Sunday, January 15, 2012

Ebay still sells live animals

It has been almost exactly a year since Felissa Elfenbein of Two Little Cavaliers posted about Ebay selling live animals through their Classified Section. Ebay had previously responded to complaints from animal lovers by disallowing the sale of live animals through auctions, but they continued to allow animals to be sold through classified ads.

Felissa’s concern was that Ebay was providing a backdoor for puppy mills and other unscrupulous people to sell animals over the internet. Pet lovers purchasing an animal over the internet have no way of determining the health of the animal or the conditions under which it was raised. Many fellow pet bloggers agreed, and a petition was started on Change.org asking Ebay to stop selling live animals in their Classified Section.

Six months later, Stephanie Feldstein from Change.org released an update on the petition. At the time, dozens of pet bloggers had supported the cause and over 100,000 people signed the petition. And yet Ebay did nothing to change their policy about selling live animals in Ebay Classified.

If you visit Ebay Classified today, you will see lots and lots of listings of dogs, cats and other animals for sale.  Ebay has blatantly disregarded the wishes of over 125,000 people who have asked them to stop selling live animals. I have even been approached by one seller with a request for a text link on my blog (buy puppies) that would link to Ebay Classified – and I know other pet bloggers have been approached too.

Please do not let Ebay get away with ignoring this issue. Pet bloggers and animal lovers must continue to put pressure on Ebay by blogging, tweeting and posting on Facebook. Let Ebay know that we are NOT going away!

Image via Ebay Classified

21 comments:

  1. Good grief - what does it take to stop them!

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  2. Whenever I ask anyone why puppy mills are legal, the answer I repeatedly get is because its profitable. The same must be true here with ebay. It's so disappointing. Discouraging. Sad.
    Peggy
    BTC4animals.com
    Peggy’s Pet Place

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  3. My how time flies, and yet how sad that nothing has changed. I can't believe it's been a year!

    This just means we have to work harder in the coming year to raise more awareness and engage eBay customers enough to have them stop buying. eBay won't do the right thing until money talks. Giving up is not an option.

    Thanks, Vicki, for Blogging the Change!
    Kim C.
    BTC4animals.com
    ThisOneWildLife.com

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  4. Absolutely maddening. Most definitely, we must keep pursuing this until change truly happens. Thanks for reminding us, Vicki - and wow, a year already?!

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  5. I did not know about this, it's horrible! How can people continue to put above everything, it really sickens me.

    Thanks for writing about this worthy cause.

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  6. Oh Vicki. An issue near and dear to my heart. I am still disgusted by eBay's decision to ignore people's requests to stop selling puppy mill dogs. Ugh!

    Thank you for once again brining attention to this issue. I can only hope that legislation will hurt puppy mills directly so they can no longer operate. Then eBay won't be able to post puppy mills puppies and kitties for sale.

    Mel
    BtC4animals.com
    No Dog About It Blog

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  7. Great job Vicki!! There MUST be something done about it!

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  8. I can't believe they are still doing this. Animals are not prizes to be won in an auction. Thanks for the important reminder that there is still a very large gap in this area. It's time to step it up!

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  9. Great post, Vicki. We just have to keep applying the pressure!

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  10. Thanks everyone for your comments! I'm still making my way through the posts, so if I haven't hit your blog yet I should be there in the next day or so!

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  11. I knew puppy mills were selling online, but I didn't realize they were doing it through ebay. How awful. Thank you for making me aware of this issue!

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    Replies
    1. Donna - thanks for stopping by. Unfortunately, it seems that Ebay will not move on this issue without a lot of push back from their users. It is not enough to ask them to do the right thing - we have to hit them in the pocketbook!

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