Yesterday, I wrote about my disgust and revulsion with several folks on eBay who were selling t-shirts and trinkets in an effort to profit off the Virginia Tech tragedy. After talking to She Who Endures My Myriad Eccentricities about it, she, being the eBay guru in the family, took a look at the listings I’d found. What she discovered was that the one seller I’d emailed had changed his listing to say that he was donating 20% of his profits to a charity.
The beautiful thing about that was that eBay requires listings like that to donate to charities they’ve vetted and approved. I suppose this gives them the ability to follow up and ensure that someone isn’t claiming charitable intent as a means to increase their profits. Well, the one that this seller had on his listing was NOT an eBay-approved charity. Not only that, we’re pretty certain that he was engaging in copyright infringement. Two strikes…and the nice thing is that, even though I have my problems with how eBay runs their business, they do take these two things very seriously.
She Who Endures My Myriad Eccentricities reported the seller in question along with several others to eBay, and I’m here to report that ALL of these listings appear to have been taken down. The best thing about this is that the sellers in question don’t get their listing fees back. They get smacked down AND they have to pay for it. Sweet….
SCORE!!
If you do what I did, and do a search for VIRGINIA TECH XXL, the only items that come up are officially licensed, non-exploitative, LEGITIMATE items, both up for bid and in several eBay stores.
While I’m not one to brag, it does make me happy when we can do something to make a difference. In this case, we’ve prevented a few people from illegitimately profiting off one of the worst tragedies in this nation’s history. OK, so perhaps we’re only sticking our finger in one part of the dike, but I’d rather have done that than ignored something that thoroughly sickened me.
Remember, kids…there’s no right way to do the wrong thing.
(PS- In the true American spirit of commercial exploitation, I’ve found another seller hawking t-shirts with embroidered “awareness ribbons.” If you do an eBay search for 4.16.07, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Yep, 33 people may have died, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a few bucks off it.)
