Taken 2nd 'Ebay Vero Tutorial' this month!

scorpio13

I listed a GENUINE bottle of Armani Lotion & a GENUINE pair of used UGg Boots recently & they were both removed by Ebay.

Ebay sent a MC019 'Trademark Violation Email' on both occasions & i had to take their Vero Tutorial twice. (The 1st one two weeks ago & the 2nd one today).

So it seems i cannot list any genuine name brand/designer items, or they will be removed also!

??????

Has this happened to anyone else?

minghis

Happened to me recently, several times. Then they suspended me for a week! Unfortunately it seems more and more manufacturers are able to get ebay to remove items under their vero programme, the list is growing by the day as far as I can see, have a look http://pages.ebay.co.uk/vero/participants.html down the bottom for the categories and you'll see what I mean.
Reading UGG's vero programme it appears that they got ebay to remove your ad as they reckon the boots were not genuine UGG or you had used one of their photo's. Don't be tempted to relist after changing your wording or indeed the picture, this is what I did (not with UGG's) and it'll get pulled again and again, until, eventualy (after about 3 tries if I recall correctly) without any further warnings you're suspended. You can't access your ebay account at all and it is a real nightmare, especially if you have items sold/bought pending.

I think that this will get worse as time goes on - be very careful what you sell, or buy to sell..

scorpio13

Thanks for the advice Minghis.

Ebay seems to be getting from bad to worse.:mad:

fuzzgun19

Yes, this has happened to me also.

I believe that ebay does not really want people to sell 'Designer' items on ebay AT ALL (even if genuine).
Ebay is definitely getting worse (especially for sellers!)

v0n

I'm the latest victim of VeRO stupidity - MC019 eBay Listing Removed: Trademark Breach - Unauthorised Item removed by Ebay.IE (even though my auction was for UK buyers only) for listing 1970ies japanese guitar with NO NAME. It's aboslutely, genuinely instrument of unknown origin, with no trademark, no logo and no name. And it was described as such. My own pictures, my own words, no slogans or trade marked words used throughoout.

I immediately questioned the removal with eBay support and received reply back from a representative of "eBay Trust & Safety" explaining to me that "the correct action was taken in this instance" and "We removed the guitar because it breached our policy on Replica & Counterfeit Items. Products bearing the name or logo of a company, that weren't made or endorsed by that company are not allowed on eBay." But the item I listed bears no name or logo of any company. At all. Null, zilch, nicht, none, nada. There is just no name, logo, plaque or serial number to it's entity. Unless we presume that "made in japan" plaque is now somehow trademarked. If anyone at ebay had a look at the auction or pictures they would immediately understand how stupid their claim of "trademark breach" was.

It seems the VeRO is just another method of bullying and pounding your competitors to submission - shops and powersellers can immediately remove their cheaper rivals and any user with similar auction can report anyone else knowing noone will actually read the auction body - eBay will just remove it, thus wiping or suspending their immediate competition.

giggity

I think some Vero members (Trade Mark owners) are abusing the system. Its supposed to be for blatant fakes not a way for TM owners to have all their items taken off ebay because it doesn't suit their company image or business model.

If you can't get a half decent response out of ebay customer services, try writing to them direct to see if you can get an explanation.

Hotham House, Heron Square, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1EJ.

If ebay can't keep Vero members in check they're losing money from lost sales.

soolin

giggity wrote: »

I think some Vero members (Trade Mark owners) are abusing the system. Its supposed to be for blatant fakes not a way for TM owners to have all their items taken off ebay because it doesn't suit their company image or business model.

If you can't get a half decent response out of ebay customer services, try writing to them direct to see if you can get an explanation.

Hotham House, Heron Square, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1EJ.

If ebay can't keep Vero members in check they're losing money from lost sales.

Vero isn't just for fakes though, read the ebay pages about it where it says on the first page

"For this reason, eBay has created the Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Programme so rights owners can report listings that infringe their rights. Any person or company who holds intellectual property rights (such as a copyright, trademark or patent) which may be infringed by listings or items sold on eBay is encouraged to participate in the VeRO Programme."

It says nothing about the items needing to be fakes to be pulled

The same thing happens in real life as well, remember the court battles that some supermarkets had over grey area goods where companies objected to items being sold in an environment that they felt was not suitable for their brand? Technically the supermarkets won that one but as ebay run their own site they are still able to make their own rules and if they allow companies to control their brand names then so be it. Obviously anyone with a few million pounds to take this to court might get a different ruling.

As i always say it is an absolute necessity to understand how somehtign works before you try and fight it, once you know the rules you can then define your complaint more successfully.

The rules are here:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/vero/infoforusers.html

This bit is particularly pertinent

Any item that breaches eBay policies or infringes on the copyrights of others may be removed. In addition, some listings are removed because the language or photos used in the item title or description breach eBay policy. This means that some items you may have bought in a shop, or even possibly on eBay, may not be allowed or could be removed due to listing policies.

giggity

soolin wrote: »

Vero isn't just for fakes though, read the ebay pages about it where it says on the first page..........

It says nothing about the items needing to be fakes to be pulled

Hi Soolin,
I'll try and clarify what I meant, 'fakes' was meant to be a lay-mans term not an all encompassing definition on all matters of Intellectual Property and infringements of this specific area of law.

In reality, the majority of stuff pulled by VERO is going to be the fakes (infringing Trade Marks) because its obvious from the photo, price, selling/sold multiples on the cheap etc.

ebay terms requires persons/companies to have prove they have intellectual property in order to be a given a VERO account. IP means Copyright, Registered Design, Patent or Trade Mark. With the exception of Copyright, you have to pay money to protect your product.

The legal cases between ebay/brand owners and Tesco and Levis are different. ebay has recently been taken to court by various brand owners for allowing fakes to be sold on their site (ebay obviously arent the sellers). As you quite rightly pointed out, thats for them to spend the money in court and fight it out.

The Tesco case was different, they actually lost. They had bought genuine jeans from a legitimate source outside Europe, but didnt get express permission from Levis to sell them in the UK. If Tesco had bought genuine jeans from within the Europe and sold them it probably would have been OK (can't inhibit free movment of legal goods in EC).

Going back to the OP's issue, if they believe they had a legitimate item pulled for no good reason, then they should try to find out why. I don't see why legitimate sellers take a bullet because the VERO member is abusing a system that's meant to be a gesture of goodwill anyway.

jasmineswhiskers

I presume this applies to new goods rather than second hand?
And have you had a look at the list on the link - never heard of half of these brands.

Alfie_E

jasmineswhiskers wrote: »

I presume this applies to new goods rather than second hand?

In theory. If it’s branded and listed as new, it could get pulled. And, unless you can fax the correct paperwork to eBay, it’ll stay pulled. You might need to show proof that you have the right to sell that brand and evidence of your supply chain.

Secondhand items seem to get caught in the crossfire. Some intellectual property owners don’t like the secondhand market. They view a secondhand sale as the loss of an original one. It’s been suggested that the primary motivation for introducing limited, online activation for PC games is to stamp out the ‘pre-owned’ market. One manufacturer of mobile phones has gone so far as to introduce an ‘eBay clause’ for their top-end product!

v0n wrote: »

But the item I listed bears no name or logo of any company. At all. Null, zilch, nicht, none, nada. There is just no name, logo, plaque or serial number to it's entity.

Could it have been the shape of the guitar? I believe some manufacturers have claimed intellectual property rights over the actual shape of the guitar body.

v0n

Alfie_E wrote: »

Could it have been the shape of the guitar? I believe some manufacturers have claimed intellectual property rights over the actual shape of the guitar body.

Thought about it, but it's highly unlikely. Item in question is a 1970ies guitar in one of the two most popular shapes in the world. Certain large US manufacturer tried to claim intelectual property on various elements of this popular design several times, most famously in mid 1970ies (starting so called "lawsuit era" among overseas luthiers upon defeat) and most recently against Paul Reed Smith. They either lost or withdrawn practically all cases related to this particular design against other manufacturers they ever attempted.And additionally, they are not, either directly or indirectly participant in VeRO programme.