Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Ebay's crusade against chemical sellers

Ebay's crusade against chemical sellers

woelen - 20-2-2007 at 00:55

Recently I attempted to buy some chemicals through eBay (sulphamic acid, calcium oxide, and sodium bromide).

All three listings were removed, before I could complete them. The reason for this was that the seller sold something (magnesium ribbon), not according to the rules of eBay, but in such cases, eBay simply removes ALL listed objects from that seller, even if they are paid already :mad:

. They leave you on your own and just tell you to reclaim the money from the seller, that's all.

So, even if you buy something, which is not against any rule, you have no guarantee that the transaction can be completed safely. I have noticed that eBay has become more and more harsh against sellers, who go somewhat off the mainstream route. I also had such an experience with high voltage diodes, high voltage capacitors and another chemical some months ago.

I know of two sellers, who quit eBay for this reason. For them it has become almost impossible to continue using this service.
I'm afraid that in the near future eBay will not offer much more than music, furniture, toys, and a lot of small crappy stuff, without anything really interesting. From their point of view, chemical sellers, electronics parts sellers, and so on are not interesting. They only are a very small percentage of all sellers, while they have a lot of work with them. For that reason, dutch eBay has even stronger restrictions. They simply forbid ANY chemical on eBay, even something like sodium sulfate is not allowed. In this way, they do not have to study each case in detail, they simply can kick someone off if he sells something which looks chemical.

Sauron - 20-2-2007 at 01:22

I got fed up years ago with eBay's hypocrisy and political correctness. Leave that place to the sellers of beanie babies. If you want a similar site dedicated to lab equipment, LabX is the place. They do allow chemical cales; I don't see many on there but there are some. LabX is a Canadian operation and does not have all the smarmy Californianess of eBay. I recommend it.

pantone159 - 20-2-2007 at 08:04

eBay seems to have steadily become less and less useful and friendly over time. I remember some incident with Chemsavers that went like woelen described. I also find their storefront software, for the cases of vendors selling many basically fixed-price stuff (e.g. a stock of lab equipment, which are not unique/collectible items), to be awful.

OTOH, blatant fraud on eBay (hijacked accounts that ship nothing, blatant counterfeits of collectibles, shill bidding, etc.) has become more and more routine.

joeflsts - 20-2-2007 at 08:22

Ebay tends to over-react. I purchased some items for ester experiments that are not watched. Ebay pulled the item from the site and sent me a warning email that I should contact the seller to get my money back.

Within 24 hours the items were back on Ebay and the seller had an apology from eBay. I didn't hear shit from eBay.

Reality is that eBay is doing whatever it can to cover its ass. It isn't just terrorism or the DEA, etc. It is also lawsuit happy people that cause this difficulty we're seeing. If you see something you want I suggest you buy it while you still can.

Joe

woelen - 20-2-2007 at 13:24

I also noticed that there are two types of messages.

One type of message is if a listing is removed, because a seller has listed something not allowed, but it is not your item. That kind of messages I now had, three of them in one week (!!!). This is really annoying, because you think you have won a certain item, and then you loose it again. Even if the seller relists the item, then you have no guarantee that you win it again, because someone else could have purchased the item.

There also is another message, more intimidating, that you receive if the "bad" item happens to be YOUR item. I have had that once. I ordered ZnO2 from a seller and a few days later I received a very nasty message that I was breaking the law and that I was not allowed to continue the transaction. I did not know it, but it seems that ZnO2 is used in some drugs-making processes (I don't know which one, and I also do not want to know).

Magpie - 20-2-2007 at 14:33

woelen says:

Quote:

I did not know it, but it seems that ZnO2 is used in some drugs-making processes (I don't know which one, and I also do not want to know)

I feel this way about many of the chemicals I would like to buy. But the DEA, CSPC, FBI, etc, do not care about my rights or wishes. They have much nobler pursuits to follow and can't be bothered by hobby chemists. Besides they have mortgages to pay and college educations to fund. For this they must keep on proving how valuable they are by their restrictions and intimidations. The general public mostly feels that this is wonderful and feels much safer. :mad:

The only logical course of action I can make out of all this is the oft stated: "The time to stock up is now."

Polverone - 20-2-2007 at 14:37

Quote:

Originally posted by woelen
There also is another message, more intimidating, that you receive if the "bad" item happens to be YOUR item. I have had that once. I ordered ZnO2 from a seller and a few days later I received a very nasty message that I was breaking the law and that I was not allowed to continue the transaction. I did not know it, but it seems that ZnO2 is used in some drugs-making processes (I don't know which one, and I also do not want to know).

I don't believe ZnO2 is important in the manufacture of any controlled or dangerous substances. Such an unfriendly and ignorant message is purely eBay's fault.

EDIT: As Ozone pointed out, ZnO is zinc oxide; I was momentarily thinking of ZnO2 as the oxide, which (like TiO2) is quite inert and used for a multitude of things.

[Edited on 2-20-2007 by Polverone]

S.C. Wack - 20-2-2007 at 14:50

Quote:

Originally posted by woelen
I ordered ZnO2 from a seller and a few days later I received a very nasty message that I was breaking the law and that I was not allowed to continue the transaction. I did not know it, but it seems that ZnO2 is used in some drugs-making processes (I don't know which one, and I also do not want to know).

Sounds like you were fed bullshit.

Ozone - 20-2-2007 at 14:58

Would that not be Zinc Oxide (ZnO, sunscreen, pigments, etc.)? ZnO2 is zinc peroxide

; it's used as an antiseptic and for initiating the crosslinking of certain elastomers.

Even so, we can get all of the benzoyl peroxide (zit cream, Bondo, etc.) we want and it's far more dangerous.

Why not regulate the benign things (sarcasm)? Then they can get "points" for stopping the sale of a harmless chemical which means points for nothing. High return, low risk (and totally CYA, to-boot).

They save souls...And redeem them for valuable prizes!

O3

joeflsts - 20-2-2007 at 18:11

ZnO2 is also used as an oxidant for explosives. I wonder if this why eBay has taken exception to it? That would seem strange since Ammonium Nitrate is readily available on eBay.

I noticed that most ZnO2 is packaged with ZnO. Also it appears that it can be made by adding Zinc Oxide or Hydroxide to Hydrogen Peroxide.

Joe

not_important - 20-2-2007 at 18:23

Face it, eBay auction monitoring is likely done by squads of people of the sort that make up the first layer of customer [s]non[/s]service departments. they have a list of key words and page of instructions to follow, the ability to evaluate with any sort of comprehension isn't a big requirement. Cheaper to use unskilled workers, and have a few higher skilled ones to send 'oops' e-mails out, than to have any sort of consistency in decisions.

Ozone - 20-2-2007 at 18:35

Maybe the staff has some difficulty with English?

Cheap labor, cheap shot,

O3

leu - 20-2-2007 at 22:16

From Thorpe's Dictionary of Applied Chemistry:

Magnesium peroxide is an interesting example of the sort of compound obtainable. Hydrogen peroxide in alkaline solution precipitates from magnesium sulphate a compound MgO, Mg02. This compound is also formed by the interaction of sodium peroxide and magnesium salts in presence of a small amount of water. The products from these reactions may contain varying amounts of magnesium hydroxide. Decomposition by water occurs readily in the freshly precipitated state, but the stability of the dry material is much greater. Various antiseptics based on magnesium peroxide are described, all of which owe their action to the presence of a true peroxide which yields hydrogen peroxide with acids (see W. Machu, " Wasserstoff-peroxyd und die Perverbindungen," Vienna, 1937).
Zinc and cadmium form similar ill-defined peroxides. Thus by the action of 30% hydrogen peroxide on an ammoniacal zinc sulphate solution a product approximating to the formula Zn02,Zn(OH)2 results. A true peroxide, Zn02,0.6H20, is formed when an ether solution of hydrogen peroxide reacts with zinc ethyl. Magnesium and cadmium peroxides may be formed similarly. It is possible that in some of these preparations the hydroperoxide group, Zn-O-O-H, is present. Preparations of medicinal use are obtained in the same way as those containing magnesium peroxide.

[Edited on 21-2-2007 by leu]

woelen - 21-2-2007 at 02:07

According to the seller's description, the material I ordered was pure ZnO2. I already had ordered many other chems and they all were of good quality (the seller ships what he promises), so I'm quite sure that the ZnO2 would be pure stuff.

I did complete the transaction though, albeit without the use of eBay

. I expect the ZnO2 to arrive soon.

quicksilver - 21-2-2007 at 07:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Sauron
I got fed up years ago with eBay's hypocrisy and political correctness. Leave that place to the sellers of beanie babies. If you want a similar site dedicated to lab equipment, LabX is the place. They do allow chemical cales; I don't see many on there but there are some. LabX is a Canadian operation and does not have all the smarmy Californianess of eBay. I recommend it.

Excellent. I am going to check that out.
Frankly I totally agree and am glad you put it so directly. SCREW that damn PC wonderland! I am completely through with it.
The "rules" are guided by politics not ay other agenda or ethical element....