Fake Ray Ban and Gumtree

car0line123

I am trying to sell a pair of Ray Ban, bought by myself (many many) years ago, and put an add on Gumtree.

My ad has been removed because "An owner of intellectual property rights has informed us in a signed statement that this ad infringes a copyright, trademark right or other right."
So I am accused of selling fake goods, which is always pleasant.

Now all Gumtree is prepare to say, and replies to all my queries
" but the only thing you can do about this is to phone the company , from our site we cant help you any further."

I am happy to call RayBan, but as they are hardly a small business, wouldn't even know where to start. ( The glasses are authentic, as much as you can trust a Ray Ban shop in Europe not to sell you fake items!)

Does anyone know where do I stand with Gumtree? Are they allowed not to send me a copy of the "signed statement" against me?

theonlywayisup

car0line123 wrote: »

I am trying to sell a pair of Ray Ban, bought by myself (many many) years ago, and put an add on Gumtree.

My ad has been removed because "An owner of intellectual property rights has informed us in a signed statement that this ad infringes a copyright, trademark right or other right."
So I am accused of selling fake goods, which is always pleasant.

Now all Gumtree is prepare to say, and replies to all my queries
" but the only thing you can do about this is to phone the company , from our site we cant help you any further."

I am happy to call RayBan, but as they are hardly a small business, wouldn't even know where to start. ( The glasses are authentic, as much as you can trust a Ray Ban shop in Europe not to sell you fake items!)

Does anyone know where do I stand with Gumtree? Are they allowed not to send me a copy of the "signed statement" against me?

You haven't been accused of selling fakes. You have been informed you are not able to use Gumtree to sell Raybans. You have infringed Raybans' intellectual property rights. Lots of companies do not allow certain sites to be used to sell their branded items secondhand. You can only sell Raybans if you are an authorised reseller, even new ones.

soolin

As theonlywayisup says- you cannot sell them, genuine or not. Gumtree have not made any comment as to their authenticity at all.

car0line123

oh that's very interesting!

I did ask Gumtree what the actual problem was, several times, but they kept quoting the same sentence, so I did not really understand. The way the discussion was going, I really thought they meant they were fake.
This is what is so irritating when you ask what you have done wrong, and they don't reply.

I must confess I was not aware I wasn't allowed to sell my things, so thank you for clarifying that for me!

(Why couldn't gumtree explain that in the first place, we've been exchanging emails for 4 days, and it must have been obvious I was misunderstanding everything)

soolin

car0line123 wrote: »

oh that's very interesting!

I did ask Gumtree what the actual problem was, several times, but they kept quoting the same sentence, so I did not really understand. The way the discussion was going, I really thought they meant they were fake.
This is what is so irritating when you ask what you have done wrong, and they don't reply.

I must confess I was not aware I wasn't allowed to sell my things, so thank you for clarifying that for me!

(Why couldn't gumtree explain that in the first place, we've been exchanging emails for 4 days, and it must have been obvious I was misunderstanding everything)

They did tell you, it is in your first post

""An owner of intellectual property rights has informed us in a signed statement that this ad infringes a copyright, trademark right or other right." "

you do not have the 'right' to sell rayban

car0line123

again, thank you, it really is not obvious to me, I thought (mistakenly) that copyright infringement meant copying a trademark, so a fake.

but looking at the number of private ads currently selling Ray Ban on gumtree, it's not obvious to a lot of other people either

soolin

car0line123 wrote: »

again, thank you, it really is not obvious to me, I thought (mistakenly) that copyright infringement meant copying a trademark, so a fake.

but looking at the number of private ads currently selling Ray Ban on gumtree, it's not obvious to a lot of other people either

People will chance anything and not every one gets caught

car0line123

or just a genuine mistake, I haven't seen anything about resell when I bought Ray Ban, and asking around me, no-one else was aware of that either.

Brooker_Dave

soolin wrote: »

you do not have the 'right' to sell rayban

Surely as the owner of a pair, OP can do whatever he or she wishes with them, including sell them??

theonlywayisup

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Surely as the owner of a pair, OP can do whatever he or she wishes with them, including sell them??

Ownership and intellectual rights, not least concerning reselling, are barely ever the same.

GabbaGabbaHey

soolin wrote: »

They did tell you, it is in your first post

""An owner of intellectual property rights has informed us in a signed statement that this ad infringes a copyright, trademark right or other right." "

you do not have the 'right' to sell rayban

Soolin

I hesitate to disagree with you, and respect the good advice that you continually give to this forum, but in this case I'm not convinced that you are correct.

If I purchase a pair of (authentic) Raybans, I can sell them on whenever I want, as long as I don not misrepresent them (e.g. remove the Rayban logo and replace it with my own, or claim that I was the designer).

In this instance, there has been a contractual agreement between eBay/Gumtree and Rayban that eBay will not permit Rayban's products to be advertised on Gumtree. They are perfectly within their rights to do so, but equally there is nothing whatsoever that they can do stop the seller from advertising and selling their Raybans elsewhere, as is the seller's legal right.

When you purchase a physical item, you are free to do whatever you want with it, including selling it on. To suggest otherwise is silly - it would mean that nothing could ever be sold second-hand.

(Note that it's a very different issue when the physical medium is just used to hold intellectual property that you have only acquired a licence to use - such as software, music, books, films, etc).