The Corner Penthouse

I have been an eBay member since January 4, 2003, and selling on the site for over 10 years now. My sales suck because eBay does everything in their power to hinder me. I have to find ways to work around the obstacles eBay puts in my way to sabotage any chances I have of selling items. I have already written a series of articles about eBay, who clearly has some sort of vendetta against me. I have no other explanation for the myriad of stupid reasons they've given for taking down listings of mine over and over again. I've written about some of these in the past, but I've never written about all of them. I'll write about them if they happen again, but for now, I'll just concentrate on the latest eBay bullshit.

I buy a lot of movies and television shows on physical disc media, much to the detriment of my living space. A lot of these discs come with digital copy code vouchers that I am forced to pay for when I purchase the physical discs. The studios don't provide a cheaper version of the product without the digital copy. If I want the discs, I have to pay for the digital copy code voucher, too. So, as with any other product covered by the First Sale Doctrine of United States law, I have the right to sell the voucher, just as I would any other part of the product. To comply with an unfair eBay policy that exists only to kiss Hollywood ass, I have to offer a broken DVD with the voucher (available for local pick-up), even though no such policy exists if I wanted to sell the discs that are part of the same product I paid for.


I have been selling the vouchers on eBay for several years now, with 100% buyer satisfaction. Most buyers are smart enough to understand what they're buying, and eBay has made themselves a hefty profit from these sales. In fact, of the hundreds of items I have for sale, the vouchers are the only thing that has consistently sold. Granted, I only get $5.00 for each $6.10 voucher after eBay and PayPal take their cuts. Although these little bits of money help me in these tough times, it's not enough to live off of. However, I can count on two hands the number of non-voucher items I sell in a year on eBay and still have fingers left. So, the sale of these useless-to-me vouchers are a Godsend. I can use this small amount of money to buy myself a meal every now and then. Sadly, eBay would rather that I starve.

On November 2, 2020, I received an e-mail from eBay claiming that my "account has been restricted because activity on it didn't follow our Electronically delivered items policy. Electronically delivered goods can only be listed by eBay approved sellers and must follow our policy."


Let's break down eBay's message and look at the fallacies at play here.

"We appreciate you listed your product as a digitally delivered item, however, the category chosen is incorrect".

Right off the bat they're starting with a bold-faced lie. I did NOT list this as a "digitally delivered item". The listing clearly showed a physical voucher in each of the listing photos, it had a physical shipping fee, and it clearly stated that the paper voucher would be physically-shipped via courier pigeon or drone in big, bold red text. Nowhere in the listing did it state that the voucher would be shipped digitally or electronically.

If we allow such items to be listed in a Non-Information products category, then the shipping format has to be physical delivery.

eBay lies again. The listing had a $0.01 "Expedited" physical shipping fee stated right at the top, and clearly stated that the paper voucher would be physically-shipped via courier pigeon or drone in big, bold red text.

We fear, allowing a digitally delivered item in Non-Information product category would encourage sellers to infringe the Intellectual Property rights of others or violate the law.

This is eBay speak for, "We have to kiss the Motion Picture Association's ass by preventing digital copy code vouchers from being sold by themselves." This is in spite of the United States "First Sale Doctrine" law that allows buyers to resell the things they already paid the original creator for, whether in part or in whole. It is 100% legal for me to sell the voucher by itself to you, but it may not be 100% legal for you to redeem the voucher without already owning the other parts of the product. Of course, the studios won't know what else you do or do not own, so you're safe. eBay isn't coming after you; they're coming after me, and that is wrong.

The category something is sold in has nothing to do with its legality, or the "infring[ing] [of] the Intellectual Property rights of others". This is just plain nonsense eBay writes to scare sellers.

Hence, in order to prevent any bad shopping experience we request you to meet the aforementioned guidelines and relist the item using a "Classified Ad Format" in "Everything Else > Every Other Thing" category or shipping format."

This is impossible for me to do, due to the obstacles eBay puts in front of me.

1. Unlike my usual fixed-price listings (or auction listings), there is an INSERTION FEE of $9.95 for a 30-day Classified Ad listing, though there is no final value fee. You can not use the standard "50 free listings" offer towards this. I can not afford to pay unless my item sells, so I can't do a Classified Ad listing, especially since I'd have to re-pay that $9.95 every month. Like I said, I only get $5.00 per voucher sold. If I sell two per month, in a Classified Ad listing, I'd get ZERO MONEY from those sales. All of that money goes to eBay.

2. One of the biggest obstacles is the 50-free-listings limitation. In order to be able to have all of my items available to potential buyers at any given time, I have to put multiple similar items into each listing through the use of variations. Since eBay doesn't use categories for actually categorizing things (they apply different fees and features to different categories), I am limited in which categories I can create listings in. The "Everything Else > Every Other Thing" category is not a category that allows for variations.

On top of that, if I were forced to have one voucher per listing, that would mean that I would only get $5.00 for a listing that would cost me $10 to create. I would, literally, be paying eBay to "give away" these vouchers. The only way a Classified Ad would have a chance of working would be to put PayPal purchase links for ALL vouchers in ONE listing, and hope buyers would be smart enough to see them and USE them. Of course, then the eBay Nazis would report me for soliciting off-eBay sales (even though that's the whole point of a Classified Ad).

(Side Note: Currently, eBay is providing 200 free listings per month. This seems to have be spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. While I could take advantage of this and separate some of my multi-listings, I have no guarantee that eBay will permanently offer 200 for free, or if the offer will end once the pandemic does. It really is in eBay's best interest to permanently offer unlimited free listings, but for some reason, the eBay braintrust doesn't realize this.)

Of course, there's no way to appeal eBay's bogus decision and tell them that they're wrong. The seller has no recourse against things like this. The only thing I could do was e-mail eBay Customer Support, but that was as useful as banging my head against the wall. As you can see in the screenshots below (click on each to read the full messages), the clearly outsourced India-based support staff (those are not American names) just kept repeating the same false bullshit that the original message said, no matter how many times I tried to set them straight. In essence, EBAY HAS NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT FOR SELLERS.


Although eBay took down my listing with these false claims of "digitally delivered goods", they allow several other listings that clearly DO list items that are being delivered electronically. The listings seen below still remain active as of this writing.


As you can see in the screenshot below, the Black Panther code listing clearly states that "No Discs or Physical Product is included" and that "You will receive the code via eBay messenger within 24 hours."


Not only does eBay take no action against other sellers, but they really should be more concerned with the litany of counterfeit DVD and Blu-ray sets that are being sold every day on their site.

At this point, I really would love to be done with selling on eBay. They are no longer a desirable outlet for poor sellers who sell items out of their home and can't afford to pay for eBay extravagances that should be part of the normal selling process. With the low amount of sales I normally make, and the extremely low amount I'll now make without being able to sell the vouchers, it's not worth putting up with eBay's bullshit anymore. eBay is not a site for the "little guy" to sell on anymore.

I have the digital copy code vouchers available on my for sale hub at www.BuyItHere.tk. Since I no longer have to appease eBay by offering the broken DVD and physical delivery, I have them set up with PayPal links that allow for instant delivery. This is actually better for me, and for buyers of the vouchers, even though my for sale hub doesn't get the large amount of visitors that eBay's site does. I'm looking for a new marketplace through which I can sell all of my non-voucher items. So far, I have not found one that offers free listings and allows sellers to be paid immediately. If I don't find one by mid-2021, I may just donate all of my stuff to charity. Most of it has been cluttering up my home for YEARS, since eBay has done nothing to help me sell it.