October 2, 2023 at 6:15 a.m.
“Some of these products cause motor vehicles to emit … massive amounts of air pollution,” the lawsuit alleges. “Others pose an imminent, and in some cases potentially lethal, danger to human beings. eBay has the power, the authority, and the resources to stop the sale of these illegal, harmful products on its website. It has chosen not to.”
In June 2020, the EPA ordered eBay to stop selling certain pesticides, but the company continued offering “numerous” unregistered, misbranded or restricted-use products, including some named in the order, the lawsuit alleges. Despite a second order in July 2021, eBay continued listing such pesticides, as recently as July 28 of this year, the lawsuit claims. The company illegally sold at least 23,000 pesticide items since 2016, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit also targets alleged sales of methylene chloride, a solvent banned in the U.S. for distribution since 2019 that has. The company distributed more than 5,600 items containing the compound — in concentrations of 30% to 100% — after the ban, the lawsuit claims. However, the lawsuit claims eBay’s sales algorithms have “promoted, encouraged, and induced” illegal transactions on its platform through search results and suggestions for “related” products, along with emails and coupons. In one purported example in the lawsuit, eBay allegedly sent an email with a $5 eBay coupon to a potential buyer who had previously viewed a defeat device for a Ford pickup truck, with a message calling the illegal product a “must-have.
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