posted on April 27, 2002 05:45:25 AM new
I have reported the same children' clothing seller several times to Safe Harbor. She sells cheap copies of very expensive desginer clothes, putting the high end brand name in the title, and burying in the description somewhere that this is not really brand X, but looks just like it. They have ended her auctions for this, but she keeps doing it again. She just listed a bunch of new auctions, and now she has a new trick. She removed the brand tags, and is selling them as the $80 brand name, when if you were to look under the $10 brand name, you would find the same outfit all over eBay under the correct brand. Obviously, people are going to be cheated. How do I get eBay to shut her down?
Also, there is another seller who is adding a fake trademark to cheap brand clothes, to make them look like a very expensive brand. She even states so in her descriptions, and in doing so, she is getting more than the retail price of these items new. Is there any way to shut her down too?
I hate to see people ripped off, and as someone who actually sells the genuine thing of these brand names, these two sellers are hurting my sales. People are buying their junk and seeing the poor quality it is, and then don't buy mine, which are the top quality items.
posted on April 27, 2002 07:26:29 AM new
piggypoosmom
More than likely these sellers will eventually shut themselves down once people realize they are being ripped off and start posting negatives in their feedback.
posted on April 27, 2002 07:37:54 PM new
You will most likely get a message back from ebay- saying that the owner of the trademarks will have to make the complaint. The message says that ebay is not qualified to make the judgement call on the authenticiy of the goods...
I have gotten friendly with a trademark lawyer at one of the big studios over this issue! I just kept reporting the violations to him, and he would have them removed. It's been handy, I've been able to email him questions sbout related things!
"And All Shall be Well, and All Shall be Well, and All Manner of Things Shall be Well"
posted on April 27, 2002 08:32:04 PM new
Try e-mailing the auction links to the companies that hold the trademarks. It may take some time, but you can bet something will get done.
posted on April 28, 2002 08:28:37 AM new
It's sellers like these who scare bidders away from internet auctions. You know what they say about one bad apple.
The more of them we can get suspended from selling, the better for the rest of us who try to be honest and aboveboard.
posted on April 28, 2002 10:25:10 AM new
revvassago
Note: I said that a agree with her totally on this.
This is a blatant case of not following the rules. What I don't care for is people who are just looking for something to pick at. Some seem to do it for sport. The originator of this thread has previously admitted to being "a tattletale..."
If, while browsing the listings, you find someoone who is blatantly flouting the rules of the site, you are well within your rights to report it.
It seems to me though that some are just nit picking. Someone has too big of a PayPal banner in their auctions or maybe an link to their ActionWatch gallery that may not quite meet Ebay standards or maybe you don't agree with their shipping & handling charges. These people should get a life!
[ edited by outoftheblue on Apr 28, 2002 11:00 AM ]
posted on April 28, 2002 11:36:23 AM new
dragonmom it is against eBay rules to keyword spam and it doesn't take the trademark owners to bring it to eBay's attention. Anyone who finds it, can let them know about it. If eBay does respond as you suggest, they would be wrong.
Terms and Conditions contradictory to any eBay Policy
Misleading listing titles
Key word spamming
Excessive use of key words, including (but not limited to) brand names, which are referenced
for the purpose of attracting or diverting buyers to a listing will be considered key word
spamming and is not permitted. Please click here for further clarification on this policy.
Policy: These types of listings are not permitted and will be ended. The insertion fee will be
automatically credited for that listing.
posted on April 28, 2002 03:46:23 PM newIt seems to me though that some are just nit picking. Someone has too big of a PayPal banner in their auctions or maybe an link to their ActionWatch gallery that may not quite meet Ebay standards or maybe you don't agree with their shipping & handling charges. These people should get a life!
So what you are basically saying is that sellers should only follow those rules that they feel they need to on eBay.
I like that idea. I think I will apply it to my everyday life. I don't like the current speed limits in my town. When I get pulled over for driving 55 in a 35, I will politely tell the officer that he (or she) is a "nit picking busybody".
Plain and simple - when you signed up for eBay, you agreed to their user agreement. In that user agreement, it stated that you would follow their rules regarding selling, bidding, etc. on eBay. This includes many things, including offsite links and banner sizes.
You can't pick which rules to follow. If I am expected to follow all of eBay's rules, I expect you to as well, and you are darn tootin' that I'm going to report you if you aren't! That isn't "nit picking" or being a "busybody".
posted on April 28, 2002 04:37:44 PM new
If I am understanding the original post correctly, one of the seller's has taken to removing labels from a "knock-off" brand and infers they are authentic and the other has taken to adding "fake" designer labels to ordinary items.
Knock-off's (items made under their own brand/label that just happen to look like a designer label's style) are not illegal. It goes on every day. Famous designer XX creates a line of clothes and overnight dozens of smaller garment manufactures are producing items that look very similar but carry their own label. They do not pass themselves off as the designer.
Counterfieters are manufactures who will create an item and add a forged logo of a famous designer and sell them as authentic.
You can write a book on logo/trademark infringements and some big companies have actually taken smaller ones to court and won their cases when a smaller company used certain color combinations or patterns or a logo very similar to the designers. They had to stop doing that!
If the 1st seller is removing labels and then inferring they are indeed authentic designer clothes, they are committing fraud.
If the 2nd seller is adding a "fake" label to a garment (even is she is being honest about it) she is actually engaged in an illegal activity.
This is really a bit more serious than "key word spamming" and yes, it should be reported IMHO.
posted on April 28, 2002 05:18:15 PM new
revvassago
I follow the rules to the best of my ability and have had few if any problems as far as listing violations. I was warned once for a PayPal banner after they updated their TOS. So if you are implying that I am doing anything wrong you are barking up the wrong tree..
I will not however, cause problems for another seller unless I think what they are doing is harming the site and I am sure that it is against the rules.
A person who feels that it is his or her duty to police Ebay will eventually harm an innocent party. These people don't really care about the rules of the site. They usually have some kind of agenda or axe to grind. It could be that they are just jealous of a seller's success....
Edited to add: I think losing the Safeharbor email and switching to the online form is one of the most positive changes Ebay has made in a long time.
[ edited by outoftheblue on Apr 28, 2002 05:42 PM ]
posted on April 28, 2002 06:30:14 PM newA person who feels that it is his or her duty to police Ebay will eventually harm an innocent party. These people don't really care about the rules of the site. They usually have some kind of agenda or axe to grind. It could be that they are just jealous of a seller's success....
Ummmm....
Safeharbor does not "harm innocent parties". If I were to report an auction, and they were doing nothing wrong, Safeharbor would take no action. So how does this harm them?
I most certainly care about the rules of eBay. That is why I report violations when I see them. If the users of eBay don't police it, nobody will, and then you will see the posts start with everybody whining that nobody is following the rules....
I hardly consider it "success" when a seller violates the terms of the eBay agreement to sell their items. I wasn't implying that you were doing anything wrong - in fact, I don't even know what your eBay user ID is.
Plain and simple: Sell your items on eBay. If I happen to click on one of them, and there is a blatant violation, I will report it (using the Safeharbor form that has been always available). If eBay warns you, then you know what you did wrong, and shouldn't do it again. If eBay pulls your auction, then consider it a learning experience.
posted on April 29, 2002 08:00:16 AM new
[quote]Safeharbor does not "harm innocent parties". If I were to report an auction, and they were doing nothing wrong, Safeharbor would take no action. So how does this harm them?
I disagree with you on that point.
How many times has one seller sat around reporting their competitors auctions just to screw them out of bids?
Ebay does not investigate every reported auction or seller and always just clicks the close button on the victimized seller.
These types of sellers know this always works like a charm. They leave an untracable route to the destruction of their competitors business and sales.
Safeharbor was a deeply flawed system from the beginning.........any kind of violation under the sun all gets routed to a single email.........times many thousands of emails a day.
How many times have you seen a particular auction that you claimed violated Ebay's TOS and clicked the SEND AUCTION TO A FRIEND and actually sent it to [email protected] Many AW users bragged about their successes in this arena.
Threads upon threads even here had sellers snickering how they simply clicked to forward it to safeharbor.
Why safeharbor?
There should be in place a system of tiered support and proper routing to send issues on specific topics to a specialist.
[email protected] should not take emails about spam complaints, threats, questions, tos violations, appeals to warnings, fee avoiders.
When you try to respond to an email it evaporates, if you do get a 2nd canned response it was sent by a completely different staffer, completely clueless as to the original topic of your first email.
I am glad safeharbor will soon be gone. In the early days long before they hit 1 MILLION auctions a day it may have been the way to go.
Ebay has grown too large for every friggin email any person could send to Ebay on any one of 1,000's of topics to go to a single email address.
posted on April 29, 2002 09:47:24 AM new
I apologize to the people who think I am being a "busybody" who takes it upon herself to "police" eBay, but eBay doesn't do it themselves. Yes, it does directly affect me when other sellers mislead buyers into buying fakes for genuine prices, because it hurts my sales of the genuine items. I am not complaining about anyone who is legitimately and fairly selling the same products that I am. Even if they sell the same item at a lower price, an honest seller is creating a happy consumer who might be willing to spend a little more for the same brand next time if they are pleased with this purchase. But dishonest sellers who trick buyers hurt the online auction community as a whole, because it makes the buyers suspicious of all sellers. Not to mention the fact that I have seen some friends and family members ripped off by dishonest online sellers. The hard cold fact of the matter is that it is very difficult to recover money or prosecute in cases of interstate internet fraud, unless the seller is defrauding many people, or large sums of money.
BTW, the same seller just listed a few more auctions. In one of them, she states that this item does not have the X brand label, but lists the item number of someone else's auction that does have the brand label so the buyer can compare and conclude they are the same item. However, if you enlarge the picture on her auction, you can see the Z brand label. (retail price difference, about $40) If eBay can't tell that is fraud, something is seriously wrong.
posted on April 29, 2002 11:20:45 AM new
I've been selling - and buying - on eBay since 1997, and so far have not had any real problems. But I sell mostly collectibles and antiques.
I think with new merchandise it is harder in some regards. I sold some branded billiard balls at an incredibly low price, and had a buyer ask if they were really knock-offs! (I bought a quantity at a warehouse close out for pennies on the dollar.) I suppose some people may do that, as piggypoosmom has pointed out. And yes, it hurts the other sellers. And yes, it should be reported.
But I also agree about not being the eBay police. I see so much crap on eBay - diet pills, herbal cures, spy software ("ruin anyone", etc. - that is being marketed with impunity, why should someone be upset about a too-large PayPal banner or link to an offline business?
What it boils down to is greed on eBay's part. Anything that might lead to a sale OFF of eBay is not okay. But you can sell snake oil all day long if THEY GET THEIRS!
Also, I notice all the limitations about using the eBay logo in any of your own advertising, but yet I get tons of spam email with the eBay logo prominently displayed by people who obviously have no connection to the site. Will I forward each and every one to eBay? Nope. I have a life.
posted on April 29, 2002 04:33:29 PM new
Is this person a competitor of yours?
I remember when I had found out that my supplier was selling me drums that had been glued together instead of the implied 1 piece drums. I contacted anyone on ebay selling that day that advertised the drums as 1 piece and told them. But I didn't report them to ebay, even though a bidder might bid on theirs over mine since theirs say 1 piece. It just comes to 'how much time do you have' 'how much does it REALLY matter' 'and how dishonest is it'.
Keyword spamming is not wrong, in my mind, if the person states in the auction that it is not exactly in the tag line. But then, of course, when I do it, I put 'esqe' or 'like' or similar to in the tag line as well. Just don't want the spam (unrequested email contacts).
[ edited by intercraft on Apr 29, 2002 04:52 PM ]
posted on May 3, 2002 11:34:50 PM newThere should be in place a system of tiered support and proper routing to send issues on specific topics to a specialist.
, etc. - that is being marketed with impunity, why should someone be upset about a too-large PayPal banner or link to an offline business?