Filler

Feb 09 2007

Boycott Ebay!

Published by Nerdmaster at 11:04 pm under Opinions, Random Shit

I use Magic the Gathering Online as a source of supplemental income. I am not “poor”, but with a wife, two kids, and a lot of medical bills for one child, my income is stretched extremely thin. Every month we might be able to save $20-40 for future emergencies. So when I found that I could make $20-40 extra in any given month via MtGO, I jumped at the chance - that’s doubling our current disposable income!

As many people are aware, ebay has decided to stop allowing sales of “digital items” in which the seller does not own the rights to the items in question, or is not authorized to trade those items. As an avid player of Magic the Gathering Online, I made sure Wizards of the Coast does indeed allow such transactions. WotC’s website even has a forum for conducting trades with other players, for cash or other in-game items. Their “code of conduct” states that the player is allowed to trade digital goods. I did my homework.

I was warned to no longer list digital items from this game, and my auctions were deleted. I sent several emails back and forth explaining that WotC allows MtGO properties to be traded (they even offer a forum on their site for this specific purpose). The responses were always the same - don’t list digital goods you aren’t authorized to list. Eventually they flat out told me they were no longer listening to my emails, at which point I told them that I would continue listing auctions until a written policy stated I could not do this.

Interestingly, it was only after this final email from me, in which I was excessively blunt and probably a bit rude, that they banned me. The ban appears to have happened within an hour or two of my final email, which seems pretty suspicious to me. They say they’ll lift the ban within seven days (assuming I fill out a form and jump through a bunch of hoops), but I don’t see the point - they’ll just continue to bully me in order to prove a point or something.

I’m keeping a record of the email that’s been happening, and I hope that even though my blog is very small that I can get some support. Check out the emails if you’re interested: “http://blog.nerdbucket.com/pages/ebaybs”:http://blog.nerdbucket.com/pages/ebaybs

And check these guys out: “http://www.ebaypigs.com/default.asp”:http://www.ebaypigs.com/default.asp