Actually, You CAN'T Buy a Stingray on eBay to Track Your Friends and Enemies

Screenshot: Lucas Ropek/eBay

Earlier this week, we noticed that a Harris Stingray was for sale on eBay for a cool $100k. Police have historically used these notably creepy surveillance devices to grab mobile traffic out of the air via cell tower emulation. Yes, someone was selling one of these suckers for lots of money, and it had garnered a certain amount of interest.

However, it would appear that the sale of said device violated eBay’s terms of service. The platform told 404 Media that it had taken the listing down.

“Maintaining a trusted marketplace is a top priority for eBay and we make significant investments to help ensure a safe buying and selling experience for our customers,” an eBay spokesperson told 404 Media. “Sellers are obligated to comply with eBay policies and applicable laws and failure to do so may result in consequences up to, and including, a permanent suspension. Consistent with our Electronic Equipment Policy, we are removing this listing and will continue to monitor the marketplace.”

Gizmodo reached out to eBay for additional information and will update this story if it responds.

Let’s be honest, you probably didn’t want to own a Stingray anyway. First of all, it’s not totally clear whether using this thing as a civilian would be entirely legal. And it wasn’t even necessarily a functioning device. The listing said that it was untested, “sold as is,” and didn’t even come with a how-to manual—meaning that, hypothetically, you could’ve been buying a broken $100k machine whose inner machinations would’ve been inscrutable to the outside observer. Chances are, even if it did work, you would’ve used it once or twice, and then, like all weird impulse buys, it would’ve sat in one of the murkier corners of your garage, gathering dust.