Fighting with ebay regarding sale of USDA Food Stamps

I had a different experience two years ago. I had a "pant-load" of Food Coupons from a friend who needed money. I listed them and before they removed them, I had inquiries which I answered.....it resulted in sales well beyond face....and requests for "all I can get".

 

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Food stamps

Ebay has kicked me off for a month because I was selling food stamps. I have many left and don't know how to get reed of them now.

 

Out of curiosity, how valuable are these food stamps? I wouldn't think they'd carry any sort of value.

 

They are worthless. It's also a violation of the Dept. of Agriculture program to exchange food stamps for cash, whether in the old stamp form from the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, as well as on the EBT cards.

My suggestion to you Napster, is turn them into your local Dept. of Social Services and get "RID" of them there, as they are worthless, and if you are caught trying to sell them, you face criminal prosecution.

 

This is absolutely untrue. As of July 2009, it was no longer illegal for persons not on the program to possess paper USDA Food Coupons. Neither is it illegal for the paper Food Coupons to be sold. You do not face criminal prosecution for doing so any longer. The paper coupons are no longer useable by people on the program so there was no longer a reason for those not on the program to be prohibited from having them.

 

Please read the earlier posts in this thread
. I don't believe there is any legal issue now with selling these as collectibles.

 

This letter from the Dept. of Ag. says differently:


Last line clearly states, and that the use of coupons for any other purpose than a collection is prohibited.

Selling them, for money, is not collecting them and would fall under the any other purpose prohibition.

FYI, I never said it was illegal to possess them.

 

Since I worked with one of the persons in the paper money hobby responsible for getting the prohibition on ownership lifted, I can tell you unequivocally that you are still wrong. After July 2009, it is not illegal to receive money for paper USDA Food Coupons and you will not be prosecuted for doing so.

 

Bottom line is its ebay's playground and they can do whatever they want. It sucks, trust me it does, but what can you do?

I had a 1938 Mein Kampf book that was in German, sighed by a governor(or something like that) and tried to sell it on ebay. They told me no because they dont allow nazi things to be sold on their website because these items could get overseas and go to Germany. I said thats great but I dont sell overseas, never have. I only accept bidding in the US, and its legal to own it here. They pretty much told me too bad.

This is the same thing. Ebay was told back in the day that they couldn't allow the sale of these items and now they are sticking to that.

Not much can be done. What about another auction sight?

 

The date of the letter is March 2011.

Again, I have not stated that OWNING old food stamp coupons is illegal. Selling them, which would be possessing for any other purpose than collecting, is.

 

Collecting food coupons inherently includes obtaining them through exchange for money. I would preclude that as one of the "other purposes" mentioned in your letter. As lettow explained, these notes are not a legal obligation of the U.S. government, so there is no reason for them to prosecute anyone for possessing them and using them for reasonable purposes.

Have you actually read the law de-obligating these notes? Or have you relied only on that letter?

Ebay's stance is that of absolving a private company's liability, not adhering to the law. If their legal department did some more research, perhaps they would find otherwise.

 

Argueing Over Selling Foodstamps?

Please tell me the logical sense in fighting ebay over the sale of Food Stamps.

Foodstamps are paid for by taxpayers and why should, for example, a crack or heroine addict, be allowed to sell his foodstamps on ebay, for money to support his habit, costing taxpayers more money.
I could see your point, if we were talking about collectible food stamps from the WW2 era but if your talking about 2011 food stamps then ebay is doing the right thing.

I thought I could never say Ebay is doing the right thing. A first for me.

 

Maybe I'm not very good at interpretation of the nuances contained within American standard English, but I'm fairly certain that wikipedia citation states that the contracts are non-enforceable. That would mean that you can't force the US government to redeem gold certificates. It doesn't mean you can't possess the certificates.

As for this thread, eBay has a right to operate their business as they see fit. If they aren't allowing the sale of foodstamps, then they aren't allowing the sale of foodstamps. It doesn't matter to the great majority of eBay users whether eBay has a basis for their claim that it's illegal or not. It's entirely within their right to refuse service for any reason. The potential loss of revenue from the limited number of "foodstamp collectors" would need to be significant (which it isn't) in order to offset the cost of having their legal team determine which foodstamps/cards are eligible for sale and which aren't.

Also, the letter that was posted by the thread originator didn't state anywhere that eBay is required by the USDA/SSA/whoever represents the US government to accept the sale of foodstamps on their site. It also did clearly state that the sale of foodstamps is legal. Given the clear acknowledgement that the question was about collecting and selling foodstamps, yet the response only identified the collection as legal, the conservative interpretation would be that the sale/purchase of foodstamps is still illegal.

Of note, I find it curious that Agent Chan states clearly that the USDA doesn't keep old examples of foodstamps. If that were the case, how did the USDA donate them to the Smithsonian, per this article on their website?

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=2010/01/0028.xml

Apparently, Agent Chan is in charge of my jurisdiction, so I'd be curious whether the response would be the same if the issue were relayed to Inspector General Fong.

 

In your letter paper food stamps are explicitly compared with stamps and paper money, which are obviously bought and sold all the time. For someone to purchase food stamps as a collectible somebody else has to sell them. Can you cite any instances where only one side of a transaction is legal?

 

:dead-horse:

 

looks like it is still illegal to sell them

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Woman-tried-to-sell-food-stamps-on-Facebook-1417844.php

 

If these were current "food stamps" then they weren't paper, they would be in the form of a debit card. This thread is concerned with the demonetized, obsolete paper food stamps which can no longer be redeemed for anything at a store or anywhere. Their only value is as a collectible.

 

:yes:

 

Except for the cost of making and distributing the stamps, doesn't the cost to taxpayers mostly come from retailers redeeming the foodstamps they had accepted in exchange for the goods they relinquished? I would think that a foodstamp that wasn't spent on food would be of minimal cost to taxpayers.

When I was in college, I was talked into getting food stamps from my staunch Republican friend whose point was, "See how easy it is? If I can get them then it's a waste of taxpayers' money." I tried to hold onto mine when they were still in the booklet but slowly I broke down... My friend may have identified a problem, but I'm not sure he had the solution!

 

Let's make sure we are all talking about the same thing. This discussion relates to USDA Food Coupons which most people refer to as Food Stamps. The paper Food Coupons were demonetized in 2009. They are of no monetary value to anyone on or off the SNAP program. (For those who are not familiar with the terminology, SNAP is the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, the new name for the old Food Stamp program.)

All SNAP benefits are paid by Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card. All "2011 food stamps" only exist as credits on EBT cards. The woman in the newspaper article who was arrested for selling her "food stamps" was selling her EBT card. She was not selling paper USDA Food Coupons.

Selling the EBT benefits is prohibited by Title VII, Chapter 51 of the United States Code which governs the SNAP Program. When the paper coupons were demonetized in 2009, the sections of Title VII, Chapter 51 which prohibited the possession, sale, transfer or other use of paper USDA Food Coupons were repealed. If you look within this Chapter today (specifically Section 2106) you will see that the only mention of the paper USDA Food Coupons is the fact that they are no longer an obligation of the US government and they are to no longer be issued. The prohibition against possession, sale, transfer or other use of the paper USDA Food Coupons that used to be in this Chapter are gone.

All that having been said, NorthKorea is also correct. Ebay does have the right to prohibit whatever it wants from being sold on its website. Ebay does not have to allow the sale of paper USDA Food Coupons on its website even though the sale is no longer illegal. They can establish whatever policy they want. The original policy made sense when possession and sale by those not on the program were illegal but there is no reason to maintain it now that the prohibition has been lifted (other than corporate inertia). That is the frustrating part. The reason they were prohibited in the first place is because it was illegal but that is no longer the case so this reason for the Ebay policy is no longer valid. For whatever reason, Ebay does not want to change their policy.