Ebay cancelled my auction!

Sleekit

I got a message from eBay today saying they were cancelling one of my auctions. Apparently they had a complaint from Mattel "for violating their intellectual property rights".

The message doesn't make clear exactly what the problem was, which is annoyance number one. Annoyance number two is that there's nothing on the product to say it's made by Mattel.

I described it as a "Lucky 8 Ball Style Mystic Orb", so I'm wondering if they have the rights to the term "Lucky 8 Ball", in which case surely by putting "Style" I covered myself???

Annoyance number three - if you do a search for that, there's someone else selling the exact same thing using almost the exact same terms with the same price I had, but their auction has not been removed!!!

My fees have been refunded, but what would you do? Relist under a different name? Appeal against the decision? Report the other lister? Get hyper-suspicious and assume the other lister wanted to bump off her competition and pretended to be from Mattel? Or forget the whole thing?

I'd ask my mystic orb, but in reality it's a piece of @#!*

jenniferpa

Actually, if Mattel have trademarked "lucky 8 ball" which seems improbable, but you never know, it's the style that is getting you into trouble. In the same way that Gucci Style is not allowed, this comes under the category of keyword spamming.

Jennifer

shellsuit

Sleekit wrote:

I got a message from eBay today saying they were cancelling one of my auctions. Apparently they had a complaint from Mattel "for violating their intellectual property rights".

The message doesn't make clear exactly what the problem was, which is annoyance number one. Annoyance number two is that there's nothing on the product to say it's made by Mattel.

I described it as a "Lucky 8 Ball Style Mystic Orb", so I'm wondering if they have the rights to the term "Lucky 8 Ball", in which case surely by putting "Style" I covered myself???

Annoyance number three - if you do a search for that, there's someone else selling the exact same thing using almost the exact same terms with the same price I had, but their auction has not been removed!!!

My fees have been refunded, but what would you do? Relist under a different name? Appeal against the decision? Report the other lister? Get hyper-suspicious and assume the other lister wanted to bump off her competition and pretended to be from Mattel? Or forget the whole thing?

I'd ask my mystic orb, but in reality it's a piece of @#!*

You can't put style/like/similar to etc etc

If others are selling them then it looks like you have been reported by a competitor, or the 'Mattel' people havent got around to them yet.

I wouldn't relist, it's not worth getting suspended over.

jenniferpa

On the other hand, mattel copyright is for "magic 8 ball" I would think that "lucky 8 ball" without the style would be acceptable.

Jennifer

Sleekit

Thanks for the advice guys. For 99p, I think I'll just chuck it.

Contains_Mild_Peril

Sleekit wrote:

Thanks for the advice guys. For 99p, I think I'll just chuck it.

Don't you have any charity shops nearby?

funkyBase

Charity shop it. I used to sell my old stuff on ebay now I just send it to a charity shop. It's the way to go.

RAMBLER

funkyBase wrote:

Charity shop it. I used to sell my old stuff on ebay now I just send it to a charity shop. It's the way to go.

I only sell stuff that I know will sell - anything that requires work or a lot of time, I donate to a local charity shop that raises money for the local area.

liz_uk

Its because you used the word `style` ... Its like saying `louis vuitton style bag. They will come down on you like a ton of bricks !