It would be hard to get much unluckier when you’re trying to sell something on eBay than has just happened to Jet Art Aviation.
First they tried to sell a Harrier Jump Jet (naturally decommissioned) only to have it won by a seven year old boy who clicked the Buy-It-Now button on his father’s eBay account. Naturally reluctant to re-mortgage the house to buy a plane the guy begged forgiveness on his child’s behalf.
Having missed out on a £69,999.00 sale they relisted the item as an auction. Then just, as the press coverage of the seven year old buyer rocketed the price skywards to a dizzying £94,000.00 from 80 bids and over 140,000 page views, eBay themselves bombed their listing and removed it from the site.
Apparently being very apologetic, eBay explained that a Harrier Jet falls foul of their strict policies in regards to the sale of military weapons. Even though the jet was stripped of all it’s weapons and many other components including the engines, sadly it’s still not allowed on eBay.
6 Responses
But why this made the Radio 4 news, I dunno…
There was a case recently in the press about a small model soldier with a plastic gun that had to have the small plastic gun(measuring only a couple of inches) removed(and placed in an envelope and sent by Post to the owners home address-Why wasn’t it against Post Office rules to send guns through the post) before the model could be allowed on an aircraft. Apparently the PC mind(and like PC Minds everywhere totally lacking in working grey cells) of the security men said that the model was likely to hijack the plane. Surely somebody at ebay has some basic common sense(although I often doubt it). I looked at the Harrier it had been restored as a Museum Exhibit and everything faintly military had been removed or decommissioned. So if anybody had been interested in flying or operating it there was literally no chance. If Military items are banned what about Model Tanks or Battleships, what about Paintings or Prints of Spitfires or Naval Battles from the Mapoleonic War, what about ex-Military Uniforms or even boots. There are numerous Military Surplus items on ebay. What about in the Cars section. There are almost certainly ex-military Land Rovers. The list of Military Equipment is likely to be a very long one. The Harrier was effectively a very large paper-weight.
I had a 20mm (3/4 inch) pendant in the form of a penknife taken off ebay twice for falling foul of their knives and firearms policy. Each time they re-instated it when I pointed out how dumb they were. They ’employ’ community police who often don’t have a clue.
I can see their could be an issue with an ex fighter plane as it could be recomissioned as a military plane by a tin pot dictatorship, but I don’t think my pendant could have been converted to a weapon. It was certainly a lot less dangerous than a drawing pin.
If a tinpot dictatorship wanted to buy themselves a dozen jump jets then I am sure the british government would be happy to supply them, or the americans, rusians french, germans.
They would even give them lessons on how to use them, how the hell do you think think the taliban have been so well trained.
Just more insanity from the nuts that seem to rule our every move