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?
