Friday 20 July 2012

Ebay still selling ivory – Labelled as ‘Ox bone’

Ebay still selling ivory
July 2012. It was recently brought to our attention that EBay was still selling ivory. We were surprised at this, so we contacted EBay to find out why this was. The conversation (live chat over the web) was frustrating to say the least. The first two conversations were terminated by "technical faults" when we asked questions about the ivory; and in the third it almost seemed like they were being deliberately thick in answer to our questions. Interestingly, although we had the text of our first two conversations emailed to us, we didn't receive an email with the text of the 3rd chat. No doubt another technical error.


Portobello Road
EBay have a process in place whereby it is possible to report a listing. We reported a couple that seemed to be ivory, but they were still on Ebay when we last looked. If anyone lives near Portobello Road, there was an ‘Ox bone' Chinese puzzle ball for sale, by someone in Rogers Arcade. It is probably still on Ebay as Ox bone, so pop into Rogers and see if it is listed as Ox bone on the stall that is selling it.
Same story in the US
We were contacted by someone from the USA, their experience is as follows.
Elephant Ivory and Tortoise Shell items on Ebay are common and just as easy to find.
Ebay has an official policy of not allowing any products made of Elephant Ivory, Tortoise Shell Products or endangered species being sold on the site. The truth is all of them are available.

I contacted Ebay about a particular seller who had more than 21 Ivory pieces, one of which appeared to be a very Young Elephant carved tusk, only a couple feet long. In his completed and sold listings were dozens more Ivory items. He has been on there for months selling them. Now, 5 days later, the items are still on the site, still selling and being offered.

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