Threatening letter received - urgent advice

wanna-be-mortgage-free_2

Hi folks

I sell goods on ebay and recently purchased some items from a store on the internet which was selling the goods really cheaply. These were purchased to re-sell on ebay at a profit. However, I received a letter from the company who made/designed the clothes saying I have infringed their copyright.

I am NOT using any images from this company's website, I've taken my own images, I do state in the listing their name e.g. 'Lovely pink top by X'. How can that be an infringement of their trademark? Does that mean we are all doing something wrong by listing the company name of the garment such as NEXT, Mothercare, Dorothy Perkins and so on?

Your help and advice would be appreciated. But I will forward this letter to my solicitor Monday any - just to clarify. I have also emailed ebay to clarify the situation and as a gesture of goodwill have put my auctions on hold.

Tallymanjohn

I'm a bit unclear, is the company you bought the items from the same one that's sending the threatening letters? It sounds like you've purchased a load of (possibly) counterfeit clothing & it's the owner(s) of the brand name(s) concerned that are threatening you, in which case you have every reason to be concerned - copyright infringement is taken very seriously.

Sugar_Coated_Owl

I would imagine that it has something to do with the VERO programme. I'm guessing that the items are a designer brand?

soolin

Strangely enough if you buy something you don't have the right to resell those items.

razorbladekisses is correct in that many companies use the VERO system to stop people selling their goods 'inappropriately' and even if a company is not in the VERO programme they can still ask sellers to cease and desist selling their goods.

Some brands are notoriously difficult to sell as they trawl the listings for people using their name.

This is similar to the problems that the supermarkets had a few years back when they wanted to start selling branded goods. The various companies were unhappy as they did not think that supermarkets were the right image for their goods and so fought it all the way with the supermarkets being forced to buy small amount of goods from the grey market as the companies refused to stock them.

~cleo~

i had a similar situation as i sell on ebay and via my own website i buy wholesale from a company to sell on both well recently they contacted me via ebay and asked me to remove their items from ebay as the Terms and Conditions had recently changed to prevent people from selling on ebay as they felt it cheapened their brand, now when i bought the products to re-sell there was nothing in their T&C about selling on ebay so i felt hard done by.... but i am still allowed to sell their products below RRP on my website go figure ... i guess what im trying to say is that in my experience company's can ask u to remove goods without the VERO and they are probably worried about fakes and their image

wanna-be-mortgage-free_2

Tallymanjohn wrote:

I'm a bit unclear, is the company you bought the items from the same one that's sending the threatening letters? It sounds like you've purchased a load of (possibly) counterfeit clothing & it's the owner(s) of the brand name(s) concerned that are threatening you, in which case you have every reason to be concerned - copyright infringement is taken very seriously.

No, I bought the items from another online shop and they are completely geniune. They are not designer in the sense of items such as Levi's or other designer names. So I have not been selling counterfeit clothing.

wanna-be-mortgage-free_2

soolin wrote:

Strangely enough if you buy something you don't have the right to resell those items.

razorbladekisses is correct in that many companies use the VERO system to stop people selling their goods 'inappropriately' and even if a company is not in the VERO programme they can still ask sellers to cease and desist selling their goods.

Some brands are notoriously difficult to sell as they trawl the listings for people using their name.

This is similar to the problems that the supermarkets had a few years back when they wanted to start selling branded goods. The various companies were unhappy as they did not think that supermarkets were the right image for their goods and so fought it all the way with the supermarkets being forced to buy small amount of goods from the grey market as the companies refused to stock them.

Yeah this came to my mind when I received the letter. But I purchased these items from another online shop so didn't go through any other wholesalers but I understand they don't want their items sold on ebay so I have removed them.

wanna-be-mortgage-free_2

~cleo~ wrote:

i had a similar situation as i sell on ebay and via my own website i buy wholesale from a company to sell on both well recently they contacted me via ebay and asked me to remove their items from ebay as the Terms and Conditions had recently changed to prevent people from selling on ebay as they felt it cheapened their brand, now when i bought the products to re-sell there was nothing in their T&C about selling on ebay so i felt hard done by.... but i am still allowed to sell their products below RRP on my website go figure ... i guess what im trying to say is that in my experience company's can ask u to remove goods without the VERO and they are probably worried about fakes and their image

I believe it must purely be to do with image so I have removed the items. But can I relist and not use their name? I would like to get these items sold and off my hands otherwise I'm out of pocket.

Thanks

pug_in_a_bed

what is the brand you're selling, not asking out of nosiness but it might give us more of an idea why its happened as certain brands actively discourage the reselling of their items.

Sugar_Coated_Owl

I remember when I wanted to sell my Von Dutch jeans and cap on eBay. At the time I hadn't even looked at the VERO programme. I just assumed that I bought them so I could sell them if I no longer wanted them. How wrong was I. The jeans got removed by eBay once and the cap got removed twice. Luckily the jeans sold but I just couldn't sell the cap on eBay. It ended up going in the bin.

I wouldn't risk relisting the items. I believe eBay can suspend you if you choose to relist items that they have told you are prohibited.

soolin

wanna-be-mortgage-free wrote:

I believe it must purely be to do with image so I have removed the items. But can I relist and not use their name? I would like to get these items sold and off my hands otherwise I'm out of pocket.

Thanks

Both the name and the image are the problem. if you relist without the name then your buyers might not find you and if the shop are watching your user id then they will probably contact you again or make a formal complaint to ebay.

If you wanted to risk it, and it isn't illegal to sell these items on, just against usual business practice, then your only option would be to attempt fast sales on a weekend when maybe the shop aren't monitoring the auctions. Go for BIN's with immediate purchase and just try and get rid of the things. It could still get nasty of course, if ebay listened to complaints then they could suspend you.

Soo