Some people will tell you that no one wants to see pictures of your kids, but they’ve apparently never been on the Japanese marketplace app Mercari. According to SoraNews24, there was a surprisingly robust market for ultrasound photos on the e-commerce platform, which resulted in Mercari ultimately banning the sale of said images.
Ultrasound images have landed on the list of “inappropriate items” that Mercari maintains, which are restricted from being sold on the platform. The ban will go into effect on September 1, according to the company, so you do still have a few days to put in bids on your favorites and complete your collection or whatever it is that you do with someone else’s ultrasound.
Mercari didn’t specify why it decided to place ultrasound pictures under this restriction, though maybe someone in the offices was just kinda weirded out by it. SoraNews24 speculated that the images may have been used to conduct pregnancy fraud schemes, which it describes as an attempt by a person to pretend to be pregnant “in order to demand money from a man they previously had sex with.”
The publication doesn’t really offer much evidence of this being a widespread issue, and it’s hard to find anything suggesting this is a problem in Japan in particular. There are a handful of social media posts in which people describe being targeted by a similar scam, but they seem to be pretty few and far between. In Australia, there was a scandal a few years ago in which women received the exact same ultrasound image from an ultrasound operator who apparently was operating without any credentials, but that seems like a whole different thing.
Anyway, Mercari seems to have a habit of becoming a hotbed for odd items. In 2022, it became a massive market for Zima after the company that produces the drink went out of business and saw people charging some significant premiums for the remaining bottles. In 2023, SoraNews24 reported on people selling curses on the platform, as well as bags full of air from previous years. So frankly, ultrasound pictures don’t even seem particularly egregious in terms of odd sale items. But the market, at least on Mercari, will be closed anyway. No word on whether Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or perhaps apps like Depop will take the same hardline stance against ultrasound pictures, so keep your eyes peeled.
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