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04-04-2022 02:48 PM - last edited on 04-05-2022 04:54 PM by kh-gary
Greetings all!
If you clicked on this post you probably already know the title to be true of the VeRO program but I wanted to share a little experience with you all & let others sound off on how broken this system is & how it inevitably will help destroy eBay’s secondary seller market.
Over a year ago I purchased several sealed cases of Subway branded employee apparel from a large national wholesale company. These items were hats, bandanas, aprons etc sold in bulk quantities of like 72, 144,480 etc. All new in manufacturers boxes initially meant for Subway locations across the country but apparently liquidated during the last few years when Subway closed many locations for one reason or another. Anyways, I bought them outright & have the receipts. If you searched eBay now for “Subway uniforms” you’d see many listings containing these exact items.
Last week out of the blue I get a VeRO notification stating all four of my listings offering these items had been removed & claimed as “fake or counterfeit” by the rights owner. They completely skipped a listing containing the hats (I pulled it quickly after seeing the others, so I could investigate). I earned a 3 day listing ban due to one other VeRO complaint from a few months ago on some name brand glasses that were reported AFTER they were already sold (makes a lot of sense right?).I had a lot of new inventory to list this weekend so this ban heated me royally especially since I know the items are not fake & have the cases with purchase orders on them from the manufacturer.
I go the advised route & email the rights owner as suggested by eBay knowing full well the ban will be lifted before they reply, if they reply at all. To my surprise I get a reply Monday morning from a representative of Corsearch, the company who filed the claim on Subway’s behalf & who advertised to be an industry leader in IP knowledge and protection. The email to them & from them is attached with the reps statement here. Notice that they do not back their claim of “fake or counterfeit” but instead choose to lean on Subway’s own policy stating they do not “allow” for the sale of restaurant supplies. Therefore the claim submitted against the legitimacy of my listing items is downright false & was filed with malicious intent to remove legal & permitted items from the eBay marketplace.
Apparently, this Corsearch company likes to play fast & loose with supposed IP rights because they are unaware or don’t care that legally you can pretty much sale whatever you want if you purchased it legally. Doesn’t matter what the brand thinks about grey market sales.
I’ve shared all the emails with the vero department at eBay & have requested they remove the record of the filing against my account since it was made in bad faith & under false pretenses. Additionally, I’m tempted to re post the items removed with the first few photos being the rulings of the upper court cases involving the rights of private parties to sell branded goods without the consent of the rights owner just to make a point.
Anyways, I’m still mad that this thing can be done in 2022 & eBay not assist in any way at all as long as they feel like they are not in legal jeopardy of being sued (they are though). Would love to see a class action on behalf of all of us sellers who have lost time, money, & had to pull inventory because of this.
Rant over, any thoughts?
Solved! Go to Best Answer
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-04-2022 05:16 PM
Sounds like a very “green” enterprise. You all can assume what you will but the fact of the matter remains that PALLETS of these goods manufactured for Subway’s franchisees & businesses were offloaded through a national wholesale firm instead of being destroyed. Could even be a situation where there were more units shipped than ordered & subway refused to take possession of them or pay to have them returned to the manufacturer. I don’t know, but that isn’t what this thread is about. Now excuse me while I go wear a subway hat, bandana, & apron & stab people randomly with foot long meatball subs & bring down subways “reputation” lololol
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-04-2022 06:19 PM
Actually, I believe the main purpose of the VERO program from eBay's point of view is to protect itself from being drawn into litigation if a seller either intentionally or inadvertently infringes on the intellectual rights of someone. So if someone claiming to own those rights, eBay is obliged to take down the listing and the alleged infringing party needs to address the issue with the party claiming rights ownership directly. While this may keep eBay from getting involved in the litigation, the rights owner may still seek legal recourse from the seller alleged to have infringed upon those rights. Only the courts can make a final determination as to whether infringement actually occurred.
Of course, there are undoubtedly cases where someone actually abuses the VERO program. However, I can see eBay's desire to protect itself from potential litigation.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-04-2022 08:59 PM
I was thinking the same thing
are they even around/active anymore?
Thinking it’s a zombie website, essentially
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-04-2022 09:02 PM
Cool,
that was destroying their own sruff
These were legally purchased
Cute Halloween costume
Unlikely anyone would open a whole fake restaurant to steal or cheat for sandwich money
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-04-2022 09:08 PM
OK, instead of making sure they got in the hands of Subway franchises', they decided they could sell them to the general public for Halloween costumes. Got it, but Ebay did the right thing.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-04-2022 09:21 PM
Yeah looks like a zombie site now. I noticed it hasn't been updated since 2010. Although copyright was up to 2017.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-04-2022 10:23 PM
Which drops us deep into the abyss of U. S. Trademark law, which is far more murkier than U. S. Copyright law: if the OP is advertising these items as "new" items, the trademark holder (Subway -- or whatever conglomerate now owns Subway) does have the right to file a VERO claim, since the OP is not licensed by Subway to sell new Subway merchandise. Many trademark holders are very jealous of their brands, and only license them sparingly -- and generally not on the secondary market.
A classic case occurred in 1989, when Eternity Comics published a comic book entitled THE UNCENSORED MOUSE, which featured black-and-white MICKEY MOUSE newspaper comic strips from the 1930s, which had not been copyright renewed, and thus were in the public domain. Each comic was sealed inside a black plastic sleeve, thus concealing the contents, since the storylines contained many racist stereotypes, plus buckets of violent behavior from our treasured Mickey; and no where on either the front or rear covers was the name "Mickey Mouse" used, although the name was, of course, used throughout the interior storylines.
Only two issues had hit the shelves, before the Disney lawyers had descended upon Eternity Comics like an anvil hitting Pistol Pete. But Eternity fought back, asserting that the strips were no longer copyrighted, and thus open game for anyone to reprint.
While the Disney lawyers conceded the copyright issue, they pointed out that Walt Disney Corporation had never ceded the trademark to ANY of the Disney characters, which was still in effect (and probably will remain in effect, long after all of us are dead).
Thus, while Eternity Comics had the right to reprint the original Disney newspaper stories about Mickey Mouse, all of the stories would have to be scrubbed of any images and names of EVERY trademarked Disney character appearing therein -- not impossible, but largely financially pointless: Who would buy a collection of butchered black-and-white newspaper comics from the 1930s, that had previously featured a famous cartoon character who could not be legally mentioned or pictured?
And that was the end of THE UNCENSORED MOUSE. Several years later, authorized collections finally saw print -- but those were formally licensed through Walt Disney Corporation.
Which brings us back to the OP's problem -- the OP is not licensed to use the Subway trademark, and I imagine that the pockets of Subway are significantly deeper than those of the OP -- Subway may well keep the OP in court for YEARS with one minor litigation after another, until the OP screams "Uncle."
Been there -- done that -- and it ain't pretty, believe me. . ..
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-05-2022 08:34 AM
Your information is accurate however we have plenty of legal decisions in recent years that would support a claim that you do not have to be licensed by a company to sell a product bearing their logo or information if you legally own that item. This gets into the gray market sales rulings that are pretty cut and dry. First sale doctrine also comes into play.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-05-2022 08:45 AM
Why the heck would anyone outside of a Subway franchise want to buy Subway hats and clothing? I don't get that part.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-05-2022 08:57 AM
Not my place to question the demand but when I acquired these I first checked & saw that these items were selling in the past 90 days on eBay via competed listings. Also, I’m fairly certain the buyers I had were either employees obtaining more workwear at cheaper prices than buying from the company our franchise owners doing the same. As I said though, not my place to question why people want things they do. Plenty of stuff on here sells that makes no sense to me either.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-05-2022 09:04 AM
I see the company told you why they took the items off but your anger is because they initially said it was counterfeit. I have no knowledge of the law on the matter of if an individual can sell uniforms for specific companies but imagine that is what you should find out. My estimation is Ebay doesn't have this tab to click when filing a complaint as the company. The company could very well have rights for you not selling their company uniforms but it was not an option to click.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-05-2022 09:13 AM
A company can request an item pulled for any reason under the sun. eBay interprets it automatically as a legal decree against them to remove it & does not question the legitimacy. That is the problem. Also, no the first sale doctrine means that a company cannot legally prevent me from selling something bearing their logo once it was sold to me. Regardless of if it came directly from them or from another company that got it from them & sold it to me (as is the case here). If companies were allowed to act in this manner without recourse there would be no secondhand market period, no competition. You’d be forced to buy directly from a dealer at maximum price with total control being in the rights owners hands to dictate terms & prices. That’s bad for all business.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-05-2022 09:28 AM
@coolections wrote:I don't believe for a minute that Subway would allow anyone to sell their merchandise. People could pretend to be a Subway restaurant and mislead Subway's brand. Subway should sue for anyone for any loss they were to occur by anyone buying such items IMO. We had a Starbucks close recently and a representative came to make sure all merchandise was destroyed while the person witnessed. Do what you have to do though.
Doing what Starbucks did is the correct way to do it, if you do not want your merchandise sold destroy it.
Subway did not do that so anyone who bought the subway merchandise can legally resell it, ebay allowing it is another matter. That being said if someone used the Subway items in a way that deceived people into thinking a restaurant was a Subway would have legal recourse no matter how the items were obtained.
Companies do not get to just decide that their items can not be resold
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-05-2022 09:47 AM
Right, you can’t impersonate a legitimate business in any situation without recourse. The funny thing is that the company that liquidated this stuff was literally selling subway store displays, equipment from the stores, & disposable branded flatware. Not just one auction either it was multiple across several states for a period of time, so Subway missed their opportunity to take it off market several times, but why bother when they can just have their contracted company do it for them later on?
just type “subway uniform” into the search bar on eBay & look at the thousands of listings selling subway branded workwear. I had four listings which are all gone now & I’m going to have to throw the few cases of stock away or take it to a thrift store donation or something. I have nothing invested at this point but it’s the principle of the matter & It’s a waste.
Re: Proof that the VeRO program is used maliciously
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04-05-2022 01:24 PM
I have attempted to report OBVIOUS counterfeit coins and bullion
to feebay many times. It's a waste of time. But keep believing the shysters. Buyer beware! lol
