Why Trade Me suspended accounts selling ‘Make Ardern Go Away’ hats
Two Trade Me accounts selling “Make Ardern Go Away” hats were suspended last week, but the company says this was not the reason for the suspension.
Magic Talk spoke to two men from the South Island, who had separate Trade Me accounts selling the hats. They were in the style of US President Donald Trump’s red “Make America Great Again” or “MAGA” caps.
The men were selling the hats for $40 and $20 respectively, before finding their accounts had been suspended by Trade Me.
One of the men was told by Trade Me he was suspended due to an “intellectual property” issue, while the other was told it was due to the nature of his account.
But Trade Me head of trust and safety George Hiotakis says the hats were welcome to be sold on the website.
“When we’ve gone and reviewed this it’s simply been human error,” he told Magic Talk’s Sean Plunket.
“At any one time we have eight million listings, and the people that we have here go and interpret those kinds of things – unfortunately, occasionally, we get it wrong, and this was one instance where we did get it wrong.”
Hiotakis said the accounts could be reinstated should they operate within the company’s terms and conditions.
“It has nothing to do with the cap and with the political message, it is related to how they have their accounts set up.
“We’ve spoken with both the members, and provided them with information they need to be able to interact with Trade Me again.”
@SeanPlunket Is there copyright infringement for the two accounts removed?
Head of Trust & Safety George Hiotakis: No there was not there was human error in removing the listing.— Magic Talk (@MagicTalkRadio) July 23, 2019
But one of the men told Magic Talk said he had not been contacted by Trade Me.
“No, that’s not true,” Hiotakis told Sean Plunket. “I don’t have my staff in the room with me but walking in here, my understanding was that we’d talked to all members involved.”
Hiotakis said there was no third parties or agencies of state involved the suspension of the accounts.
Newshub.
If any of you reading this, believe this crap, then you can bugger off from ysb. Human error is code for a company stuff up but we will not admit it. Easier to blame some fictional staffer and quickly forget it.
So,
Has the human responsible been shown the door (or at the barest minimum been given a verbal warning)?
Have the accounts been reinstated without the BS?
Without both actions, TradeMe’s words are hollow.
I paid for my hat using Ping and my credit card. I have just had notification from Ping that they have refunded my $25. So, I have just e mailed the seller nzmaga saying I still want my cap and will pay by internet banking so as to cut Trade Me out of the deal for being arseholes. Trade Me is dead to me now.
post the sellers e mail so others can buy direct. ( unless this breeches the blogs rules somehow?)
Hats off (pun intended) to you Ed for publicising this bullshit…. but also a big thank you to Sean Plunket for running with it and taking it to a wider audience.
Sean has been doing great work on Magic Talk ever since he came on air with them and I reckon he’s a rare champion in the MSN.
Thanks guys! ?
Sean had a Trade Me spokesman on at 1.45 pm today. If you missed the interview you may be able to look it up.
Oops – having a bad night. The link is above.
Is this human error like the staffer who deleted the petition against the Migration Compact off the National Party website because they personally deemed it offensive? Surely not another snowflake employee who believes it is their right to make moral decisions above their pay grade.
Trade me need to stump up with some sort of compensation for the two sellers.
Their new owners are going to have a hard time earning their money back if they keep this up.
Trademe has always been about trust. It is no longer to be trusted.
“The membership is no longer active – it wasn’t the hats that were the issue.”
Shara helpfully includes a link to all the MAGA hats (Trump MAGA, not Ardern MAGA).
Trademe is so full of shit we need a Trademe Poop Keychain instead.
I e mailed a complaint about that keychain and received the following response from Clare:
Thanks for letting us know about your concerns here. Leave things with me and I’ll make sure this is looked into and dealt with properly.
While I won’t be able to let you know exactly what action we’ll take behind the scenes due to privacy reasons, there are a number of things we can do in these sorts of situations. Generally, we’ll start with a heads up about how things work on Trade Me and if we don’t see any changes made within a time-frame, we’ll look at removing the listing.
Hey Ed how about offering one of these hats as a one-per-week prize for the comment which gains the most upticks, or the comment with the most replies or something similar?
You could run it for a month and see how it goes …. waddyarekkun?
Get the caps supplier to make the offer. He’s getting free advertising on here.
Ed how come I can reply here but can’t on have your say. The green box with reply doesn’t show on have your say.
Something wrong at your end. Refresh your browser from time to time
Trademe are too quick to remove listings and posts on their forums if you mention Maori or muslims.
They started this four or five years ago.
If anyone complains they just ban you, no warning no reason.
Just “the our trading terms”
This t shirt seller “It’s Okay To Be White” was thrown under the bus.
One moment deemed ok then was basically doxxed by the so called “public” of “youth & community works”
What a tangled web they weave, as they begin to deceive.
So the human rights commission, probably like the Canadian one that wants woman to handle and shave trannies cock and balls, have their fingers in this too.
I notice the flawed human overlooked banning the pooing Donald Trump Key rings, despite a number of complaints being made about them.
Their secret internal polling? How convenient.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12252148
Boris is the man.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/114453497/uks-next-pm-announced-boris-johnson-v-jeremy-hunt-for-conservative-leadership