Ebay Ended One Of My Auction Listings - Why?

Hey All,
So this morning I received this message from ebay:

Hello wbattles,
After reviewing your account, we've had to take the following action:
- Some or all of your listings may have been removed. A list of any removed items will be listed further down in this email.
- We have credited all associated fees except for the final value fee for your listing(s).

The items you listed originated from a country against which the United States is imposing an embargo. Because ebay is a company based within the United States, it and its subsidiaries are bound by the trade restrictions of the United States Government. As a result, we do not allow any products from there regardless of if they were made or brought into the country before the embargo. We appreciate that you chose to utilize our site, but we must ask that you please not relist in this case.

Here are the listings we removed:
312382179785 - Russia 1988 Uprated 4k Postal Card Donetsk to Berlin, East Germany


If you have any concerns or questions, click "Help & Contact" at the top of most ebay pages.

We appreciate your understanding.
Thanks,

ebay


This is for a cover I listed Sunday. It's from Russia to Germany. It's not on ebay's naughty list of embargoed counties. Only four countries are currently listed - Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria. So what gives? Is it Donetsk which is now part of Ukraine, but also a separatist region? There's other items listed from Donetsk under stamps. If it is banned, ebay is not communicating that to sellers until after the fact. Any other ideas? Should I go down the rabbit hole and call out ebay on this?
Will

Here's the blocked item:


...and basic description:
COUNTRY: Russia / Soviet Union
POSTAL STATIONERY TYPE: Postal Card
TIME PERIOD: 1988
ORIGIN: Donetsk
DESTINATION: Berlin, East Germany
INDICIUM: 4k. Spasski Tower. Uprated with five stamps, Scott 4599 - 4k. Coat of Arms & CCCP.
POSTMARKS/LABELS: CDS postmark

I would definitely call ebay. I like to call a few minutes after 12 noon est. I think it might be a shift change and I usually get a domestic located person and good answers. Let us know what's their problem.

It smells very fishy too me…..

So I called - transferred once to another service representative that put me on hold twice and now says he needs to talk to his supervisor and should have a call back in one to two hours.

Stay tuned!

I've had Cuba items blocked because the USA despises this "Communist" country. Disgraceful.

Sudan was banned ,not sure why, it was a French Sudan cover .

Thought Putin and Trump are good pals?

The OP might be the victim of some automated screening program ebay has set up that has gone bad. Or- IMO more likely- this was done by some twenty-something young staffer who has no knowledge of history and geography. Maybe it just looked 'foreign' or something.

I'm reminded of a time when I went to a certain popular dealer's booth at WESTPEX a couple of years ago. I wanted to see the most recent stamps they had from Germany, but even though they had things filed by Scott number and it would be easy enough to find the highest numbers, the millennial who was working for them was flummoxed by what that meant. "Would that be GDR?" he asked. I wanted to reply, "The GDR hasn't existed since before you were born, so of course it's not the ******* GDR!" but didn't.

It's been over 2 hours and no response from ebay. I'm not surprised.

Anyone else recall few years back when ebay went through a spate of listing deletions of German Third Reich material and sellers were getting threat of banning for 'promoting hate'? From what I understand that was due to the warped actions of one individual with a PC agenda.

This one is a little more difficult to follow. With all the anti-Russian feeling out there these days some ebay employee may actually think it is illegal to sell this material.

French Sudan stuff being banned is quite funny in a way. Considering it is actually the present country of Mali, a long ways west from modern Sudan. But knowing that would require some knowledge of history & geography among the ebay censors - so not unexpected.

As you suggest, Stamps1962, there are people at ebay who act in an entirely arbitrary manner. I speak from experience as I once had a listing removed for a Third Reich item, although there are literally many thousands of Third Reich stamps listed on ebay at any given time. All these internet behemoths seem to give nutcases great leeway to make unaccountable, arbitrary decisions.

When you talk to ebay next tell them they have over 3700 Russian stamp items currently listed. So how is your listing offensive? The world is full of whack-a-doodle-dandies, I think you just ran into one working on ebay.

ebay never got back to me. Shall I try again. Maybe I'll try email this time if that's still an option. There was no option to reply to the original notification email.

ebay Stamp Manager- shalupka@ebay.com

Don