Forum

Is it better to push back against a VERO hit?
 

Grrrrr...another VERO hit. :mad: This time a flimsy MC019 so called "copyright violation" on a 20-year-old poster from a now-defunct poster company that had been in business for some 30 years (but the poster doesn't have many markings on it, just a catalogue number).

The last hit like this was some 63 days ago. To give some context, it's a bronze PowerSeller account, 2500+ feedback at 99.8% (4.7+ on all DSRs), and some 700 different poster listings per week.

The last hit was essentially the same thing, but they twisted it into a trademark/counterfeit thing when it was really just a couple of posters of Team England soccer players they didn't recognize. That was 63 days ago and the only other black mark, but it brought the "Policy compliance" all the way down from Good to "Failing". It was also a three-month "alert" in My Messages, whereas this one expires in a month, and I don't know what is the significance of that.

I don't depend on the item for revenue very much at all and literally have only 3 or 4 in stock, so not listing it anymore isn't a problem.

As for whether the complaint was legit, I don't think it was, but also don't think odds are good of convincing the VERO of that.

And so my question: Should I push back, and how? E-mail customer support? Try to reason with the VERO?

My concern is that if I don't at least respond to these dings somehow they'll be assumed true, even to the point where I'm falsely accused of making my own copies of copyrighted material (We say clearly in the About Me page that this isn't ever the case, but maybe it's not a strong enough or prominent enough statement?)

OTOH, getting human scrutiny from eBay or the VERO might open more cans of worms and I'd be fine with just not listing the item and moving on, except that I'm worried about the "Failing" and the cumulative effect of more of these dings!

It seems near-impossible to list up some 700 different items in an area like posters without running into this. About half the items are in print and also sold by other sellers, and half are out of print, sometimes by up to 20 years! Even though the VERO hits are infrequent and may well not be justified, and even though we never relist something that has been complained about just to be safe, it still feels like Russian roulette. I don't know how close the account really is to suspension, but the element of uncertainty makes me hesitant about putting more effort into eBay or making any plans.

Does it help to push back against these things, even if odds are slim to get the VERO to withdraw the complaint? Or at least to raise concerns with customer support?