eBay Grows Conscience Over Jeffrey Dahmer Costumes for Halloween – Removes Listings

eBay has pulled Jeffrey Dahmer costumes from its marketplace because they violate the company’s ‘Violence and Violent Criminals Policy,’ as confirmed by Buzzfeed News.

Over the past few weeks, the online marketplace has seen a surge of pre-Halloween listings for Jeffrey Dahmer costumes in response to the release of the controversial blockbuster Netflix series, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which was released in September.

eBay’s ‘Violence and Violent Criminal Policy’ states that sellers cannot list items for sale “promotes or glorifies violence or violent acts, or is associated with individuals notorious for committing violent acts.”

Further, eBay explains its policy applies to:

• “Items that promote or glorify violence against people or animals”
• “Films, images or devices that contain or claim to contain actual acts of violence, rape, execution, torture, crime scenes, morgues, dead bodies or body parts of dead persons.”
• “Items closely related to or benefiting violent criminals, their acts or crime scenes within the last 100 years”

A spokesperson for the company confirmed to Buzzfeed News that eBay has taken active measures to remove Jeffrey Dahmer merchandise that violates this policy.

However, a search on eBay for “Jeffrey Dahmer” still brings up items that appear to be of a historical perspective, such as newspapers, news clippings, unauthorized biographies, books, magazines, movie posters, DVDs and more.

Apparently, these types of items do not violate eBay policy. But some of the items appear to be very high, suggesting sellers are taking advantage of the revival of the “Jeffrey Dahmer” story from the Netflix series.

eBay Enforcement of Jeffrey Dahmer Merchandise Spotty at Best

It’s also curious that eBay only recently seems to have taken an interest in the Jeffrey Dahmer merchandise that violates its prohibited items policy.

In 2020, when eBay removed Kobe Bryant memorabilia, we reported that items depicting Jeffrey Dahmer on a coffee mug appeared to be fine when they remained on the market.

And in 2021, we again questioned eBay’s consistency on its banned items when the company allowed NAZI Action Figures to remain on the market while selling Dr. removed Suess books.

But with the Netflix series bringing awareness back to the serial killer, which for some reason led to a macabre interest in people dressing up as Dahmer for Halloween, eBay seems to have grown a conscience – to at least for now while the series is popular.

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