Ebay Embargos Did You Know...

I've had a few run ins with ebay about their embargoes of the sale of certain stamps, particularly Cuba. I thought Cuba and Sudan were off limits but I had been selling Persia and Syria collections without incident. Last week they bounced a Persia collection and sent me a rather congenial message about ending the item and why. I was a little confused by the message so I called them. I asked why they had a category for Iran(Persia) if I couldn't sell Iran. The rep. left the phone for a few minutes and came back with the explanation that I could sell Persia domestically but not Internationally. I got a little excited when I heard this because I have 10 Cuba collections that I'm dying to sell but she clarified that I can sell Iran and Syria domestically but can't sell Cuba or Sudan no matter what.

You need a friendly agent in Canada!

The irony is that presumably ebay, following US government policy, is incidentally banning the sale of items created when the Shah and his predecessors were in power in Iran, when Meyer Lansky was strolling the streets of Havana and Britain was fiddling in the Sudan.

That's why we all love ebay, because of their common sense rules.

I have noticed that sellers on ebay routinely circumvent the rules on Cuba by using a little creativity. Some will misspell Cuba (Cub, Cube, etc.), while others will refer the material as "Spanish colonial" or "Spanish Caribbean". Apparently, the ebay police force is a little rigid and lacadaisical in their methods.

I think some of that is that the computer programs are set up to pick up key words. If you don't use those everything is fine. For example, if you list 'money order' on ebay it gets rejected. If you use the Latvian translation 'Parvedums' you have no problem. Even though they both have the same stamps on them and the pictures are identical.

I've had ebay bounce a listing for a book on the history of the money order system on the grounds that it appeared that I was soliciting payment by money order. Their bot has no common sense.

The embargo on Sudan is particularly frustrating for me as Sudan has been a traditional favorite with collectors. Why ban stamps issued 55 to 115 years ago? The stamps have zero political or economic relevance in modern times. Heck, immigrants to what became the USA literally garnished almost 4 million sq miles of land from Native Americans and many held slaves during the 250 year period before emancipation.

So, why not ban US postage stamps?

Spanish Antilles is another EBay-seller circumlocution for Kooba.

shermae, I also collect Sudan and see no reason to "have" to buy them on ebay. There are many other venues available for ebay banned items.

As for the embargo of sale of stamps from certain countries, until Congress officially lifts these bans, ebay will not change its position.

I too had difficulty selling historic papers relating to antique money orders. I even talked to their ebay "help desk" about one such lot. He could see what I was trying to sell and my description, yet he had no authority or method to override their bot.

It is rather silly to ban items for sale on ebay when they don't need to be, but that's how ebay treats a problem - uses a sledgehammer to drive a tack. It's been like this for a few years now. Even when you have something from Cuba, New York or Soudan, Minnesota you won't be able to list it.

Even if you buy or sell one of the "forbidden" items on another site, make sure not to use PayPal as the payment method as you can find your account locked.

I've sold a few Cuban stamps and postcards on ebay since the ban. I'm worse than a James Bod villain! *tremble* Sometimes I just call it Çuba.
See what I did there? Dumb ebay bots don't pick up on it. Still I have a nice box of Cuban covers ready to list when the time comes. We're making baby steps to the lifting of the embargo. Opened embassies today will hopefully lead to full trade tomorrow. I'll probably be holding onto the Iranian covers for a bit longer and North Korean covers forever.

interesting, just ran a "Cuba" search on ebay 66,286 items popped up, I wonder if I bought them all put them in a box and sent them to ebay and told them that all these item should have been picked up by their "bot" and banned under the Cuban Embargo and ebay is now subject to a fine of $5,000 for each item listed since they are facilitating trade in Embargoed items, let's see total fine $33 million. might get ebay's attention.

ebay has attention?

If you narrow the search down to the stamps category then only 90 listings are currently visible. A number of those listings have sellers outside of the United States.

Given that we now have re-established diplomatic relations
with Cuba, the trade embargo will follow at some point...

In lieu of the above, I wouldn't be so quick to sell the
Cuban stamps... they could take a strong hike in value later...

Jenny- agree there are other venues for Sudan especially in the UK. Just sad that stamps as iconic as the camel postman are now considered contraband for US trading.