Only a few hours after Tuesday’s tragedy, people were cleaning out their attics, rushing to newsstands, even digging through rubble and offering World Trade Center items on online auction sites.
But eBay and Yahoo Auctions soon shut the bidding down. They also blocked any bidding on items related to the Pentagon.
Until late Tuesday night, eBay had at least 51 World Trade Center-related items — everything from a framed print of the towers to copies of newspapers selling for as much as $5 each, excluding shipping.
The list of items still was posted on eBay Wednesday morning, although users could not bid on them.
Some sellers also apparently were attempting to auction more ghoulish items such as rubble from the destroyed buildings and video clips of the two hijacked airliners crashing into the buildings.
EBay spokesman Henry Gomez said the company has a policy banning the sale of artifacts “related to murders or other notorious criminal acts.”
EBay took the additional step of prohibiting anything related to the World Trade Center or the Pentagon attacks until Oct. 1.
While eBay slapped a ban on all WTC and Pentagon items, Yahoo Auctions was doing a brisk business until the site also decided to ban them Wednesday morning.
The company issued a statement Wednesday that read:
“As soon as we found out items from the WTC attack were listed on our auction site we pulled them off. We have decided not to allow any items listed at this time on our site. This is a sensitive time. Many in our auction community have been sadly touched by the tragedy and our hearts and prayers go out to them.”
EBay expressed similar sentiments on its start page.
