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

eBay has pulled Jeffrey Dahmer costumes on its marketplace as they violate the company’s ‘Violence and violent criminals policy’ as confirmed by Buzzfeed News.

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

eBay’s ‘Violence and violent criminals policy‘ states that sellers cannot list items for sale that “promote or glorify violence or violent acts, or are associated with individuals who are notorious for committing violent acts.”

Furthermore, eBay explains its policy applies to:

• “Items that promote or glorify violence towards humans or animals”
• “Films, images, or devices that contain or claim to contain real acts of violence, rape, execution, torture, crime scenes, morgues, dead bodies or body parts of dead persons”
• “Items closely associated with or that benefit violent felons, their acts, or crime scenes within the past 100 years”

A company spokesperson 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 surfaces 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 seem to be priced very high, suggesting sellers are taking advantage of the resurgence of the “Jeffrey Dahmer” story from the Netflix series.

eBay Enforcement of Jeffrey Dahmer Merchandise Spotty at Best

It is also curious that eBay seemed to have taken only recent interest in the Jeffrey Dahmer merchandise that violates its prohibited items policy.

We reported in 2020, when eBay removed Kobe Bryant Memorial merchandise, that items depicting Jeffrey Dahmer on a coffee mug seemed okay back then as they remained on the marketplace.

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

But with the Netflix series bringing awareness to the serial killer again, which for some reason or another resulted in a macabre interest by people to dress up like Dahmer for Halloween, eBay apparently grew a conscience — at least for now while the series is popular.

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