Hey @chriharget_4 , thanks for this forum post! Like you, I also noticed the red flags with this seller, and came to the realization that something strange is going on. The real Adidas brand would never do the things that this seller is doing, and I felt that if Adidas knew what was going on with this seller that they would take action and clean up this mess. But when I contacted Adidas they said that they have nothing to do with this seller or any Ebay seller. That's when I knew something wasn't right. Ebay is saying this seller "addidas_official" is the direct Adidas brand with items literally coming "direct from adidas" but then when you ask Adidas about this seller they act like they have no connection and can't do anything to help you. So how is it that Ebay has an "official" store for a major brand name but yet when you contact that brand they say they aren't related in any way? To me that a huge contradiction, and an alarming red flag.
I made several Ebay reports over the years to bring this situation to light, but Ebay never responded to any of my reports. I clearly told them how Adidas repeatedly tells me they have nothing to do with this seller, and I gave lots of examples of red flags that would illustrate how this seller is probably not the direct brand and is misrepresenting the brand. I never got a reply to my reports, and obviously nothing was ever done to correct this misleading situation. So for those of you who want to dismiss this situation and tell people to just report it or just file a claim to your money back - that doesn't help, and it negates the larger picture at hand. The larger picture is that this seller is acting as the true direct Adidas brand and has been officialized by Ebay to act as so, but Adidas says that they have nothing to do with this seller which is a major contradiction. How can items come "direct from adidas" if Adidas says they aren't related to this seller?
I made this forum post to document my initial findings and concerns, and to see what other people thought about the situation and what I should do next:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/Seller-quot-adidas-official-quot-is-not-connected-to-the-...
Ultimately it seems to boil down to the fact that if Adidas is being misrepresented here, then Adidas can file a VeRO form to have it corrected or removed:
https://www.ebay.com/sellercenter/ebay-for-business/verified-rights-owner-program
Since Adidas tells me they have nothing to do with this seller you would think Adidas would want to file a VeRO form to have the seller removed, since clearly this seller is presenting themselves as the true Adidas brand and that when you deal with this seller you are dealing with Adidas directly. Ebay definitely makes it look like this is the official store for the direct Adidas brand. Their store has the official Adidas logo and business statement on the about page, Ebay has special advertisements for this seller with coupon codes to use, and they even gave them a custom shortened URL of "https://www.ebay.com/str/adidas" instead of "https://www.ebay.com/str/adidas_official" which would normally be the URL. I don't know of another example of an Ebay seller who has a custom URL that's a different name than their actual store name. If anyone can find an example, please tell me. For example a store called “acme_official” but their store URL is just "https://www.ebay.com/str/acme". It just goes to show that Ebay has made it very clear to their buyers that this seller is the true and direct Adidas brand.
So why does Adidas say they have no relationship with this seller but yet let this seller continue operating and fool people into believing they are dealing directly with the Adidas brand? I have talked with Adidas support chat numerous times and they always tell me that they have nothing to do with this Ebay seller. Try it for yourself - start up a support chat on adidas.com and ask if they have any connection to the Ebay store "adidas_official". I also called Adidas customer service and was told the same thing by agents on the phone. After explaining how this situation should probably be escalated and looked at by their brand protection or legal department they said I could write an e-mail to Adidas customer service and someone would look into it. So I then wrote up a detailed report of my findings and e-mailed it to their customer service. Several weeks went by and I never even got an automated response that they received my e-mail. I tried to send it again and mentioned that I ever got a response the first time and to please take it seriously, but unfortunately I got back a canned response that was unrelated to my report. Here is the response I got back from Adidas after several attempts:
"Thank you for your email and interest in adidas products. We are unable to perform product authentication as of the moment. We apologize for any frustration this may cause. We highly advise that you bring the product to your nearest adidas store and have them authenticate it for you.
You can visit our store locator using the link below to find adidas stores around you:
https://www.adidas.com/us/storefinder#/
Thank you for choosing adidas and have a wonderful day."
As you can see they didn't read my report and missed the whole point. They just gave me a canned response about taking my item to an Adidas store for authentication. I e-mailed them again and asked for escalation, and I got back another canned response thanking me for expressing my concerns. I never got an honest reply that wasn't a copy and pasted canned response. It felt like a dead end.
Wondering how else I could reach Adidas, I found their Adidas America phone number for their office in Portland Oregon:
(971) 234-2300
5055 North Greeley Avenue Portland, OR 97217
I called them and tried to talk to someone at that number but their phone system is dysfunctional, which I later found out seems to be the case with their other phone systems. Dialing the operator pressing zero as suggested leaves me with dead air and then hangs up after a few minutes. One option is for the employee store and it just rings and rings. One option gives me 2 toll free numbers, one for west coast and one for the rest of the country, and the west coast number doesn't even work and the east coast number has the same operator problem where it doesn't work when I press zero. The customer service option was supposed to allow me to leave a voice mail, but it just rings and rings and no one picks up and it hangs up on me. I tried random phone tree options to try to get to a person any way I could since the operator or customer service didn’t work, but I couldn't get anyone. It was a dead end.
As you can see I was having a hard time getting in touch with someone at Adidas who could help clarify what's going on and explain this major contradiction with the Ebay store. It doesn’t seem like Adidas has a fraud reporting system setup, so no one I interact with knows what to do with a fraud report or how to escalate it to someone who cares. I decided to file a Better Business Bureau complaint against Adidas in hopes of getting a some kind of reasonable response and figure out why they aren’t filing a VeRO form against the seller. Here is the response I got:
"Thank you for taking the time to contact adidas through the Better Business Bureau. We are sorry to hear about your experience with the adidas official eBay site. adidas eBay is an authorized retailer of adidas product and all items that are purchased through the site are authentic adidas product. The site hosts its own customer service support team and we would not be able to assist with your order issues. However, we can reach out to them and request a follow up. Please provide us with your order number so they can research the issue ahead of time.
Sincerely,
Consumer Relations
adidas America"
So as you can see, after all those times that Adidas told me they have nothing to do with this seller, all of a sudden now through the BBB complaint they say that this seller is called "Adidas eBay" and are an "authorized retailer". To me this explains a lot, but at the same time opens up a lot more questions. At least now we know that this seller is an "authorized retailer" and is not the direct Adidas brand as Ebay would have you believe. If it was the direct Adidas brand then they would not be considered an "authorized retailer". Throughout the world there are many Adidas authorized retailers, but none of them have the authority to represent the Adidas brand as a whole. But that's exactly what's going on here with the store "adidas_official". They are representing the Adidas brand as a whole and make no mention of the "authorized retailer" status or true business name.
So I filed another Better Business Bureau complaint, but this time against Ebay so that I could get a response from Ebay and try to understand why they are letting this seller continue to operate when Adidas says they have nothing to do with them. A couple days later I get a call from someone who works for the Ebay executive office who wanted to convince me that this seller is actually the real Adidas brand and that there is nothing to worry about. I’m not sure what the motive was to call me before responding to the BBB complaint, but I didn’t feel good about his intentions. I explained to him that I have it in writing from Adidas that this seller is an “authorized retailer” and not the direct brand, and that Ebay is advertising this seller as the direct brand which is a lie. There is a lot to unpack from the heated call, but in a nutshell they told me that this seller’s registered phone number and address matches that of the real Adidas brand, so therefor it must be the real and direct Adidas brand. When I repeatedly mentioned the fact that Adidas told me in writing that they are an authorized retailer and not the direct brand, they basically said that it’s up to Adidas to file a VeRO form if they want to take action. He also said that he was sure they wouldn’t file the VeRO form since, as he said, it’s the real Adidas brand with the correct information on file. What makes him so sure they won’t file the VeRO form? I asked him that if the information on file is true and correct then why isn’t Adidas telling me that this seller is the direct brand, and is instead calling them an “authorized retailer”. He basically said that Adidas’ response to my BBB complaint was false and that Adidas shouldn’t have said that. At that point he was speaking on behalf of the Adidas company and putting words in their mouth, which I thought was very unprofessional. He said he would call them right after our call and ask them why they told me the seller is an authorized retailer when in his mind they are the true Adidas company. So we argued back and forth and eventually I was so disgusted with him that I had say that I’m looking forward to his BBB response and I ended the call. I wonder if he really did call his BBB contact at Adidas and what that call was like, because I know for a fact that Adidas is saying this seller is an authorized retailer and not the direct brand, and he thinks otherwise.
I would paste his BBB response but it was completely useless and missed the whole point, and it focused on a straw man argument about how we can’t believe all negative feedback claims and that you “can’t make everyone happy”. He never addressed the elephant in the room which is that Adidas says that this seller is an “authorized retailer” and that this Ebay store is misrepresenting the Adidas brand by claiming to be the direct Adidas brand. Basically Ebay proved to me that they don’t care about or trust people’s feedback, and that everything can be dismissed as “hearsay”. If this person from the executive staff was trying to help solve the situation, they only made it worse and made me lose even more faith in Ebay. Ebay definitely doesn’t care about the little guy.
I was looking forward to the follow up response from Adidas on the BBB complaint since the Ebay rep said he would call the Adidas rep and set the record straight. Well it looks like he either didn’t call the rep or he did but the Adidas rep didn’t care what he had to say. Here is the latest response from Adidas:
“Thank you for your input regarding the eBay Adidas site. Adidas eBay works in partnership with Adidas and is an authorize retailer. We suggest you take your complaints to eBay directly as we can only assist with purchases made on Adidas.com.
Sincerely
Consumer Relations
Adidas America “
So again I’m being told that this seller is an “authorized retailer”, and in a “partnership” with Adidas. An authorized retailer in a partnership with Adidas is not the direct brand, and items being sold are not coming "direct from adidas". I asked Adidas to confirm this authorized retailer's true business name, their business license number, and that state in which their business license is registered with. Is the business name really “Adidas eBay”? I couldn’t find any business listings for “Adidas eBay”, so I’m not sure if that’s the real name or just the name Adidas is using for them. If this is an authorized retailer then they will have a unique business name and business license number. Whatever that name and license number is, it’s not the direct Adidas brand and when Ebay says that items come “direct from adidas” it’s a bald faced lie.
One last thing to note is that this seller "adidas_official" doesn't have to ship any shoes through Ebay's authentication hub where the shoes would be inspected and then get tagged with Ebay's "authenticity guarantee". I recently purchased a pair of Adidas through a mom and pop store and they were forced to send it to the authentication hub even though I knew they were real and didn't need authentication. So Ebay is forcing authentication on the little guy, meanwhile allowing this seller to ship shoes without authentication by the thousands. So if a rogue employee of this authorized seller's warehouse decided to swap out 10 real pairs of shoes for 10 fakes pairs of shoes, who is ever going to find out? If the buyer returns them and complains about the item being fake, the same people who sent the fake shoes will be the ones to receive the return and the complaint. In that case the real Adidas company will never know about it, and from what I have seen they could care less. Seems like a perfect loophole for counterfeit items to be mixed in randomly with real items. And if you leave negative feedback to warn others about your situation, Ebay's executive staff says that's just hearsay and doesn't take it seriously.
So, where do we go from here?
albertabrightalberta
KrazzyKats
