Shop Safe Act back on table, write your representatives & senators!

[tristartreasures]

The horrible Shop Safe Act has bene reintroduced by Congress & we all need to be phoning & writing our representatives & sharing the awful stories of the VERO program & how it has been used arbitrarily & incorrectly against legitimate businesses on here & elsewhere. The most dangerous part of the proposed law is that after three VERO strike you are permanently banned from the marketplace & barred from creating a new profile. That means no income whatsoever & there is no requirement for the reporting agency to provide evidence of their claim against you.

This is a massive threat to the free market and e commerce businesses in particular. I urge you all to take a second to message your senators & representatives about this. Thankfully both eBay & Amazon are going to lobby hard against it but we can't count on big money interests as that is part of the problem.

I have had a handful of false VERO complaints submitted by third party IP protection companies on here & I can tell you they would not think twice before flagging your used or new item as fake in order to fluff their reported takedowns to their clients & keep getting a check.  

[movieman630]

OR the other alternative is that it goes back the other way and people just stop selling these "name brand" items out of fear.  They could indirectly extinct themselves and their brands.  I, for one, refuse to sell certain brands of things I might get.  I just toss them in the scrap bin. 

Most brands are made in China now anyway so they're responsible for the IP compromise in the first place.  Remember when Lenox wasn't made in China.

[isaiah53-57]

---

@movieman630 wrote:

Who is going to "police" every product to make sure it isn't abused unfairly?  Is there going to be a court established where someone can take their item to fight back against fake VERO strikes?  Who is going to say they knew the product was fake?  What if it's just someone selling something they bought at a yard sale?  What if they have no idea what a fake looks like?  Who is going to educate everyone about all these "proprietary tells?" 

Seems to me like just another example of the biggest companies in the world being able to use their legal weight to crush all small competition. 

Not for it at all.  The "Brand Police" don't really exist.

---

You bring up some interesting points - most of which are outlandish...

Who is doing the policing now? Companies like ebay with almost 0 incentive to crack down on fraudulent items and fraudulent sellers? - What a joke - That is one of the main points to the act - To incentivize sites to eliminate fakes...

I can get just as sarcastic and outlandish - Hey lets just keep things the way they are and let half the people buying things on the internet JUST THINK they got what they paid for.

Oh and I see you dont see anything wrong with FAKE lego product  being sold that are replicas of the originals with LEGO in the title? If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem...

[movieman630]

I never said anything about putting "Lego" in the title.  I said there's nothing wrong with them being 95% identical and compatible minus the "Lego" embossing on the blocks. 

HOWEVER!

Why is it ok for a Automotive Parts manufacturer in China to say that their Ball Joints fit a 1969 FORD?  And not the chinese (small plastic building blocks) to say they are compatible with LEGO brand? 

It's not a brand infringement to say your product works with another brand, it's only brand infringement IF YOU CLAIM IT IS THAT BRAND!

[movieman630]

And please don't get me wrong.  I'm 100% against counter fitting.  I think counterfit brand products are terrible.

That being said, why is it a thing in the first place?  Could it be that these companies sold themselves off to foreign manufacturing and with that their IP was stolen?

What I am against is holding every single person in the world to the standard of knowing what a fake is and being able to spot it.  You shouldn't be able to hold a seller responsible for UNKNOWINGLY selling fakes (unless that's everything they sell).

What I hate about 2023 is that now we coddle buyers.  Every company coddles buyers.  What happened to personal responsibility?  If someone buys a brand for a price that's "Too good to be true" and it turns out to be fake should that just be a "lesson learned" moment?  I've never blamed anyone else for my mistakes.  If I buy something that turns out to not be what I thought it was, that's my fault because I never educated myself before I bought.

I'm sick and tired of people not taking responsibility for their own mistakes no matter how expensive they are.

[dbfolks166mt]

I never said anything about putting "Lego" in the title.  I said there's nothing wrong with them being 95% identical and compatible minus the "Lego" embossing on the blocks. 

HOWEVER!

Why is it ok for a Automotive Parts manufacturer in China to say that their Ball Joints fit a 1969 FORD?  And not the chinese (small plastic building blocks) to say they are compatible with LEGO brand? 

It's not a brand infringement to say your product works with another brand, it's only brand infringement IF YOU CLAIM IT IS THAT BRAND!

     Actually that is not correct. When it comes to Lego's several of the designs are patented, such as the mini-fig, the method for interlocking bricks, and the like, but companies do get around such concerns by making parts that are very similar without being the same.

     Another issue is that Lego’s patents, at least in the US, have expired, and they have lost lawsuits against companies that make compatible products. The first of these was against Tyco and their Super Blocks. The court ruled against Lego for a couple of reasons, including that Lego is similar to an earlier brand called Kre-O Craft. Lego did improve on Kre-O’s design, but it was not enough of a difference for Lego to claim total patent on the blocks.

     Then you also have the Lego copyright and trade marks. 

[tristartreasures]

Sounds good on paper but you’re not understanding how this works on here already. Brands & IP protection agencies can & do report legitimate items ALL THE TIME there is nothing preventing them from doing so or protecting sellers who are targeted from the actions. It’s no different than being able to accuse somebody of witchcraft in the 16th century & then seeing how that accusation affect them but you don’t have to prove anything 

[tristartreasures]

precisely it does not address, or do anything where actually matters such as bolstering the enforcement and capabilities of customs, in order to stop the flow of counterfeit goods before they even get fully in the country. The majority of this could be done and actually have an impact by targeting out of country sellers and people who import fake goods . Instead this will just allow the same type of arbitrary actions and misguided resources that Vero does. Believe it or not I have even had a lightly used piece of namebrand clothing that I bought brand new in a national retail store (macys) get flagged disc counterfeit by one of these companies on eBay. It’s **bleep**

[tristartreasures]

that’s wishful thinking at best. it would take you potentially decades of resources, and success to build a platform like Ebay that has the reach to buyers. This is still the place where value is achieved more often than not. Also, I don’t know anyone paying final value fees that much averages around 12.5%

[tristartreasures]

Yup, exactly part of the concern. Cutting out a multi billion dollar revenue stream for secondhand goods alone. It’s all a violation of the first sale doctrine anyways but eBay & others have been too lax on their prohibiting of clones & replicas of goods from overseas sellers & importers & now the whole operation is at risk 

[tristartreasures]

I have done the same thing myself with certain brands, which is pitiful to be honest, because there should be no reason for leaving any kind of revenue out there if the item is legitimate. If you have kept information from these interactions, Ebay would like to hear from you, as they are compiling testimonials right now. I have an email I can share if you message me to an employee who is conducting interviews & getting examples of Vero horror stories 

[tristartreasures]

The third party firms are required to provide their contact info when a takedown has been conducted. However, it is my experience that they hardly ever reply or simply will be like “ you are not allowed to sell this” & that’s the end of it. Even if you provide receipts proof of origin & other evidence they don’t have to accept it. 

if you are interested in helping combat this & want to be heard I have an email I can share with you via direct message to an employee in ebays policy dept who is gathering these stories in order to petition against the act. 

[tristartreasures]

Yup that’s why they are going to oppose it. Because that provision about after 3 strikes the seller is banned from the marketplace indefinitely is going to kill tons of their sellers which will drop sales as well 

[tristartreasures · Accepted solution]

Some of us midsize sellers are in the 300,000-500,000 range in sales so it’s much more than a hobby or side hustle. eBay knows that. I’ve been sure to let them know when I’ve been  interviewed about this that I plan on divesting myself from eBay starting next year. I’m spending major money to start a small

warehouse operation & do online auctions for local pickup. I told them I cannot let third parties pillage my livelihood on eBay & not make exit plans. Goal is 60/40 local vs ebay by end of next year 

[broto_64]

Ultimately as well, if Big Co's eliminate all the small sellers that's more $ in their pockets and once their monopoly is established they will raise prices and do other things that are beneficial to them, just like every other big bad company that's ever achieved a monopoly in the USA has ever done.

[valueaddedresource]

---

@tristartreasures wrote:

Yup, exactly part of the concern. Cutting out a multi billion dollar revenue stream for secondhand goods alone. It’s all a violation of the first sale doctrine anyways but eBay & others have been too lax on their prohibiting of clones & replicas of goods from overseas sellers & importers & now the whole operation is at risk 

---

@tristartreasures not only has eBay been too lax on prohibiting clones and replicas from overseas, in the not too distant past they actively encouraged it and even directly aided and abetted.

For example, In 2014, then president of eBay Marketplaces Devin Wenig went all in on selling eBay user's search data to Chinese manufacturers to help ramp up "vintage" reproductions to compete with popular authentic items on the platform.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/why-ebay-tells-chinese-manufacturers-what-you... 

We send [manufacturers] data about what people are looking for on eBay and they respond and turn it around incredibly quickly," president of eBay Marketplaces Devin Wenig told me. "We have a really big China export business to Europe and the United States. And they respond very, very quickly to consumer taste, whatever it might be. It's really remarkable to see how quickly the manufacturing base adapts to the demand signals they get."

In other words, that red wool-blend Cross Colours hat on eBay might not be the relic from 1989 it appears to be, but instead a newly manufactured replica. (It is, of course, against eBay's policy to sell counterfeit items.) Yes, there's a huge and thriving "new vintage" manufacturing sector built around—and tailored to— your online searches.