Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) policy

[yesbestvalue]

I repeatedly have listings removed for items I have legally purchased and am reselling.  I buy various items at a lower cost and then resell them at a slightly higher price.  This is how I am attempting to make money.

I have the right to resell items I have legally purchased on the "First Sale Doctrine," but I'll have a listing removed from time to time, still claiming "Copyright infringement." 

It does no good contacting vero@ebay.com or the email that made the false claim against my listing.  I just get a canned response with no accurate information.  

My listing is just removed, and I am threatened about my account being closed if I relist.

Can we, as sellers, take no legal action in defense of our right to resell?  Does eBay not defend the sellers? 

Is eBay just a lost cause?

[yesbestvalue]

You can also be marked.  Are you telling me you purchase all your cards for personal use and then decide to resell them?

Retail arbitrage is perfectly legal and also a huge revenue generator for eBay.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Counterfeit-Sports-Cards/td-p/31788479

[pjcdn2005]

My understanding is that it is not illegal to buy a new item from a retailer and then sell it on ebay or another platform.    VERO is for the rights holder to report that  a seller is infringing upon their intellectual property rights. They may have infringe on it by using the rights holders name on a product not made by them, by using their pictures or by selling counterfeit products.

VERO is not for a manufacturer to report sellers that are not 'authorized sellers'.  If they feel that a seller is hurting their product or name by not being authorized then they need to prove damages in a court of law.  Using VERO do not that is not ethical.

[rfmtm]

The problem here is both ebay and for that matter the other big ones like Amazon clearly allow retail arbitrage, but ebay has its made up version of a VeRO program, which offers no recourse for sellers to defend themselves against their listings being take down, even when there may be no legal requirement to do so.

The big brands just hide behind ebay and have ebay do their dirty work, which the seller then has no legal recourse to defend as ebay can and does what it wants and of course favors the big guy.   All the while the brand still made money, the retailer made money, and ebay made money.  Certainly if they can prove infringement or brand damage that is one thing, but that often is not the case at all.  It's just ebay makes it all to easy to shoot the fish in the barrel at no expense to them.

[yesbestvalue]

Look, look everyone here on our community.

I am not pointing fingers, I am not saying YOU are the bad guy.

I am just trying to WAKE up our community.   

Do we not want to resell?  Do we not want to make money?

Or do we ALL just roll on our backs and say I'M SORRY, I WILL NOT RESELL!

All I am saying is instead of all of us pitting against each other saying you are bad, I am not, is we all unite  in the community and push back aginst the unfounded VeROs

Each seller who said I am bad in my listing has at least one item that is in violation of Vero, and that was my point. 

None of us as sellers are immune to VeRO

[the_fancy_fox]

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@maxine*j wrote:

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@the_fancy_fox wrote:

Google up Tabberone. She used to sell on ebay and took on all the companies that pulled her Listings. She’s won against Disney, the NFL, Mars etc…. 

Her website has all the information on how to deal with these people. 

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But, again, those case(s) have nothing to do with OP's practice.  Dudnikov and Meaders (eBay User-ID Tabberone) argued, successfully, that they were not making counterfeit or replica items, that eBay and others misapplied policies relating to secondary trademark infringement, and so on.  And that was 20 years ago.  All very interesting but inapplicable to OP.

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Understood but there is (or was) questions and answered where she helped people with problems such as the OP has. 

Tabberone bought licensed fabric and created items with it to sell. Still she was reselling licensed fabric and case after case the manufacturer/licensed owner said it’s for personal use only. The courts disagreed.

After my last post I looked up the law and it’s clear. If you buy a legally made product, from the manufacturer or a distributor or even the goodwill, you have the right to resell it.  

It does not have to be used. It does have to be an original sold by the licensed company and not a counterfeit.  Nor can you copy someone’s item and sell your copies. 

As soon as the manufacturer sells the widget they lose control of where the purchaser sells it. Hence enter licensing agreements. 

A licensed distributor can sell to you and you can still sell it. The distributor has license agreements with the manufacturer not the end buyer or consumer. If the distributor  breeches that agreement by perhaps selling a pallet load to someone that’s a reseller that’s happens to be against their licensing agreement with the manufacturer, they can be sued. The person that bought the merchandise is under no agreement with the manufacturer and can resell the merchandise.  There is no way for the manufacturer to retrieve the merchandise or stop the buyer from selling it. 

We dealt with this situation in my last company. We manufactured high end in wall  speakers. We had a distributor selling pallet loads to another person that was reselling on Amazon. A clear breech of our distributor agreements. Our distributor was sued and his contract with us voided. The guy that bought it? He bought it from our distributor and there was nothing we could do to him. Nor would Amazon remove the products. 

Enter Vero and ebay, it’s horribly abused simple because most people run scared when they get a nasty attorney letter. 

So with your thinking if I buy two brand new Dodge Ram trucks, I can not keep one and turn around and sell the other. That’s not allowed. Dodge can force me not to sell it until it’s used? Doesn’t work like that. 

[harvestmoon_primitives]

I would like to say that this is an Ebay COMMUNITY forum for fellow ebay sellers and buyers alike. When someone comes here with a question or comment, they are seeking advice or guidance not attacks. I am personally appalled by some of the comments and the way some of you have behaved/responded. We as resellers are all the same or we would not be part of the ebay "community" to begin with.
Not one single person selling here is perfect and most if not all probably have at least one listing that violates VeRo or ebay policy in some way, and yes it is probably not intended but still a violation. Most anything can be a violation as it currently stands.  If you do not agree with a post there is no need to be hateful or aggressive, it takes 2 seconds to scroll on by without being argumentative or combative. 
Everyone has their own thoughts or opinions, that doesn't always mean they are correct or facts.
Please remember you yourself may find yourself with a problem or question that you would like advice on, consider how YOU would want others to respond back to you.
It takes more time and effort to me nasty, rude and to point fingers than it does to be kind.
Some will probably have a rude response back to me because sadly for some that is what they enjoy, however it will do you no good to respond negatively towards my comment as I see it more as a reflection of yourself. 

Remember it takes ZERO effort to be kind and it doesn't cost you anything.

[maxine*j]

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@yesbestvalue wrote:

...  Each seller who said I am bad in my listing has at least one item that is in violation of Vero, and that was my point. 

None of us as sellers are immune to VeRO

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We are in absolute agreement that VeRO is misused, as megacorporations misuse other law, claiming their brands are harmed by small sellers and taking every opportunity to pick away at First Sale Doctrine.

And at the same time that the first sale doctrine is being eroded, the U.S. Patent and Trade Mark Office has been allowing insane registrations:  Shabby Chic.  Happy Valley.  Pandora's Box.  Realtor. That's Hot.  Super Hero.  Knock Your Socks Off.

Combine allowing common words and phrases to be trademarked with an ever-weakening First Sale Doctrine, throw in some broad concepts like "brand dilution" and "customer experience,"  and you get nothing good.

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[toomuchstuffagain35]

One has to wonder what % of the goods sold by those big box stores are actually to resellers. I wonder what a dent that would make in their sales if resellers stopped buying?

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I hope they took them back to Footlocker then.

[theteamsetguy]

I would say very little. You have to mark something up at least 15% to just break even. That doesn't include time spent procuring, listing, packing items and etc.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I've actually seen listings on here for stuff I've passed by on clearance listed at less than the clearance price and with FS. They're basically paying someone to take their stuff.

Some people just have no idea and are impossible to help.

[albertabrightalberta]

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

1st Sale Doc does NOT apply to 'new' items- which you are buying to resell. 

1st Sale Doc was written before the Internet

1st Sale Doc was NOT intended for those to advertise and sell on a publicly accessible website; especially one known for fake/illegal things being listed/sold. 

Therefore, this site has the right to say what can be listed and what cannot. 

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This is incorrect. First sale doctrine applies to ANY legally obtained item. It doesn't matter what reason it's purchased for - whether for personal use or for flipping. If authentic, it's absolutely legal to resell it. 

The only exception is for contractual agreements between a manufacturer/rights owner and their authorized distributors. Those distributors may be contractually disallowed from reselling. (I believe Mary Kay has that type of restriction placed on their consultants.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

I second that Tabberone's website is a great reference, though it does look somewhat dated & you'll need to deal with multiple colors/fonts, etc.  Well worth it, for the great info.  

Just wanted to add that this is NOT just on Ebay.  Happened to be on Reddit this week in a Forum of users for a certain brand of beauty products & there was a thread about how Mercari is pulling all the items from that brand, even though these are legally obtained, one-off sales from legit purchasers.   Brands are getting savvy to this & know that most people won't spend the money to fight them. 

[yesbestvalue]

If we UNITE, we can make BIG CHANGES and accomplish BIG GOALS.

One hundred voices are louder than one.

Dennis W. Watson

[albertabrightalberta]

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@fab_finds4u wrote:

My friend purchased Nike sneakers from Footlocker for his son. Son didn't  like them. He 

put them for sale on eBay. They were removed for being counterfeit. He supplied receipt and copy of his CC statement showing the purchase. They still insisted they were fake and was a Vero takedown and couldn't  be sold. 

I sent him an article how to spot the fake in the style he purchased. THEY WERE FAKE.  OH, but how could that be because we all know Footlocker doesn't sell fake!  At least they don't  think they do but when someone buys new sneakers and returns fake the clerks don't always know how to tell fake from real and they go back in stock.

So, yes you can THINK you legally purchased them but if they were fake the sale was illegal. There's  been lots of sneakers that didn't pass Authentication because the seller thought they were real because they purchased them from a known shoe store and not the Flea Market.

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There was a similar case that got a lot of discussion on various websites about a woman who bought over $1 million dollars worth of expensive designer bags and accessories from TJ Maxx online store. (These were Fendi, Gucci, Ferragamo, Valentino, etc.......very high end items.) 

She was buying genuine items online, reselling those authentic bags on ebay and returning "high quality" fakes to TJ Maxx stores around the country. (She did a lot of traveling!) Google "Loukpeach."