New toy from ebay

[stillp]

Such organisations are fairly unique in that they are involved in the sale of products which they have never seen (and could never hope to see all of them) and are hence reliant upon product descriptions and/or photos provided by the sellers.

Not good enough.

They are running a business of providing those sales channels.

They are making money by providing those sales channels.

They must be held responsible for what those sales channels are used for, and if they really cannot control the use of something they provide and they profit from then yes, shut it down.

Trust me - they would soon find a way.

If initiatives result in, say, increasing number of eBay listings being removed, one fears that this could result in sellers (certainly 'commercial' ones) becoming much more clever in making sure that the dangerous nature of their products cannot be determined from the description and/or photos - which would mean that even those of us 'in the know', let alone the public in general, would not be able to determine which of the products were more likely to be safe to buy.

Maybe it would be no bad thing if eBay went back to being a place where private individuals buy and sell - get rid of all businesses using it.

Morally BAS, of course you are correct. However what you are proposing would surely amount to censorship of the internet, which has been tried (mostly unsuccessfully) by regimes such as North Korea. Where would you stop? What about all the copy products on various websites offering cheap Chinese and Indian items to importers? Who would make the decision on what was blocked and what was allowed?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I find it very hard to see any solution other than 'shutting them down'

I don't care.

If these people are unable to run a business morally, safely and legally then they don't run the business - it really is as simple as that.

and I don't think many of the general public would thank you for that.

I don't care.

That might change the scale of the problem, but the remaining private sellers will often not even know whether what they are trying to sell (almost by definition 'second-hand products) is safe or dangerous, so the problem certainly wouldn't go away.

Might change the scale? It would reduce it to the point that it has to all intents and purposes gone away.

If I have one flaky second hand plug converter for sale then that's all I have - one.

The case of a foreign-based business with a warehouse full of flaky plug converters no longer exists.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Morally BAS, of course you are correct. However what you are proposing would surely amount to censorship of the internet, which has been tried (mostly unsuccessfully) by regimes such as North Korea.

I'm not trying to censor anything - just trying to stop Amazon, eBay, et al from providing a means for criminals to trade.

Where would you stop? What about all the copy products on various websites offering cheap Chinese and Indian items to importers? Who would make the decision on what was blocked and what was allowed?

Amazon Marketplace is not an ISP. It's an agency, taking commission fees from people who sign agreements to sell through Amazon.

 

[JohnW2]

I find it very hard to see any solution other than 'shutting them down' and I don't think many of the general public would thank you for that.

I don't care.

If you don't care about the views/wishes of the general public, then whose wishes would the cavalier changes you are proposing be designed to satisfy - just your own?

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

No - all those who think it is a bad idea for Amazon etc to provide a means for criminals to sell things which might kill people.

 

[JohnW2]

No - all those who think it is a bad idea for Amazon etc to provide a means for criminals to sell things which might kill people.

But they are members of the general public whose views you said you didn't care about. You said that you wouldn't care about the views of the public if the result of your proposals was for the likes of eBay to be shut down and the oublic weren't happy with that.

Very few of these dodgy products originate in the UK and I believe that their import into the UK is already unlawful. If that's the case, what is needed is to enforce the existing laws properly, not to take cavalier actions which would inconvenience and/or 'cost' millions of people.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

But they are members of the general public whose views you said you didn't care about. You said that you wouldn't care about the views of the public if the result of your proposals was for the likes of eBay to be shut down and the oublic weren't happy with that.

I don't care if they are unhappy about the price they would have to pay to get what they wanted.

Very few of these dodgy products originate in the UK and I believe that their import into the UK is already unlawful. If that's the case, what is needed is to enforce the existing laws properly, not to take cavalier actions which would inconvenience and/or 'cost' millions of people.

It's not a cavalier action.

Sadly, proper enforcement by the authorities is not feasible, so we adopt the other approach of encouraging private enterprises to do the enforcement by making them face sanctions of such hideous ferociousness that they don't dare not do enforcement.

Basically we stop Amazon etc from being able to say "It's not our job" - we make it their job in the sense that if they want to offer those sales conduits then it becomes their responsibility to police them. If they feel that they cannot properly police them then they have to shut them down.

 

[JohnW2]

Very few of these dodgy products originate in the UK and I believe that their import into the UK is already unlawful. If that's the case, what is needed is to enforce the existing laws properly, not to take cavalier actions which would inconvenience and/or 'cost' millions of people.

Sadly, proper enforcement by the authorities is not feasible, ...

... which is exactly the same as I said of what you are expecting of the likes of eBay and Amazon. In both cases it is technically 'feasible', but totally impractical. If it's impractical/unfeasible for HM Government to do the policing effectively, why do you think it's reasonable to expect private enterprises to be able to do it?

If they feel that they cannot properly police them then they have to shut them down.

In the same way that we shoud 'shut down' the government for not being able to properly police the laws which should prevent the products entering the UK in the first place?

There appear to be some unreasonable inconsistencies in your arguments.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If it's impractical/unfeasible for HM Government to do the policing effectively, why do you think it's reasonable to expect private enterprises to be able to do it?

It is impractical/unfeasible for the Government to post agents in every premises licensed for the sale of alcohol to check the ages of purchasers.

We expect the private enterprises selling the alcohol to do it for us.

We make airlines bear the cost of returning people who shouldn't have come here and airlines start checking passports.

We want people here who are not allowed to work, not to work, so we make potential employers carry out the checks.

I'm sure the list of examples goes on and on....

 

[JohnW2]

If it's impractical/unfeasible for HM Government to do the policing effectively, why do you think it's reasonable to expect private enterprises to be able to do it?

It is impractical/unfeasible for the Government to post agents in every premises licensed for the sale of alcohol to check the ages of purchasers. We expect the private enterprises selling the alcohol to do it for us.

That is utterly different. The only legal problem then arises at the point of sale (of alcohol which can be legally sold to adults), so that's the only point at which underage sales can be policed. In the actual situation we're talking about, if government agencies properly policed the ban on import, there would be no policing left for anyone else to do.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ericmark]

One came with my transceiver they have been around for a long time.

Two out of three without fuses.

 

[FatallyFlawed]

I have been approached by BBC Fake Brittain for information on the issue of fake power cables and illegal adaptors. There are two things of interest:

Actual shops who are selling them (not on-line).

Any cases of harm or fire caused by fake plugs and cables.

If you can help please PM me or contact [email protected]

 

[martinxxxxxx]

Have you ever been to pound land?

 

[rjm2k]

hmm, this is all reminding me of the power supply that came with an IDE to USB hard drive adapter I bought, basically 3 pins with the smalled possible amount of plastic around them to make a plug with no fuse. Thankfully rarely used but I think next time I dig it out I'll chop that off and put a proper one on!

 

[ericmark]

This has been going on since I was an apprentice. We could buy triple adaptors to get three plugs in one socket which had a fuse. However the fuse only worked on two of the outlets the other one was unfused.

These were common in late 60's and because it did have a fuse unless you carefully tested it there was nothing to alert one to what it did.

So if the authorities can't stop them after 45 years maybe it's time to abandon the final ring circuit and go to a radial system?

There are also 13A plugs for medical use without fuses. Seems they are red in colour to identify them but these are permitted as it is considered life threating for the supply to be interrupted.

In industry I have found warning lamps and buzzers instead of a RCD and the plant needs to be manually stopped it's not automatic.