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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

Hi.  I sell mainly used Lego products.  I've noticed something very annoying.....other international seller sell what they call "minifigures" that are not authentic Lego products but when someone searches "Lego minifigures" their items appear.  In my opinion, this is very deceiving to the buyers who may not recognize that they are imitations.  The buyers think they are getting a great price and the minifigures are new, but lesser quality and less value.

Does anyone else agree with me?  Do you think Ebay is aware of this?

Does anyone know how to complain to Ebay about this? 

Thanks,

Jane

Message 1 of 18
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17 REPLIES 17

Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

Hi Jane,

I'm sure they're aware of it and wouldn't do any good to complain to about it. They're not doing anything wrong since they technically are "minifigures" unless of course they're misrepresenting the items as real Lego's. I understand your frustration though. Buyer's needs to use some common sense, although that seems to be in short supply at times, lol. I don't buy anything from China, but if I did, I wouldn't expect it to be authentic or of very good quality.  

Message 2 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

Actually ebay doesnt care what china does. China clearly sells fake legos, and fake everything..ebay loves them..but you sell one fake item and you are toast

And jane you are wrong, they ARE doing wrong, because they look.ecactly like lego.minifigures which are copyrighted..the actual look.of them..also.they are doing wrong because a lot of minifigures are of.copyrighted characters like marvel or.starwars
Message 3 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

I mean kris is wrong not jane
Message 4 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

I agree if they're making them to look like authentic Legos, then yeah that's wrong. I assumed they where just similar looking minifigurines. You would think Ebay would care since they're so worried about having unhappy buyers, but nope don't seem too. Since they don't have to worry about shipping cost, the buyers are pretty much stuck with it since it usually cost more to send something back than it's worth. Buyers still need to apply some common sense when ordering anything overseas like that.  

Message 5 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

I've sick of all the fake minifigures on eBay. I look for Lego minifigures not fake junk. Lego should be its own category.They should sell the fake stuff in another category. Mega blocks has its own you don't see there minifigures in Lego category. When I type in Lego I want Lego.
Message 6 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

@mcposty, I hate to say this but you're wrong here, for now. These Chinese figs are made legally, and licenced for the Asian market. I hate this too because my authentic LEGO figs don't sell like they used to, but LEGO might even allow this. The Asian factory may use molds to make a cheaper product, than LEGOcan manufacture, and they probably keep the LEGO brand name off because it's a **bleep**py version of a LEGO mold. This happens with minimates, and other little toys, which are a huge seller in Asia. I hope you get what I mean? Brand loyalty doesn't mean LEGO isn't going to cut corners to make more money.

Message 7 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

Lego set the standard and everyone wants to be like them ... there are many imitators ... there needs to be a Lego compatible option ... that way all those knock offs would stop calling themselves Lego's.

Message 8 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

I agree with you 100%. When I look for Lego then I only want to see Lego, not this fake **bleep** from China. I agree with another poster, they should have a Lego compatable catagory for this fake **bleep** to be put in.

Message 9 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

The problem is that they're all miscategorized and noone from eBay seems to care about enforcement of the 'miscategorization policy'.  They expect the sellers to report the offenders.  There are thousands of sellers selling fake LEGO's in the LEGO minifigure category.

Message 10 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a


@2011allthingsold wrote:

The problem is that they're all miscategorized and noone from eBay seems to care about enforcement of the 'miscategorization policy'.  They expect the sellers to report the offenders.  There are thousands of sellers selling fake LEGO's in the LEGO minifigure category.


I think the best bet is to contact LEGO about this issue.  I'm sure LEGO has a huge issue with not only the people counterfeiting the LEGO's profiting off sales, but with Ebay profiting off counterfeits as well.  I highly doubt LEGO allows their molds to be used to sell a cheap product.

 

The counterfeit toy issue is out of hand in my opinion.  There's knock offs from China of Barbie, Disney toys, Star Wars toys, Ninja Turtle toys, etc.  I think if the companies that own the rights to these toys knew that ebay is allowing this there would be huge ramifications for ebay.  If Walmart decided to start selling bootleg LEGOS in all of their stores and advertised them as LEGOS, don't you think Walmart would be getting a call from a LEGO lawyer?

 

I don't want to post the link for fear of it getting removed, but there is also governement sites to contact to report counterfeit goods.

Message 11 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

Here, Here. I agree and it is now 2017. I purchased lots of legos 10 yrs ago on ebay and had no idea there were fake ones. I know now because I did search for lego minifigures and ordered some. Well as soon as I saw them I knew they weren't legos. Hope I can get money back, working on it. So glad I didn't go for the sets!!!
Message 12 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

I completely agree with you on this. Lego is a brand, a MAJOR brand, and in my opinion if you are listing something as LEGO and clearly know that it is not, then that is copyrighting and/or Bait and switch? People buy them though because they don't know how to spot the differences. I bought some minifigs off of Goodwill once and my 9yo took one look and said, 'mom these are fake'. [face palm]. I never buy anything overseas, and like another person said, it is probably **bleep** junk if it is from China. jmo.

Message 13 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a

I agree, but unfortunately, those sellers that are selling the fake **bleep**, and knowingly listing them under Lego, are probably not going to list their products under another category, because they wouldn't sell then!! Maybe they just need a whole new website for their **bleep**, lol!
Message 14 of 18
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Hi I sell mainly lego items on ebay. What I've noticed is that some people sell minifigures that a


@mcposty wrote:
Actually ebay doesnt care what china does. China clearly sells fake legos, and fake everything..ebay loves them..but you sell one fake item and you are toast

The problem is that Chinese sellers create several alternate / proxy accounts from which to distribute the same goods. When one account gets closed due to policy violations, the seller just continues to operate from a different account. They have plenty of cheap and easily accessible human labor to help them create and organize alternate accounts.

 

Until eBay can more effectively crackdown on this practice, the best you can do is filter international results from your searches. (Although some international shippers do lie about their location to manipulate search results.)

Message 15 of 18
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