Ohio Wants eBayers to Post $50k Bond

MacDork writes "CNNMoney posted a short article this morning about new Ohio regulations set to become effective May 2 this year. If you are in the state and selling on eBay, you will need to pay $200 for a license and post a $50,000 bond or face possible fines and jail time. Getting the license also requires a one-year apprenticeship. When asked to which eBay users this bill applied, the bill's author, Larry Mumper responded with these very specific guidelines.... "It certainly will not apply to the casual seller on eBay, but might apply to anyone who sells a lot.""

Comments

I guess I missed something...

[Skye16]

...but why does this affect anyone other than eBay? TECHNICALLY, they are doing the auctioning. You're just putting up your item for auction. Is it illegal for you to pay an auctioneer 500$ to have them auction off your house? How could this apply to the user? THEY aren't accepting bids - the software is, and the software was created by and managed by eBay. The user isn't auctioning a damn thing, they're having ebay do it for them.

...aren't they?

Seems a bit overdone

[PepeGSay]

Why would you have to apprentice as an auctioneer to sell something where the auction portion is run by someone else. This seems akin to making people on the Antiques Roadshow take auction classes and an apprenticeship before they can have Sotheby's auction their items. Is this really a way to back into a tax?

auction school

[fr1kk]

FTA: Besides costing $200 and posting a $50,000 bond, the license requires a one-year apprenticeship to a licensed auctioneer, acting as a bid-caller in 12 auctions, attending an approved auction school, passing a written and oral exam. Failure to get a license could result in the seller being fined up to $1,000 and jailed for a maximum of 90 days.

and a school to become a licensed seller?

what if i go on a spree, and say, sell like 30 items that i've found in my basement over christmas break? does that constitute as someone who sells more than 'casually'?

Larry Mumper -- a BG check

[ianscot]

That's funny, because my first reaction was that this law sounded as sloppily written as Minnesota's recent concealed weapons legislation -- which was written in a way that left major ambiguities about who could provide the required safety courses, for one example.

We have a passel of state Reps I'd describe as "social right wingers" who put up stuff like death penalty legislation every term. They were behind the weapons bill: it was touted as making the law fairer by not leaving it up to individual sheriffs, but really it aimed at allowing more people to carry concealed guns. The bills these folks turn out seem to have been written by 10th graders who were unfamiliar with anything but the skeleton of the issue they're talking about, and they often have unintended consequences.

So, who is this guy?

Senator Larry A. Mumper, Ohio Senate Republican.

He's listed there as primary sponsor of a couple of other bills, including one that was presented as an "academic bill of rights for higher education." This bill was partly prompted by a story about a kid who wrote a "pro-America" paper and got a bad grade from his teacher... Oops, except the kid's paper was crap; he'd written a 1-page "report" that wasn't up-to-snuff, got a bad grade, and decided it was because he was patriotic that he'd been silenced. The bill itself reads like a wolf in sheep's clothing aimed at "protecting a plurality of opinion" by remaining neutral about crap like "intelligent design." It doesn't spell out how you'd decide when a topic was "controversial" -- gee, an ambiguity that could lead to unintended consequences.

Does this sound like exactly the sort of wingnut I'm seeing in Minnesota? I mean, this is a guy who says his law "might apply to anyone who sells a lot" and "If someone buys and sells on eBay on a regular basis as a type of business, then there is a need for regulation." "As a type of business"? No ambiguity there, is there?

Re:rediculous

[MightyMartian]

Heh heh heh. I always love outrageously imprecise laws that are defended by "that's not the intent" and "we would never use it that way". The proof is in the pudding, I'm afraid. If legislators create an overbroad and ill-defined law (what's "lots" and what's "casual" and when does one become the other) they are either numbskulls or have something rather nasty in mind.

I don't know that much about Ohio's politics, though their position on science education leads me to believe you've got some pretty goofy people running the state.

Re:Typical government stupidity

[whats_a_zip]

"I think ohio has seen a big fat cash cow and has decided to get down to milk it at gunpoint." Bingo! Gov. Taft was rated the worst Governor in the United States. The state of Ohio is broke, and completely mismanaged. What you see here is desperation.

Imposing arbitrary licensing law is not a right!

[rolofft]

> ...Ohio has EVERY right to do this.

States do not have the right to impose arbitrary licensing laws. E.g. Arbitrary licensing laws on hairbraiders, casket sellers, and jitney drivers have been struck down.

The first question to ask when a new licensing scheme is proposed is whether its true motivation is rent seeking rather than consumer protection. I'd be interested to see whether Mr Mumper's has received any recent contributions the from brick and mortar antique seller's lobby.