Wow! This seller wrote to harass me as another seller
Summary: La discusión gira en torno a una experiencia negativa compartida por rdjsystemservices, quien fue acosado por un vendedor que se hizo pasar por otro vendedor. kibble-net y albertabrightalberta respondieron a la situación, pero el contenido no está disponible. A lo largo de las respuestas, distintos participantes ofrecieron comentarios, sin embargo, los detalles específicos de la conversación no se proporcionan. La interacción parece haber causado preocupación y confusión, sugiriendo que el acoso es un tema que merece atención.
I want to preface this by saying that I am no eBay newbie. I've been here since 2005 but this one was a first for me and I thought that it would be an interesting discussion topic for the forum.
Randomly out of the blue this seller writes me asking why I am selling their hangers.
I am a toy reseller. The listing in question that they wrote about is here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/327071698068
They are inquiring about the 5 plastic doll hangers in the middle bottom of the pic. (The purple, yellow, white hangers) These are unbranded Chinese massed produced products. And yet this seller wrote me the following:
I wish that it stopped there but the seller continued to reply with threats to contact an attorney, to file the Vero against us, on and on. This is madness. They went down a whole rabbit hole and even after I said that this was unprofessional, unnecessary and I would no longer be replying they STILL continued to send harassing messages regarding 5 unbranded plastic hangers.
Has anyone ever bumped into this? I reported them to eBay and blocked them but this seems wholly inappropriate and odd besides. Maybe I am over reacting to it but I hope they aren't doing this to other sellers.
ryry-jj
·4 months agoI think the problem stems from you mentioning "American Girl" in your listing. "They" could very well have an exclusive to make & sell hanger for American Girl. Just like with Barbie, if it isnt Barbie licensed, you need to state 11 in fashion doll accessories, not hangers for Barbie doll clothes.
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoIt has nothing to do with me typing "Fits American Girl" in the title. It was not American girl that had an issue it was a random seller that I posted in the very first screenshot called "kennedy-and-friends" They said that those generic hangers with no markers at the bottom of the listing image was "theirs"..
krazzykats
·4 months agoKennedy and Friends could be an authorized reseller or distributor, or possibly connected with MBD, My Brittany's Doll, LLC.
According to their website, MBD now sells exclusively through Walmart, Amazon, and other major retailers.
However, I’m still not sure why the first sale doctrine doesn’t apply to these doll hangers.
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rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoI still have not found why as well. I created a reddit post regarding this same issue asking for anyone to provide insight and everyone seems baffled as to why reselling doll hangers would ever be an issue for any original creator.
As long as I am not manufacturing the items or advertising them as something I created I am well within my right to resell an item I have paid for and acquired legally.
kandf_vintage_finds
·4 months agoThanks for sharing.
Wow....just Wow....
eoma689485
·4 months agoMore than likely, the other seller designed, made, and copyrighted similar hangers, and the only reason your listing would be removed is if there is copyright infringement, meaning that another company stole his/her design - and as a VERO member he/she can have them removed. So while not technically their hangers it is their design.
The first sale doctrine is a legal principle that allows you to resell, lend, or give away a lawfully purchased physical item—such as a book, CD, or piece of art—without the copyright owner's permission. Once the copyright holder makes that initial sale, their right to control the physical item ends.
redlinear
·4 months agoRe-list them as used
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoThey were already listed as used.
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoJust ask for a call back, the seller is full of it. They're not contacting any attorney or anyone other than ebay's stupidy AI over .000000005 cents of a product that probably isn't even theirs.
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoThank you for your advice. Its not a big deal when all is said and done but like I said I have been on ebay for 21 years and sellers don't treat each other like this. Especially over 5 mini plastic hangers. It just seemed unhinged to me and an odd thing to see the ebay AI simply allow anyone to just submit a report like that and agree when there was no violations. So it's something for everyone to be aware of.
ccomic
·4 months agoWhat policy was violated here? If I buy a new car, can Ford prevent me from selling it used?
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoExcellent and correct question. This is exactly my point. What did I do that would violate ANY ebay policy or copyright law?
soh.maryl
·4 months agoVERO is not what one would actually call an "eBay policy".
soh.maryl
·4 months agoNot quite the same. Ford is probably not a VERO member and probably does not restrict sales of its vehicles to Ford dealers.
grann-4629
·4 months agoFord cannot restrict you from doing anything to your new car. You can sell it, burn it, or give it away ... they don't care as long as you keep your payments current.
stainlessenginecovers
·4 months ago@soh.maryl actually they are. Try making/selling anything with the FORD logo on it. Also, they do fully control where NEW cars are sold/sent to. Used...they don't care.
soh.maryl
·4 months agoThank you. I was thinking more along the lines of what VERO members can do to restrict the sale of their products. Probably not the best comparison.
bonanza125
·4 months agoUnless your listing gets removed I wouldn't worry too much about the message.
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoIt was just removed. See the post above. My listing was removed and said that I violated a policy mentioned here. NONE of this applies to me or what or HOW I was selling.
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behaviour-policies/encouraging-infringement-policy?id=4377
bonanza125
·4 months ago"It was just removed. See the post above. My listing was removed and said that I violated a policy mentioned here. NONE of this applies to me or what or HOW I was selling."
Ok so Ebay has removed the listing. Unfortunately you can't list your hangers on Ebay. Find another website to sell those on. Regardless if the hangers don't violate policy in your opinion Ebay has made a decision that it does.
iamalwaysright
·4 months agoActively trying to find some sort of validity in this claim of policy violation, I can only come up with this. But I think it's a stretch.
In that policy page it includes listings that
That's the only thing I got. One can argue (not very strongly) that a hanger is part of "packaging". Since the hangers have the brand name on them, someone can use those hangers to hold a piece of generic doll clothing in an attempt to sell and pass it off as the Emily Rose brand name.
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoYes but the funny part is that the "Emily Rose" hangers are not the ones that the seller was complaining about. It is those very generic plastic hangers in the middle bottom that have no markings of any kind on them. It's also important that I didn't mention ANY brand names. Even in the details of the listing I selected "Unbranded"
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoOof that was fast! This is what comes up for me when I click on your link...
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoThis is what is on my listing right now. Even reviewing the details of what this described how is this is accurate??
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behaviour-policies/encouraging-infringement-policy?id=4377
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoDid you check the VeRO list to see if the seller is there? If they're not, request a call back. If they are, remove those five little hangers and be done with it.
It's b.s., but how much energy do you want to waste on this?
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoOf course I don't wish to spend a bunch of time on this. But I find it quite puzzling that #1 another seller would do something like this over a few plastic UNBRANDED hangers. Weird at its best, cruel at its worse. But secondly nothing in the policy provided by eBay was violated.
It looks like an auto ai response to someone simply filing a false report.
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoYou can request a call back, and appeal I believe. It might take an actual human to address this. Emily Rose doll clothes (and accessories) is a family-owned small business based in Dayton, OH (based on a Google search), but they aren't listed on the VeRO page soooooooo it's not clear they have the right to report you.
krazzykats
·4 months agoIt' probably My Brittanys....I found the exact same hangars on My Brittanys website.
My Brittanys has online stores on eBay, Walmart and Amazon, as well as its own website. They may even have more, but I didn’t have the time to check.
36 Doll Clothes Hangers Fits 18 Inch American Girl Doll Clothes | eBay
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krazzykats
·4 months agoThe hangers themselves look pretty generic, almost like something you’d find on AliExpress or Temu.
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slippinjimmy
·4 months agoBeing a Vero "member" means nothing, all it does for registered Vero members is give them access to bulk reporting tools.
Another thing, Vero "members" do not have to appear on the list, it's optional.
You don't need to be a Vero "member" to send eBay a Notice Of Copyright Infringement.
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoWell thank you for that, you've been so very helpful lately.
How is a seller to know whether they're selling an item that is protected from resale by the owner of the rights to that item? I believe the owner has to prove they're the owner. I'd love to know how AI can determine that. Oh, and the OP has stated the item is used and was listed as such, so again, we've got a little problem here with any other seller claiming to have exclusive rights to resale/sale of the item in question.
albertabrightalberta
·4 months agoBTW, the ironic thing is that the other seller uses mostly stock images in their own listings and if the rights owner reported them, they'd be dinged!
albertabrightalberta
·4 months ago@rdjsystemservices
I agree with you that this is the most ridiculous message.
In trying to decide how I'd have responded, I think I would either have ignored and blocked or I may have responded with the first reply you'd sent.
If I chose to reply, I would have recommended ignoring after his followup.
I doubt he'll file a VeRO complaint because it's highly unlikely that he's the rights owner and there's no infringement.
rdjsystemservices
OP4 months agoI agree that there is no infringement. The whole thing seems wildly ludicrous to even send to another seller. Who has the time to send such a thing. At one point I tried to explain to them that this was not in breach of any copyright laws of any kind and that it was simple resell. I mention no brands and call it all generic "doll hangers".
This seemed to enrage them and that's when they threaten me with an attorney and this golden dinger:
I just still can't wrap my head around what copyrighting has to do with me reselling a few generic plastic hangers. I wasn't mass producing them or even called them by a brand name.
I just thought that I would throw this post out there in hopes that someone said something that would make this make sense to me. Or perhaps some weird loophole or rule I'm not aware of that I could be educated about. Because I am baffled with this one.
kibble-net
·4 months agoI would block and report. There's not much you can really do, unless you want to lawyer up.