Richard Ambrose, eBay UK’s head of trust and safety, has announced that eBay UK is to ban the sale of dangerous knives altogether. The announcement was made on tonight’s BBC Watchdog programme, which saw reporters buy five illegal knives from US sellers via eBay UK.
In a statement received by the programme, eBay said that some of the knives bought were illegal in the US too. Richard said that while eBay had introduced a number of measures to stop UK buyers from purchasing knives which are illegal here, these have not been enough, and so eBay UK will be banning all knives “except for kitchen cutlery”.
There’s no date for the introduction of the ban as yet, but it’s expected to be within weeks. We’d expect a little collateral damage too: sellers of items like craft knives – who’ve already seen their buyers expected to complete credit card verification – will probably see those items banned from sale under this policy. More details as we get them.
What’s clear is that – especially once international visibility comes into play – eBay UK has a way to go to clear knives from the site. , for example, is available via eBay Italy.
Updated 20:53 :
All knives except cutlery will be banned from sale on eBay.co.uk and eBay.ie.
This will impact UK, Irish and international sellers who currently list knives for sale to buyers on the eBay.co.uk and eBay.ie sites.
The post will be updated with timings of and further details on the ban.
70 Responses
“Richard Ambrose, eBay UK’s head of trust and safety, has announced that eBay UK is to ban the sale of dangerous knives altogether.”
Surely every knife is dangerous? it just depends what you do with it surely?
I could make a mess of Paul Daniels with the help of a garden spade if I felt inclined to do so, are eBay going to ban spades, the whole world has gone PC mad..ffs if you stood still I could kill you with my laptop if I threw it hard enough.
Hardly, Whirly – “cutlery”, for example, as exempted.
Richard Ambrose should be fired immediately. Since when do Watchdog dictate Ebay policy.
How about upholding the law and not what Watchdog say?
All those decent and law abiding businesses are now branded sellers of killing items and will be banned on Ebay UK. How tragic for all the people that have crafted their reputation with service, reliability and sensible trading to knowledgeable and skilled customers that are now told that they are not welcome at Ebay.
A dark day for Ebay, their policy is now dictated by Nicki Campbell.
Hang your heads in shame.
Well I’m not getting caught without a knife – I need em to pack my eBay sales!
I’ve just purchased a couple of spare Stanley knifes and 120 Stanley knife blades.
Interestingly I could purchase the blades with no restriction at all, but to purchase the knives I had to go through the credit card verification!!! So the blades aren’t dangerous then? 🙁
This ban further highlights the need for sellers to operate on multiple channels.
My sympathies are with the legitamate UK tax based sellers who have seen there business destroyed overnight, they could be sat on £1000’s of stock with no means to pay the bills. Sad.
So now if a bad man wants a knife off ebay he has to log into Ebay.com
coz thats real difficult isnt it?
gee i feel soooooo much safer now.
So, cutlery is OK then, so watch out for a Bowie knife and fork set 🙄
Why not – if they can make the blades, they can also make the forks to match !
This will affect us.
We sell legitimate, legal knife products (such as swiss army knives).
Looks like a typical politcal/ebay knee-jerk response and a panic move.
We are sitting on £1000s of stock – fortunately we do sell through other channels but this will have a major impact on us.
what about kitchen knives? knife block sets etc.
And if cutlery is okay, what about steak knives?
Whirly is spot on in #5:
This ban further highlights the need for sellers to operate on multiple channels.
well if anyone is daft enough to sell only knives , , its self inflicted,
we could sell lots of antique ivory okinomos etc before the ivory ban
but an ebay ban on ivory has not stopped us trading
#11 Well we tend to only sell Whirlpool Baths because that is the business we know, the other stuff we sell silicone etc is just to bolster feedback scores, if they banned whirly’s that would be it and I am aware of that.
#10 We know what is going to happen, sellers will have the wrong things removed by eBay, policy compliance will fall through the floor for many and the ebay computers will explode under the strain.
eBay will insist we call cutlery, eating instuments or food consumption tools, buyers will be searching for steak knives not eating instruments, which will result in the buyer clicking a sponsored link and leaving eBay.
We sell collectables
though if ebay were our main outlet and specialised in Ivory or Animals or Nazi memorabilia we would have been long gone
whats the worry about anyhow, I thought these days all you need to do is have your own website 😈 ebay were on the way out ,they were being swamped and overtook by other sales outlets 😈
LOL @ Norf. The worst stock to have if you’re an eBay seller…
Yes, I have these ivory-handled knives which come with downloadable instructions.
Sue Bailey needs to do her homework – the ‘scary’ knife linked to in the article above is actually totally legal to own, sell and import into the UK.
It is this kind of hysterical scare mongering that has now led to the destruction of hundereds of legitimate businesses. I have never seen a knife harm anyone that was not in the hands of a criminal – blame the criminal NOT the tool!!!
Best of all – ebay are to continue to allow the sale of ‘domestic’ knives – any what type of knife is used in the vast majority of violent incidents?
You guessed it.
A kitchen knife.
It would be laughable if it was not so pathetic.
#15 The “scary knife” linked above is banned by current eBay policies
( https://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/weapons.html ) as it’s described as a “throwing knife”.
There’s no ambiguity at all – according to current eBay rules it shouldn’t be visible on the UK site.
Exactly – Against UK listing policy. NOT against UK law. The whole hoo-ha was caused by the importation of illegal knives, not just knives that contravened ebay policy.
So why not use simple filters to block sellers from abroad listing these items on ebay UK rather than this silly knee-jerk reaction? I’d personally welcome this as a more level headed sensible approach.
I don’t think eBay is an appropriate venue for selling knives.
I thought the reason we study history at school was to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes. Guns (with few exception) were banned in the Uk in 1996, since then gun crime has gone up by 70%. Banning these knives will make no difference to knife crime in this country. In the ‘METRO’ this morning there was an article on the death by stabbing of Robert Knox who was the young actor in the latest Harry Potter film. He was stabbed to death by Karl Bishop who was armed with two KITCHEN KNIVES.
Knives don’t kill people, people kill people. A gun, knife, rock, car, chair………the list is endless, what shall we ban next? The link to a ‘Throwing knife’, as far as I know you can throw any knife!!?!! These knives purchased were in another country and there are custom legislation dating back to 1958 that deal with the importation a offensive weapons. Why wasn’t that dealt with instead of a knee-jerk reaction by Ebays Chief executives who I would have thought were employed for having some sort of intelligence. This hasn’t been thought through one bit. Why doesn’t Ebay police their site and ban people who sell these offensive knives and not just blanket ban knives. Do you think that the ‘Too difficult light’ came on for the chief executives at Ebay?
A poor showing by Ebay that does them no good at all. It just shows that they can’t cope. May be a time to move on and find an easier job.
“Knives don’t kill people, people kill people” yawn.
Jimbo I’ll give you a challenge 😉
Put a knife of your choice on the floor and watch it……..see how many people it kills.
What kind of moron would want a hunting/throwing/whatever knife?…who goes hunting in downtown Acton. At the end of the day something needed to be done and eBay have done the right thing (IMO).
Next the police should start arresting the freaks who think that having a collection of knives is good.
so if people kill people why make their task easier,
I could probably survive a blow from the strongest and most able of fighters probably 2 or 3 blows and may even get up and run,
though one thrust from a knife blade and the chances of survival are low
#23
Probably the same type of moron who presumes to tell other adults what to do, what to think and what to say!
If another individual’s actions do you no harm then it is none of your business whether they have one hunting knife or a thousand – IMHO.
#23 Pete, I’m with you and Jimbo. Normal sane people collecting knives… there isn’t such a creature – knife collecting and normal sane people can’t be used in the same sentence.
#25 “Probably the same type of moron who presumes to tell other adults what to do, what to think and what to say!”
…It’s called society, something most of us are able to live amongst without the need to have a 6″lock knife in your pocket. Or a cupboard full of “collectors knives”.
I think people that collect star wars figures are neither normal or sane
and yes I could kill you with a single Darth Vader.
the fact is that banning anything never resolves the problem, either on ebay or in the real world.
The knives that Watchdog got hold of were from the US not the UK. Customs should have stopped these coming into the country!
Ebay ban all knives on the Ebay UK site but these knives came from the US!!
Read this an argue with the Metropolitan police commissioner.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7425187.stm
I don’t think eBay are trying to solve the problem, they just don’t want to contribute to it. Can you imagine the headline “2 dead with knife bought on eBay”
That sort of news could have the potential to damage many more businesses, not only knife sellers.
I think banning guns has certainly helped
Your having a laugh 😆
Turn on your TV and watch the CO19 program now
ITV now
#26
Please define ‘normal sane people’ please – I’m keen to establish which of us is abnormal and insane? Since collecting anything can be considered aberrant are all collectors insane or only the ones you don’t approve of?
#27
Society (or whatever other collective you belong to) does not have the right to tell others what to do unless you can prove that the activity is actually harmful to others. Anything else is simply repressive and reflects a social authoritarian outlook – what others do or don’t do is no concern of yours or ‘society’ unless you can demonstrate that the activity and subsequent actions have harmed other people.
pip pip
As stated by the firearms teams:-
400 guns a month in London and nearly 5000 guns a year taken from armed gangs in London alone! That ban in 1996 really worked.
I would rather have a neighbor who colected Star Wars figures than one who colected knives.
I take the point about concealed knives hidden in pens,canes,lipstick,flick knives or plastic “stealth knives” being banned.However a blanket ban on all knives except cutelry is absolutely ridiculous.Ebay should not let Nicky Campbell of Watchdog dictate what they can and cannot sell.It is upto Ebay to withhold the UK law not Watchdogs crusades.Once again the law abiding outdoor enthusiast has been penalised because of the actions of a minority of criminal scum.When will the idiots that run this country face upto the facts that it needs to regain control of the streets and start getting tough on the lowlives that commit stabbings against innocent people.Knives are just tools like any other tool.Banning knives is the easy option.Stabbing will still continue whether there available or not!We need tough policing,zero tolerance against violent criminals!
#34 “other collective”?…well, in my view if you don’t belong to society then you are not normal.
#35 For all you know those numbers could have been much worse without the ban. And the ban certainly didn’t make it worse.
#37 “law abiding outdoor enthusiast” Are you joking?…Have you actually seen some of the knives that are for sale.I do agree that if you are caught with a knife or gun then you should always receive a prison sentence, regardless.
…I can’t believe that some people are actually upset because they cannot buy/sell knives on eBay?!?…weird.
surely these outdoor enthusiasts dont need ebay, ebay is not the only place on the planet,
if they are reasonable and genuine, surely they can purchase the equipment is needed licenced via a club etc,
the argument that a knife is only a tool is a little weak,
child pornography on the internet does not abuse children,
perverts do,
yet I would hope all that post here would agree with a ban on child pornography,
#30 so the headline “2 dead with kitchen knife bought on eBay” is ok?
the point I am making is not that banning illegal knives is wrong, just pointless
It decreases the ease of availability which is not pointless.
The argument that banning never solved anything is so obviously fundamentally flawed that it is beyond a joke. It is normally only wheeled out by those with a vested interest (or 6th formers).
surely these outdoor enthusiasts dont need ebay, ebay is not the only place on the planet,
Correct, they can buy (in the UK) from Gumtree or Shopping.com – both eBay owned websites, or they can pay with Paypal for them from a multitude of individual UK based ecommerce sites
🙄
#41
tell you what name one example where banning something made the problem go away in the world
no rush
banning things tends only to throw a spotlight on them and makes the problem worse rather than better
in ebays case they are simply trying to get out of the firing line and no one can blame them for that
but the fact remains that it wont stop a single person being stabbed and to think otherwise mearly shows you have a long way to go to get to 6th form.
Banning smoking in pubs has stopped bar workers from inhaling cigarette smoke while at work – but now this is going off topic.
Now that is a good one 😀
I’m with you on that one Jimbo…….BAN SMOKING 😀
That one has really big body count!!
oh dont get me started on the smoking ban
its killing the pub trade
#39 – Very sorry to pick on you but you bring up many commonly held misconceptions and I would welcome the opportunity to suggest an alternative view.
It is true that outdoor enthusiasts, campers, hikers, bushcrafters, wood carvers, leather workers, DIY’ers etc, etc, can indeed buy knives elsewhere – but why should these groups be criminalised and viewed as suspect? Why should these legitimate users have a popular online resource removed when it will serve no purpose?
You state that “the argument that a knife is only a tool is a little weak”
Why?
A knife is an inanimate object – it cannot contol your motivations, actions or intentions. You will never find a knife being used in a violent attack that has not been in the hands of a criminal.
A screwdriver is just a tool. These are commonly used as weapons. Must we ban these also? How about hammers, baseball bats, iron bars, glass bottles??
According to a recent study on knife crime evidence and policy (ccjs) “…stabbings are not caused merely by the presence of a knife”
It also goes on to state and “Enforcement and punitive action on knife carrying and knife use fails to take account of the fact that it is merely one expression of interpersonal violence, and a reduction in the use of knives will only occur if the incidence of violence is addressed by a long term strategy” “The knife is merely an implement used in crime”
Ban knives and criminals will pick up any one of a multitude of household items which can be turned into weapons. Should we all hand in our cars as they are also everyday tools capable of being turned into a deadly weapon if in the hands of a criminal?
I’m afraid your analogy refering to child pornography is fatally flawed. The production of this material is a crime, the existence of this material is a crime, the use of this material is a crime. The material cannot exist without the committing of a crime.
Production of knives is legal, the purchase, storage, use, collection or importation of knives is legal. They can of course be turned to criminal use – and it is this we must address.
I personally am not so much concerned with WHAT people use to kill each other but WHY they value human life so little, WHY they feel motivated to attack and WHAT can we do to instill respect, understanding, compassion and empathy into our disaffected youth and re-integrate them into the society they feel so alienated from.
All the time we dance about the real issues, all the wasted and misguided initiatives we throw at the problem, all the time the focus is on the implement rather than the criminal we will fail to resolve this issue and that should make us all ashamed.
Well said
#47
Well said as well!
#38
I presume your definition of society is simply ‘people like me’, ‘people like us’, ‘people who agree with me’ and ‘people who belong to my gang my gang……’
In my ‘society’ people like you are regarded as aberrant, abnormal and a bit freakish for having such views – where does that leave you? Do you belong anywhere?
As for the ban on guns – lets reverse the legislation and see what happens!
Suggest you go the US where you will find many very law abiding outdoor enthusiasts who own both knives and guns and where people are generally much safer than back here in ‘blighty’. I see no difference between the US and the UK in this respect – nor should there be in principle.
Actually I am very upset whenever my freedom to do as I wish or please is restricted or curtailed.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t be much bothered if an essentially ‘amoral’ commercial entity like eBay chooses to ban things were it not for the fact that eBay is effectively an auction venue monopoly so the normal market rules don’t apply.
It seems that Richard Ambrose is a weak kneed lily livered fool who is easily led (by the nose ?) by the shock horror tactics favoured by political spindoctors.
If the best that the BBC can do re. knifecrime is to illegally import items proscribed in the UK then I think that those responsible for this illegal action should be prosecuted.They broke the law !!
All of the knives for sale on eBay in the UK are legal to own ,If someone carries a knife in a public place without good reason they are breaking the law.
I am not surprised by this action by Ebay management , after all these are the same idiots responsible for the so called ” improvements ” to eBay that make Ebay slower and more difficult to use.Talk about one step forward and two back !!
In essense ,any thug with a mind to stab or cut someone can buy a cheap kitchen knife or screwdriver anywhere ,including it seems eBay and just throw it away after the attack.
Banning an inanimate object of any kind is pointless and those responsible for the banning should be re-educated in good old COMMON SENSE.
As pointed out by many others previously people hurt and kill people with almost anything they can find or to hand.
Brainwashing these violent numpties is possible by using aversion therapy but no government is going to sign up to that.
#50 “Actually I am very upset whenever my freedom to do as I wish or please is restricted or curtailed.”
..You really think you are free to do as you wish? Deary me, you are very mistaken. I just love the “this is a free country” line…makes me laugh everytime.
Like I have already said, ‘certain people’ for whatever reason will never see this ban as a good thing.
#50 I’m not sure which of #38’s views make him “aberrant, abnormal and a bit freakish”?
Is it correct the the perpetrators of both the Dunblane & Hungerford massacres were licensed gun owners?
#53 Is it correct the the perpetrators of both the Dunblane & Hungerford massacres were licensed gun owners?
………with a long history of mental illness – yes.
Any how many thousands of licenced gun owners have not killed anyone.
OK, lets do the maths – and I am rubbish at maths so please do set me straight if I get it wrong.
– approx 22 million households in the UK
– Take a very low guess at an average 6 knives in each household.
– Total 132 million knives ‘out there’
– Average 240 ‘bladed article’ deaths per year
– Total knives used 0.0002%
Would anyone really support a ban of an item of which 0.0002% of owners use the item to kill?
Lets put this into perspective – if only 0.0002% of cars in the UK were involved in deaths on the road (excluding accidents but including death by dangerous driving / drink driving / reckless etc, etc) then there would only be 64 deaths per year. (using 2003 figure of 32001477 cars registered in the UK)
So – should we ban cars as they are responsible for thousands more deaths?
If not, why not?
Probably completely irrelevant but in the United States 1400 die per year due to alcohol poisoning and 13000 die per year due to drunk driving. We tried banning it once and ended up with a Mafia problem instead.
Well there’s not likely to be any licensed gun holders in the UK committing the same kind of massacre as Dunblane & Hungerford again in the UK – why is that?
I don’t think all knives should be banned I just don’t think that eBay is the right venue for the sale 🙂
Maybe we should just ban people.
That would cover all the bases {nearly}
#52
I may not be free as I would wish to be but I will still fight to preserve what little freedom is left against unwarranted government action.
#56
People who are that mentally ill will find a way to undertake abominable acts regardless of what you choose to ban – as it has been throughout history it is the person that does the deed not the implement.
#57
Good idea! 🙂
Are you volunteering to be the first?
pip pip
I just had a talk with the e-Bay Trust Board. As of now, all international sales of knives are illegal. All guys. Not only the UK. E-Bay allows knife sales only in the US no more South America, Canada, Europe a.s.o.. All international knife listings will be pulled one by one. And no international knife seller is allowed to sell their knives within the US either. They will be pulled too.. So the representative told me. At least that takes care of my competition I guess.
I paid 12% final value fees for my knives. A lot of money for a seller. I think in light of such a high fee E-Bay should be able to handle a little more critic and pressure on my behalf. After all we paid enough for it. No I am made to feel like a criminal who sells a murderous weapon, when in fact the most used knives in murder and stab crimes are in fact kitchen knives. And I don’t sell those.
One guy in this forum said a few days ago. Knife collectors are insane and should be arrested!
So how about car collectors who’s engines kill our environment and gives millions of us cancer from the exhaust fumes. A antique collector who every now and the finds a antique weapon that was made to kill and probably still can. Or even a stamp collector who literally can kill his date by boring them to death.
To make such a statement you got to be insane maybe even ignorant yourself. Why not just have another dictator tell us all what to do and what not and the world would be in peace again just like under Hitler????????.
“Ignorance is the very manifestation of stupidity.
It is the will to kill that actually kills. If I have the will, I can use anything to kill. Even my bare hands. I don’t need a knife to kill someone, just the will to do it. The tool to the deed, I will find anywhere!
So screw all the people who say that guns and knives kill. It is in your mind first.
Just like a hammer that does not get the nail into a board without someone picking it up and using his mind to do so first.
So simple is that!!!
E-Bay is not stopping people from buying knives or selling internationally with all their knee bending and panic reactions. No they just shift legitimate seller away to different sell platforms and starts loosing on sells. Every time someone scares E-Bay with trust and safety issues E-bay bends over. Sooner or later we want be able to sell a computer mouse on E-Bay because of the dangers of carpel tunnel syndrome. And sooner or later E-Bay will realize that all their sellers (the cornerstone of their organization) went away to sell somewhere else.
Just been on eBay.co.uk to look for a new fishing knife,swiss army type thing.
Don’t know why Watchdog bothered going to the US to buy them, I can buy bowie knives, survival knives, hunting knives,daggers, boot knives, ninja swords,fighting knives, in fact pretty much every kind of knife you need to give someone a labotomy, all UK sellers.
First, if gun bans work so well, why does England still have such a seemingly large number of gun crimes? The ban’s been in effect for how long now? Second, now they seem to be concerned about ‘knife’ violence. Going back to the first part, eliminate the ‘gun or knife’, and you’re still left with the ‘violence’ part. Ban or not, it doesn’t effect the persons that are creating the problem in the first (edit) place! Are you people (another edit) stupid or what???????? I don’t mean anyone here in particular, except those who endorse the bans in the first place, in some insane attempt to stop the problem. Remove the crazy, violent, anti-social people from society (forever, would be fine by me) and the damn guns and knives will cease to be a problem. What part of that is so (one last edit) hard to understand?? Some people just can’t be fixed so why bother?
Bloody Idiot bans dont appear to work Either
🙂
So what are they to ban next , baseball bats? cricket bats ? anything that can be used in a violent way at all??????
the world has gone utterly mad … 🙁
..this will NOT stop chavs from stabbing each other and anyone else who gets in their way, this is a pointless ( excuse the pun) exercise , all it does is inconvenience law abiding citizens even more !
eBay is going to the dogs.
eBay have banned loads of items which they deemed illegal as it infringes copyright etc……….. just like blank dvd,cd,tapes,some software,some ebooks etc etc but they allow these,make sense of that. 😕
As for the knifes its a knee jerk reaction to yet MORE bad publicity on them do people or normal people think that ALL knifes are bad? so you cant kill somebody with a table knife, yes you can but i would think more painful and messy.
eBay stopped sellers from leaving neg and neutral feedback what more can they do to push this Internet auction site into the ground.
Im not saying sell knives but make it so craft,bread,Stanley can be bought its common sense that’s needed here.
So I collect Antique bayonets and accordingly am therefore a weirdo and freak. If either of the two that posted that comment were in front of me I would not need a blade or even contemplate one, I would use my bare hands, and see if he could take one, two ,three blows. I doubt it neither could the poor so and so on the news last night who was the wrong “Victim”.
I was a Royal Marine for nigh on twenty years and never once felt the urge to kill anyone who was innocent, whilst upon my and their “Lawful” occasion. I do feel the need regularly to buy another bayonet as it rocks my boat to own them, me being a history freak, and I do not need some self opinionated self appointed vigilante getting off on trying to control me by deciding what I should do. Get off here and go get elected on your opinion and then if its popular enough to be law I will abide by it and help enforce it.
If its your opinion I will allow that you are entitled to it, would be willing to die for your right to have it, but not your right to self impose it. So until it is law what you think about me is irrelevant, just do not make the mistake of trying to tell me what to do until you have a mandate to do so. Well on here maybe you can be the “Hero” as hiding behind keyboards is easy.
Love and sloppy kisses to one and all, Steve.
A little condysil to my last posting. As I worked the doors of a few clubs when I first came out of the forces I soon found that a knife was very seldom used as an implement to stab with. A common garden plastic Biro fits the bill nicely to stab with, and when they say the pen is mightier than the sword, it can sometimes be taken literally. If anyone doubts this they may feel free to visit my stab wound under my right upper arm. It only went in approx 5 inches but that was down to luck not planning as the intention I feel was to give more and not in the arm. Anything within reach is a weapon and most crimes of violence are not premeditated. I do not foresee any one sending off to a seller on eBay for an 1887 Martini Henry bayonet for £130 to go around and stab granny.
Ebay get with the plot stop licking dark places for political milage as you soon will be in the never never as we are your customers and you need us more than we need you.
It is sad to see that EBay will stop selling knifes, I would always have owned a knife for camping, hiking and especially now that I have taken an interest in Bushcraft. I understand the narrow minded people who never leave the city thinking that we are weird for having a knife but maybe they need to go on a good camping trip to understand that it is an essential tool. EBay was a great place for selling everything and I am sorry to see this ban. I have always had a knife and think of it as a tool not a weapon. I agree there is no reason for carrying a knife (Swiss army knifes and Multi-tools excluded as they are very useful in everyday life, I use mine everyday) in a city as you are not going to need it for anything.
Next they will be banning the sale of kitchen knifes, We all use them everyday but people are killed with them by stupid people who would just kill with something else if it was not there.
Matt,
You can keep carrying that knife for legitimate reasons within the law. Camping, whittling, bushcraft. You’re good. It’s just that you can’t buy or sell same on eBay.
As for kitchen knives, they’re still permissable and I’m sure that eBay would have banned them too if it was intending to.
Carry on camping!
dw