eBay

schloopertz · ‎01-19-2022

The VERO program is completely out of control and unreasonable.

Today I received this (poorly written) message from a bot

Apparently, and this is news to me, I can no longer sell Levi’s to any buyer in the EU. The listings were on EBay US, and I offer the global shipping program for everything I sell…I’m hardly an “importer”.

Although the shoddily worded email doesn’t even list the items that were removed, it was 4 pair of Levi’s jeans.

eBay and the VERO program keep changing the goal posts, and it’s crazy making.

How In the world would any seller know that a worldwide brand they have sold dozens of times suddenly is telling VERO to take down any listing with global shipping…this has GOT to be losing eBay so much money, and I cannot even fathom why it’s supported so aggressively.

These threats of removal and punitive action have scared the bejesus out of me and have me almost out the door. I suspect I’m not the only one….

Also, yeah, yeah, it’s their sandbox/party/playground/rules, I’m aware, but sending it out there as a heads up to others, as well as a whine.

bangordiscount · ‎01-20-2022

@luckythewinner wrote:
@schloopertz wrote:
this has GOT to be losing eBay so much money, and I cannot even fathom why it’s supported so aggressively.
If you read up on the "safe harbor" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright act, you will understand why the VERO program is designed the way it is.

The DMCA gives websites like eBay "safe harbor" from liability for intellectual property violations by a seller, provided that eBay promptly removes the alleged infringing content as soon a "Notice of Claimed Infringement" (i.e. a VERO claim) is submitted to them.

eBay has no incentive to substitute its own judgement in place of a VERO claim, because doing so would negate the safe harbor provision and expose them to liability.

I am registered with VERO and I find there is nothing "aggressive" about how eBay "supports" the VERO program. When eBay receives a NOCI, eBay simply removes the listing.

And what's the excuse for eBay leaving out contact information to appeal to the entity that filed the complaint?

I mean eBay clearly states:

- If you believe a mistake has been made, you will need to contact the rights owner directly. If the right’s owner approves you appeal, please have them contact us directly to reinstate your listing(s)

Yet they aren't providing the information for sellers to contact the rights owner

uniwarehousewares · ‎01-20-2022

VERO is more then a joke, their are tons of counterfeit and ebay allow them to sell it. my two listings were removed in error when i call ebay and they said sorry to me but they couldn't re instate the listing because it was ended by them in error. the problem is some of cs are not well trained specially those who are working as from out sourcing .

luckythewinner · ‎01-20-2022

@bangordiscount wrote:
And what's the excuse for eBay leaving out contact information to appeal to the entity that filed the complaint?

I have no idea why the information was not included. You will probably have to ask eBay.

luckythewinner · ‎01-20-2022

@uniwarehousewares wrote:
VERO is more then a joke, their are tons of counterfeit and ebay allow them to sell it.

The VERO program responds to claims of intellectual property infringement made by intellectual property owners.

Under the DMCA, Congress put the burden of identifying IP infringement on the IP owners, not on the website.

VERO is primarily designed to protect eBay from legal liability, not to proactively identify and remove counterfeit items.

dbfolks166mt · ‎01-20-2022

Sorry this happened to you and I don't fully understand the logic behind it. While I see sellers posting about Vero removing items almost daily what frustrates me to no end is while this is happening China continues to infringe on about every copyright and IP right of every company in the world. They mass produce counterfeit goods and use multiple outlet channels including eBay to sell the merchandise. It appears virtually every seller in Sri Lanka is drop shipping items out China.

The shear volume of eBay listings that are infringing on IP rights is probably to extensive for the program to handle.

Anonymous · ‎01-20-2022

It most likely is an attorney who is protecting the Trademark. It is not easy to have items removed. We have 2 trademarks and have a heck of a time getting eBay to remove them. We are even part of the Vero Program, so if it was removed they had grounds for removal.

fuzzface50 · ‎01-20-2022

I know we are talking levi's here but Nike has basicly the same rule to take down all nike sellers listings that list worldwide thru the vero program. They claim you can resell Nike's in your own country where they were brought but not all nike's were released worldwide and get you for copyright problems selling nike shoes in countries that certain style/ design that was never released in.

schloopertz · ‎01-20-2022

No,

I don't use any outside listing tool-just the standard Ebay listing format.

As I mentioned, all of my listings have global shipping as the only international shipping option.

4 listings were taken down, however, I still had 8 more Levi's listings up with the exact same details...

It's totally arbitrary, but as a fellow Levi's seller, you may want to take heed of this, you never know when or if they may go after you now.

whiteyswrecking · ‎01-20-2022

No, ALL of eBay is out of control !!

schloopertz · ‎01-20-2022

Ah!

That is something I didn't know, as I am not really a sneaker seller.

That does add a new dimension to this, thank you for that info!

michaelruth · ‎01-20-2022

I had the same thing happen with my Levi's listings about 6 months ago. They removed about half of the Levi's listings but left several of them alone. I removed the GSP shipping in the remaining listings, and I did a "sell similar" with the ones they had removed (I was too paranoid to do a straight "relist"), of course taking off the GSP shipping option. I never heard anything else from Ebay about it.

michaelruth · ‎01-20-2022

I should add, though, that in the e-mail they listed the ones that were removed, don't know why you didn't get that courtesy!

kensgiftshop · ‎01-20-2022

@fuzzface50 wrote:
I know we are talking levi's here but Nike has basicly the same rule to take down all nike sellers listings that list worldwide thru the vero program. They claim you can resell Nike's in your own country where they were brought but not all nike's were released worldwide and get you for copyright problems selling nike shoes in countries that certain style/ design that was never released in.

I think it was HP, they were having some listings removed that had international shipping.

Have a great day.

popblox · ‎01-20-2022

I get these VeRO takedowns 2 or 3 times a year. I don't know whether or not it's intentional, but the brand email is sometimes missing or invalid. The entire purpose of the takedown is to terrify you, specifically, to scare you enough that you don't consider fighting it. It's a PITA, but I always fight.

I can't imagine how intellectual property rights could be threatened by offering a shipping service - my guess is some trademark attorney got click happy. At any rate, you can send an email (use the item # in the subject line) to vero@ebay.com and request more information, including the brand email address.

rfmtm · ‎01-20-2022

While this came under VeRO, it's more about licensing, certification, permits, agreements, and other restrictions, that certain USA products, or versions of those products, are not to be exported to certain countries. This can be by government regulations or by agreements between corporate entities operating in different countries. Some products even have an export version and a domestic version to comply.

These rules are not specific to ebay, and cover many products both for export and import. Plus every country has its own rules, and there is any number of corporate agreements and international patents that may be in place.