alive, probably. Not life as in meaning.
  - llmthrow102 2y ago
    The word for that is livelihood.
  - yawpitch 2y ago
    In neither meaning has she had anything destroyed. Impacted by her own actions, certainly, maybe even by a rule that makes sense but she doesn’t appreciate or understand, likely, but destroyed? Nyet.
- defrost 2y ago
  It's their six figure income and work life of choice. Much as a main street newstand or taxi cab operator might feel about their primary source of income - it sucks when regulations sweep your job away.
- hggigg 2y ago
  Naive. It's a primary source of income for many people.
  - yawpitch 2y ago
    First thing she mentions is a 6 figure income… she has a big buffer between what will absolutely be a brief inconvenience and actual hardship.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  Don't be a jerk. She suddenly has no way to pay her bills because her commercial partner fucked up and doesn't have anything resembling a real accountability process.
abigail95 2y ago
fyi ebay agreed to enhanced compliance (ie a crackdown) of pill presses as part of a settlement earlier this year https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1336401/dl?inline https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1336401/dl?inline
anigbrowl 2y ago
I hope she consults a lawyer. No doubt they have an arbitration clause, but even a commercial arbitration firm will take notice of the fact that eBay violated its own guidelines while providing no form of meaningful recourse or feedback. It's a sad irony that tech firms have made themselves far more Kafkaesque and unresponsive than any government regulator.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Why is a pill press a problem? Are people not allowed the freedom and bodily autonomy to make pills for themselves?
- abigail95 2y ago
  it's regulated as part of the illicit drug supply chain. you can own a pill press just as you can a firearm, as long as you register it and follow the rules.
  - trhway 2y ago
    Reminds how back in USSR you had to register typewriters - each country has its own fears. I wonder though what is so special about pill press - as far as i see any press, manual or mechanized, can be used to press pills. Does it mean that all presses should be registered? Also reminds how back then, when i was relatively new to the US, veterinary giving me a syringe instructed me to put it into a pocket to make sure it isn't visible. I was perplexed to say the least - hide plastic syringe from view in a country where i had heard you can walk openly on the street with semi-automatic version of Kalashnikov :)
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      Well… there is no National Syringe Association to pay for a lobby group.
    - strken 2y ago
      I'm likewise confused. It seems like you could machine something more effective in about an hour out of a hydraulic shop press and some steel, and it's not like drug users are averse to buying drugs in bags. Also, as far as I know, gelatin capsules are perfectly legal in the US.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - blkhawk 2y ago
    Cars, trousers and water are also part of that supply chain. The issue is that governments or rather politicians then to take moral panics as an opportunity to simulate activity to the people who elect them often choosing targets that cannot push back over actual utility. The argument is that regulating these kinds of "parts of the supply chain" is completely nonsensical and a waste of every-bodies time.
hggigg 2y ago
I would never rely entirely on eBay. I am currently jousting with a scammer who I sold a MacBook Pro to and they returned one with a different serial number and claim it was broken. They bought something working from me and returned their broken one intentionally. The buyer has perfect feedback as well because there is no recourse and you can't leave feedback for them any more so you can't even identify a scammer. Finding anyone at eBay who gives a crap about this past the tracking was updated to delivered to me is impossible even though apparently I'm covered for seller protection. I've called them a couple of times and I get the inevitable "thanks for being a loyal customer for more than 10 years speech" and then "we're sorry but there's nothing we can do". I have put over £150k through them in the last decade while emptying out two dead parents' houses which they dutifully took a 9-30% cut on. It is the ultimate automated and unregulated bureaucracy. I'm at the end of my tether on this so I closed my mule bank account which ebay uses and will deal with their appointed DCA instead who probably has better customer service.
ethagnawl 2y ago
As someone who also has a seller account with 20+ years of history, I feel for this person. Sure, you can (probably) start a new account -- unless they're now doing some kind of Real ID validation -- but that's likely a lot of karma and "A+++ seller" reviews to build back up. I jest slightly but a track record as a trusted seller definitely does result in more business. Also, Cassie should be aware that, historically, eBay _does not take well_ to high profile, public criticism: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-that-time-ebays-private-211963285/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
- rendall 2y ago
  Wow. It's looking worse and worse for EBay.
rendall 2y ago
Some people is these threads wrote as if the item was "delisted". This is what she wrote: "I listed it in July and it sold in August." It was not delisted. It was sold. EBay had opportunity to delist a "pill press" before she sold it, or even warn her before she listed it, but chose not to. They seem then to have chosen the worst, most unempathetic response, and then to double down repeatedly.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  eBay could have also easily detected the keywords during the listing process and prevented the listing from going live.
swarnie 2y ago
Any more details besides one tweet and some manual machine from the 1800s?
- future10se 2y ago
  It's a thread; if you're not logged into Twitter then you only see the one tweet without context. (It wasn't like this before. Thanks, Elon.) You can replace "x.com" in URLs like this with "xcancel.com" or "nitter.poast.org" to get around this.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    it's the rational response to the HiQ vs Linked-in case about scraping.
yenwodyah 2y ago
So this is basically a result of the DEA forcing eBay to enforce a ban on pill presses for them? I hate how the government has basically been deputizing internet companies to enforce laws and regulations for them. If the DEA had done this themselves you could appeal it, ask your congressperson for help, or take them to court, but as long as their actions get laundered through a private company, the rights of the affected citizens disappear.
- Animats 2y ago
  > So this is basically a result of the DEA forcing eBay to enforce a ban on pill presses for them? Yes. See [1]. Owning a pill press is not currently illegal under Federal law, although some states restrict ownership. Selling one, though, requires registration with the DEA and reporting to whom it was sold. It's kind of like being a gun dealer. [1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-controlled-substances-act-allegations-related-pill-presses-sold https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-co...
  - vandyswa 2y ago
    I got the DEA call/email--I let our family lawyer deal with it, and it came to nothing. The crazy thing is that these pill presses, from a 3D printing perspective, are an absolutely trivial object. I'm glad that the drug war is going so well that there only remains the persection of certain shapes of plastic. (irony)
- benoau 2y ago
  I agree consumers should have better recourse - but its absence is just another way online platforms maximize their profit, and taxpayer-funded policing their platforms for them would only exacerbate that.
  - pas 2y ago
    How is it any good for eBay? They lost someone who made a lot of money for them. These crazy human hostile implementations of various regulations are a net loss for big businesses. eBay is doing what nowadays all big fucking corps do, shit on UX and gut punch actual users in the name of compliance. You got a few hundred dollars from your friend on your Venmo/Revolut/Wise/whatever app and our AML/KYC/CYA/compliance department flagged it? Okay, instantly block your account, tell the users nothing, and demand that they submit paperwork proving who they are, where's the money from, what's the purpose of the transfer, etc... in the most fucked up adversarial byzantine way possible. The problem is that there's no sane way for these companies to do the good cop / bad cop transition. This is a pure chilling effect on this kind of economic activity. Banks and these money middlemen ought to be our agents (broker! mediator!) instead they are turned into paranoid bureaucrats resembling the idiots at the NRC (NRC is the nuclear regulatory commission, where the prevailing doctrine is to get risks as low as possible - ALARA, which led to nuclear energy priced out of the fucking market).
tsak 2y ago
My eBay account of 20 years got cancelled because I followed their customer support's suggestion of opening a new one. And now I can't sell on eBay anymore: https://tsak.dev/posts/the-decision-is-final-and-we-cannot-reverse-it/ https://tsak.dev/posts/the-decision-is-final-and-we-cannot-r...
- UberFly 2y ago
  Ebay and Etsy are sounding like two peas in a pod.
- robryan 2y ago
  Nothing to loose if the process for the first one goes nowhere. Use a separate company/ address/ bank account. A past company I worked for had multiple accounts and eBay didn't seem to be on top of this anywhere near as much as Amazon tends to be.
Scoundreller 2y ago
I estimate I won’t be able to press my own bearings with a Harbor Freight press in a few years because someone used the same tool to cut and rebrick drugs.
l5870uoo9y 2y ago
I find lifetime bans draconian in general.
bambax 2y ago
We should not accept this and react only after each scandal. There needs to be some kind of legal appeal process against "lifetime bans" by companies big and small (but esp. the big ones of course).
kkfx 2y ago
That's why anyone to be a Netizen not a slave must have a personal website on a personal domain, mirrored to some censor-resistant distributed networks and publish them with ready made instruction about how to use them and invite (for ecommerce) to buy directly from their own site, paying with domestic methods so to have domestic laws enforcement for easy act against any broker/banks bad behavior. The member of WTO "tribunal" must be consider outlaws in any civil country as well, and people must know again the difference between what they own and what they have with limiting "rents", licenses and so on, and the difference between something PUBLIC and something private publicly open. All this issues would be resolved.
noncoml 2y ago
Kafka’s new book: “No Trial”
metalman 2y ago
Had my listing for a copy of "The Anarchists Cookbook" flaged,and it was persistant,and could not completely remove my offence. And the pill press thing is stupid,vile,virtue signalling,when you factor in "purdue pharmasutical" oxycontin (ongoing fer phucks sake) debackle,blarg Another thing with ebay is that for a new seller they hide the process to get paid,untill you make a sale,and then demand that you sign into your bank account,through a pop up window on there site so that was a non.starter,looked into it and the "third party","deposit verification" company is bieng sued for scraping peoples bank info right out of there BANK accounts,useing there passwords. Same for setting up on reverb.com,company called "plaid" I nuked my ebay account,and have a new business checking account that will be a deposit only account,(not tied to any other account,checked that box) I loath bieng survailed and advertised to,so now use cash for most purchasing,and my daily driver device has no big tech apps
- navjack27 2y ago
  I'm sorry, but your post is so hard to read with this formatting where you seem to refuse to put spaces after commas. I'm sure you are saying something mostly relevant here but please; for people's perception of your intelligence sake and the accessibility of people trying to understand you, format better.
  - tucnak 2y ago
    My perception of his intelligence is that he's based and doesn't care what you think.
OutOfHere 2y ago
People don't realize that the current federal government gives ~5% value for the taxpayer and ~95% value for the government worker, all at the expense of taxpayer, also taking away essential freedoms for weak reasons. It's a very bad deal for the citizen.
ValueAddedRS 2y ago
The really crazy part is Cassie is not just some random, unknown seller to eBay...she has actually written almost 200 articles for (now) eBay-owned TCGPlayer about Magic The Gathering since 2020 with the most recent one being published on September 27, 2024. https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/author/Cassie-LaBelle?p=1 https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/author/Cassie-LaBelle?p=1 eBay acquired TCGPlayer in October 2022 and have been paying her to create content for them since. https://x.com/CassieCeleste/status/1843702917314031759 https://x.com/CassieCeleste/status/1843702917314031759 "Hell, eBay OWNS @TCGplayer, the website I've given the past several years of my life to. They know me. They know I'm honest. They're still sending me paychecks for the last of my articles there. But I'm too dangerous to ever sell on their platform again. Because I sold THAT." If she can't get through to someone who can review the situation through a rational, human lens and provide some real help, what hope does anyone else caught up in their automated bot dragnet have?
h2odragon 2y ago
"Don't build your castle on someone else's land" We bailed out of ebay 17 years ago: they changed to "buyer need not pay" and one person took us for $1,000+ of stuff. Never saw a sign they were getting better; it has looked like they're preying on sellers to me, ever since.
xtiansimon 2y ago
Huh. It’s used items and antiques that make eBay different from Amazon. This is bad look for eBay’s brand. The item is obviously an antique (and literally one over 100 years old).
navjack27 2y ago
While I completely disagree with a full ban for selling a antique pill press I also disagree with selling an antique pill press. Donate that to a museum of medical history or something instead of trying to profit from an antique pill press. You don't know who you are selling it to and you can't trust who you are selling it to via eBay (pill presses are restricted on eBay antique or not) isn't going to divert that to someone who is going to attempt to try to use it for illicit means.
cowboylowrez 2y ago
getting permanently banned from a website is the reality nowadays. any website membership needs to be an "enjoy it while it lasts" sort of thing.

89 points by vintagedave 2y ago

I don't know if there are comments or not since I don't have a Twitter... but did she get banned because that's a pill press? Is it a pill press, I'm only guessing.

superkuh 2y ago
"eBay to Pay $59 Million to Settle Controlled Substances Act Allegations Related to Pill Presses Sold Through Its Website" https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2024/02/01/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-controlled-substances-act-allegations-related https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2024/02/01/ebay-pay-59-mi... Just to be clear, I'm not saying this justifies the response. I'm just clarifying what may have prompted this serious over-reaction by ebay.
- gbraad 2y ago
  pill press is a pill press... antique and broken does not mean it can not still be fixed. So, yes. I see the point of eBay too. But reading the messages, I am confused it the listing got removed or not. She got several temporary bans for the same listing, and never listed it again; so I can only assume it was closed (not removed?).
  - kwanbix 2y ago
    like she said: >Also, if you're going to give someone a lifetime ban for some keywords that AI picks up in a listing title, GIVE YOUR USERS A RED TEXT WARNING BEFORE THEY LIST IT TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE! >They do that for BB guns and other items with WAY fewer consequences if you mess up!!
  - xtiansimon 2y ago
    > “pill press is a pill press... antique and broken does not mean it can not still be fixed.” This is valid reason for enforcement of the rule. What’s at issue, in all of these cases, is the lack of reasonable judgement of the case (appeal). eBay’s place in the market (different from, say, Amazon or Walmart) is private sellers selling used items, vintage, collectible, rare, antique. This is exactly what this item is. No average person would ever conceive of the item as itself being dangerous or harmful (like a gun or brass knuckles). Whats more, no one would object to selling this antique on eBay to, say, a pharmacy to sit as decoration on a shelf. On the face of it, it seem unlikely an impartial judge would rule the seller was not a good member of the EBay community, and deserves a restoration of their privileges.
    - gbraad 2y ago
      the device is unlikely to also provide at scale if restored, which probably would also be a consideration. if you are serious to use it as a pill press, you would not go for this inconvenient option. I wish her luck in getting it sorted, ...
      - xtiansimon 2y ago
        "at scale" That doesn't seem to be a then and now part of this. I looked on Amazon and you can find a pill machine for ~$400 pressing single pills with identical design.
        gbraad 2y ago
        ... which justifies a possible argument that the device can be restored in working order/cause issues for eBay. Doesn't look good for her.
- weq 2y ago
  Welcome to our AI future peoples, where laws are generated, enforced and broken simultatiously by brutal luck rather democratic processes https://www.phind.com/search?cache=va579yelqgkue97jka6cinzl https://www.phind.com/search?cache=va579yelqgkue97jka6cinzl
- aurareturn 2y ago
  >Also, if you're going to give someone a lifetime ban for some keywords that AI picks up in a listing title, GIVE YOUR USERS A RED TEXT WARNING BEFORE THEY LIST IT TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE! >They do that for BB guns and other items with WAY fewer consequences if you mess up!! She has a point though. If it's illegal, why even let it get listed in the first place? Why not just give the seller a warning during the listing process?
- fensgrim 2y ago
  Ooh substances - scary stuff. Must be very dangerous to allow selling a thing that could be made with any CNC router out of scrap, so let's also ban CNC routers.. eventually, let's ban hands as they can be used to do stuff. /s
klyrs 2y ago
Looks like an antique pill press. Feels innocent enough, but it's probably still illegal. Seems like a zero-tolerance policy (ban for life for a single mistake) might not be the right balance, though.
- defrost 2y ago
  In this day and age an antique pill press is more of a collectable musket than a "as used by criminal gangs fully automatic large magazine assault weapon". It's not the press of choice for drug baron king pins.
  - vintagedave 2y ago
    Yeah. It’s a 140 year old antique.
- cperciva 2y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I can't imagine any judge ruling that it is illegal. A sword which has been beaten into a plowshare is no longer a sword, and an inoperative 140 year old pill press is no longer a pill press.
  - JohnBooty 2y ago
    As others have noted it's illegal to sell pill presses unless you're registered with the DEA, and eBay has gotten slammed for millions of dollars over this. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-controlled-substances-act-allegations-related-pill-presses-sold https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-co... Their treatment of this seller sucks, but they are also forced to cover their asses by the government on this. So they are in a somewhat difficult position. I'm not defending eBay, mind you. As the seller notes on their Twitter thread... eBay should and could easily detect this kind of illegal item AHEAD OF TIME when the seller enters the item description. Just block the seller from listing the item, rather than letting them list it... and then banning them later. It is possible (don't know how likely) that maybe eBay is being total overkill on this stuff as a sign of good faith to the government to avoid future fines. A lot of those fines can be based on the perceived level of willful noncompliance. Not excusing them. Just thinking thru what might be happening.
cranium 2y ago
Yes, it's an antique pill press sold in August. That same listing was flagged three times by their bot because of policy around pill presses and molds, ending in a permaban.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  According to the user it was delisted the first time though, so I wonder what caused the other two.
- vintagedave 2y ago
  That flag three times is also after it was delisted. So flagged once, and then flagged twice more after it was gone. Must have been enormously frustrating to remove a listing and keep getting warnings about the same, removed item. I can’t understand this from a data processing point of view. Surely the flag database tracks that an item was already flagged and removed, in order to avoid duplicates.
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    'is_deleted' in the db while AI crawls everything all the time including those?
  - acje 2y ago
    So it is just buggy cache invalidation? I guess eBay will eventually fix it. Also the seller is perhaps at fault for not naming it wisely? Cache invalidation and naming stuff..
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      On a platform like eBay i would hope listings are keyed by UUID or some other id and not title string. And “I guess, eventually” is generally not good enough for a court, which is really where this person should be able to send a dispute like this.

Semaphor 2y ago

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1843702724090835178.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1843702724090835178.html

dawnerd 2y ago

https://xcancel.com/cassieceleste/status/1843702724090835178 https://xcancel.com/cassieceleste/status/1843702724090835178 Hopefully someone here will be able to get someone in corp to actually contact them. It's ridiculous for an account that has established history to just be wiped out like that.

Abishek_Muthian 2y ago
Thank you so much for the nitter link, I didn't know that it still worked. I wasn't able to open the thread even in official 'X' app from Firefox android.

yawpitch 2y ago

[flagged]

superkuh 2y ago
Life in the sense of being able to acquire food and shelter to continue being physically alive, probably. Not life as in meaning.
- llmthrow102 2y ago
  The word for that is livelihood.
- yawpitch 2y ago
  In neither meaning has she had anything destroyed. Impacted by her own actions, certainly, maybe even by a rule that makes sense but she doesn’t appreciate or understand, likely, but destroyed? Nyet.
defrost 2y ago
It's their six figure income and work life of choice. Much as a main street newstand or taxi cab operator might feel about their primary source of income - it sucks when regulations sweep your job away.
hggigg 2y ago
Naive. It's a primary source of income for many people.
- yawpitch 2y ago
  First thing she mentions is a 6 figure income… she has a big buffer between what will absolutely be a brief inconvenience and actual hardship.
anigbrowl 2y ago
Don't be a jerk. She suddenly has no way to pay her bills because her commercial partner fucked up and doesn't have anything resembling a real accountability process.

abigail95 2y ago

fyi ebay agreed to enhanced compliance (ie a crackdown) of pill presses as part of a settlement earlier this year https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1336401/dl?inline https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1336401/dl?inline

anigbrowl 2y ago

I hope she consults a lawyer. No doubt they have an arbitration clause, but even a commercial arbitration firm will take notice of the fact that eBay violated its own guidelines while providing no form of meaningful recourse or feedback. It's a sad irony that tech firms have made themselves far more Kafkaesque and unresponsive than any government regulator.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Why is a pill press a problem? Are people not allowed the freedom and bodily autonomy to make pills for themselves?

abigail95 2y ago
it's regulated as part of the illicit drug supply chain. you can own a pill press just as you can a firearm, as long as you register it and follow the rules.
- trhway 2y ago
  Reminds how back in USSR you had to register typewriters - each country has its own fears. I wonder though what is so special about pill press - as far as i see any press, manual or mechanized, can be used to press pills. Does it mean that all presses should be registered? Also reminds how back then, when i was relatively new to the US, veterinary giving me a syringe instructed me to put it into a pocket to make sure it isn't visible. I was perplexed to say the least - hide plastic syringe from view in a country where i had heard you can walk openly on the street with semi-automatic version of Kalashnikov :)
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    Well… there is no National Syringe Association to pay for a lobby group.
  - strken 2y ago
    I'm likewise confused. It seems like you could machine something more effective in about an hour out of a hydraulic shop press and some steel, and it's not like drug users are averse to buying drugs in bags. Also, as far as I know, gelatin capsules are perfectly legal in the US.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- blkhawk 2y ago
  Cars, trousers and water are also part of that supply chain. The issue is that governments or rather politicians then to take moral panics as an opportunity to simulate activity to the people who elect them often choosing targets that cannot push back over actual utility. The argument is that regulating these kinds of "parts of the supply chain" is completely nonsensical and a waste of every-bodies time.

hggigg 2y ago

I would never rely entirely on eBay. I am currently jousting with a scammer who I sold a MacBook Pro to and they returned one with a different serial number and claim it was broken. They bought something working from me and returned their broken one intentionally. The buyer has perfect feedback as well because there is no recourse and you can't leave feedback for them any more so you can't even identify a scammer. Finding anyone at eBay who gives a crap about this past the tracking was updated to delivered to me is impossible even though apparently I'm covered for seller protection. I've called them a couple of times and I get the inevitable "thanks for being a loyal customer for more than 10 years speech" and then "we're sorry but there's nothing we can do". I have put over £150k through them in the last decade while emptying out two dead parents' houses which they dutifully took a 9-30% cut on. It is the ultimate automated and unregulated bureaucracy. I'm at the end of my tether on this so I closed my mule bank account which ebay uses and will deal with their appointed DCA instead who probably has better customer service.

ethagnawl 2y ago

As someone who also has a seller account with 20+ years of history, I feel for this person. Sure, you can (probably) start a new account -- unless they're now doing some kind of Real ID validation -- but that's likely a lot of karma and "A+++ seller" reviews to build back up. I jest slightly but a track record as a trusted seller definitely does result in more business. Also, Cassie should be aware that, historically, eBay _does not take well_ to high profile, public criticism: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-that-time-ebays-private-211963285/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

rendall 2y ago
Wow. It's looking worse and worse for EBay.

rendall 2y ago

Some people is these threads wrote as if the item was "delisted". This is what she wrote: "I listed it in July and it sold in August." It was not delisted. It was sold. EBay had opportunity to delist a "pill press" before she sold it, or even warn her before she listed it, but chose not to. They seem then to have chosen the worst, most unempathetic response, and then to double down repeatedly.

aurareturn 2y ago
eBay could have also easily detected the keywords during the listing process and prevented the listing from going live.

swarnie 2y ago

Any more details besides one tweet and some manual machine from the 1800s?

future10se 2y ago
It's a thread; if you're not logged into Twitter then you only see the one tweet without context. (It wasn't like this before. Thanks, Elon.) You can replace "x.com" in URLs like this with "xcancel.com" or "nitter.poast.org" to get around this.
- fragmede 2y ago
  it's the rational response to the HiQ vs Linked-in case about scraping.

yenwodyah 2y ago

So this is basically a result of the DEA forcing eBay to enforce a ban on pill presses for them? I hate how the government has basically been deputizing internet companies to enforce laws and regulations for them. If the DEA had done this themselves you could appeal it, ask your congressperson for help, or take them to court, but as long as their actions get laundered through a private company, the rights of the affected citizens disappear.

Animats 2y ago
> So this is basically a result of the DEA forcing eBay to enforce a ban on pill presses for them? Yes. See [1]. Owning a pill press is not currently illegal under Federal law, although some states restrict ownership. Selling one, though, requires registration with the DEA and reporting to whom it was sold. It's kind of like being a gun dealer. [1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-controlled-substances-act-allegations-related-pill-presses-sold https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ebay-pay-59-million-settle-co...
- vandyswa 2y ago
  I got the DEA call/email--I let our family lawyer deal with it, and it came to nothing. The crazy thing is that these pill presses, from a 3D printing perspective, are an absolutely trivial object. I'm glad that the drug war is going so well that there only remains the persection of certain shapes of plastic. (irony)
benoau 2y ago
I agree consumers should have better recourse - but its absence is just another way online platforms maximize their profit, and taxpayer-funded policing their platforms for them would only exacerbate that.
- pas 2y ago
  How is it any good for eBay? They lost someone who made a lot of money for them. These crazy human hostile implementations of various regulations are a net loss for big businesses. eBay is doing what nowadays all big fucking corps do, shit on UX and gut punch actual users in the name of compliance. You got a few hundred dollars from your friend on your Venmo/Revolut/Wise/whatever app and our AML/KYC/CYA/compliance department flagged it? Okay, instantly block your account, tell the users nothing, and demand that they submit paperwork proving who they are, where's the money from, what's the purpose of the transfer, etc... in the most fucked up adversarial byzantine way possible. The problem is that there's no sane way for these companies to do the good cop / bad cop transition. This is a pure chilling effect on this kind of economic activity. Banks and these money middlemen ought to be our agents (broker! mediator!) instead they are turned into paranoid bureaucrats resembling the idiots at the NRC (NRC is the nuclear regulatory commission, where the prevailing doctrine is to get risks as low as possible - ALARA, which led to nuclear energy priced out of the fucking market).

tsak 2y ago

My eBay account of 20 years got cancelled because I followed their customer support's suggestion of opening a new one. And now I can't sell on eBay anymore: https://tsak.dev/posts/the-decision-is-final-and-we-cannot-reverse-it/ https://tsak.dev/posts/the-decision-is-final-and-we-cannot-r...

UberFly 2y ago
Ebay and Etsy are sounding like two peas in a pod.
robryan 2y ago
Nothing to loose if the process for the first one goes nowhere. Use a separate company/ address/ bank account. A past company I worked for had multiple accounts and eBay didn't seem to be on top of this anywhere near as much as Amazon tends to be.

Scoundreller 2y ago

I estimate I won’t be able to press my own bearings with a Harbor Freight press in a few years because someone used the same tool to cut and rebrick drugs.

l5870uoo9y 2y ago

I find lifetime bans draconian in general.

bambax 2y ago

We should not accept this and react only after each scandal. There needs to be some kind of legal appeal process against "lifetime bans" by companies big and small (but esp. the big ones of course).

kkfx 2y ago

That's why anyone to be a Netizen not a slave must have a personal website on a personal domain, mirrored to some censor-resistant distributed networks and publish them with ready made instruction about how to use them and invite (for ecommerce) to buy directly from their own site, paying with domestic methods so to have domestic laws enforcement for easy act against any broker/banks bad behavior. The member of WTO "tribunal" must be consider outlaws in any civil country as well, and people must know again the difference between what they own and what they have with limiting "rents", licenses and so on, and the difference between something PUBLIC and something private publicly open. All this issues would be resolved.

noncoml 2y ago

Kafka’s new book: “No Trial”

metalman 2y ago

Had my listing for a copy of "The Anarchists Cookbook" flaged,and it was persistant,and could not completely remove my offence. And the pill press thing is stupid,vile,virtue signalling,when you factor in "purdue pharmasutical" oxycontin (ongoing fer phucks sake) debackle,blarg Another thing with ebay is that for a new seller they hide the process to get paid,untill you make a sale,and then demand that you sign into your bank account,through a pop up window on there site so that was a non.starter,looked into it and the "third party","deposit verification" company is bieng sued for scraping peoples bank info right out of there BANK accounts,useing there passwords. Same for setting up on reverb.com,company called "plaid" I nuked my ebay account,and have a new business checking account that will be a deposit only account,(not tied to any other account,checked that box) I loath bieng survailed and advertised to,so now use cash for most purchasing,and my daily driver device has no big tech apps

navjack27 2y ago
I'm sorry, but your post is so hard to read with this formatting where you seem to refuse to put spaces after commas. I'm sure you are saying something mostly relevant here but please; for people's perception of your intelligence sake and the accessibility of people trying to understand you, format better.
- tucnak 2y ago
  My perception of his intelligence is that he's based and doesn't care what you think.

OutOfHere 2y ago

People don't realize that the current federal government gives ~5% value for the taxpayer and ~95% value for the government worker, all at the expense of taxpayer, also taking away essential freedoms for weak reasons. It's a very bad deal for the citizen.

ValueAddedRS 2y ago

The really crazy part is Cassie is not just some random, unknown seller to eBay...she has actually written almost 200 articles for (now) eBay-owned TCGPlayer about Magic The Gathering since 2020 with the most recent one being published on September 27, 2024. https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/author/Cassie-LaBelle?p=1 https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/author/Cassie-LaBelle?p=1 eBay acquired TCGPlayer in October 2022 and have been paying her to create content for them since. https://x.com/CassieCeleste/status/1843702917314031759 https://x.com/CassieCeleste/status/1843702917314031759 "Hell, eBay OWNS @TCGplayer, the website I've given the past several years of my life to. They know me. They know I'm honest. They're still sending me paychecks for the last of my articles there. But I'm too dangerous to ever sell on their platform again. Because I sold THAT." If she can't get through to someone who can review the situation through a rational, human lens and provide some real help, what hope does anyone else caught up in their automated bot dragnet have?

h2odragon 2y ago

"Don't build your castle on someone else's land" We bailed out of ebay 17 years ago: they changed to "buyer need not pay" and one person took us for $1,000+ of stuff. Never saw a sign they were getting better; it has looked like they're preying on sellers to me, ever since.

xtiansimon 2y ago

Huh. It’s used items and antiques that make eBay different from Amazon. This is bad look for eBay’s brand. The item is obviously an antique (and literally one over 100 years old).

navjack27 2y ago

While I completely disagree with a full ban for selling a antique pill press I also disagree with selling an antique pill press. Donate that to a museum of medical history or something instead of trying to profit from an antique pill press. You don't know who you are selling it to and you can't trust who you are selling it to via eBay (pill presses are restricted on eBay antique or not) isn't going to divert that to someone who is going to attempt to try to use it for illicit means.

cowboylowrez 2y ago

getting permanently banned from a website is the reality nowadays. any website membership needs to be an "enjoy it while it lasts" sort of thing.