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Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Unfortunately it happened to me.

I recently received an e-mail from et$y about the legal process seeking information.
I used the trademark of company X - many sellers received the same and their accounts were also suspended at this time.

What do I need to know?

I live in the EU - the suing company is based in the US, as is the law firm that is trying to obtain the information.

I made +/- $50 from their trademark.

If I live outside the US (in the EU) should I ignore it completely?
I don't care about this store, I know that in the past, in such cases, law firms offered a settlement and then reinstated the stores.
The law firm is hspleg@l in Illinois.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

I would forget

At the moment, I wrote an e-mail to this law firm asking them to grant me access to the documents they sent to Et$y because it is a sharepoint document and I have no way to check it without access.
Of course, I did not raise any other issues in the e-mail and did not provide any information - only a request for access.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

it is a mistake to have any contact with these lawyers

the best way to go is breaking up contact and denying later that you ever had an account on etsy

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Do you think I harmed myself by writing this email? I only asked about access to the documents that etsy sent

I didn't bring up or provide any information, just a question

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

I have this idea:

change email in et$y store + store name

deleting the gmail account from which I sent them an e-mail requesting access to documents (so that in the event of a potential response from their side, the messege could not reach the recipient)

initiating strange activity on the et$y account with proxy + antidetected browser (potential h@king etc)

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

you need to avoid any contact with them and distance yourself from the etsy account

it is not a criminal investigation but a civil matter , they can not prove you even sell anything on etsy unless you tell them about this yourself

I once had the issue on ebay , got a letter from a lawyer demanding information. I replied I do not sell anything on ebay , don't know anything about it. I never heard back

it is understandable because court expenses are very high , if you deny connection to the seller account the court will ask the lawyers to provide proof and they can't

if you start telling them you were not aware of any wrongdoing bla bla bla , then you will have a problem. keep in mind , it is a game by their rules , if you start playing it you will lose

if it were a criminal investigation it would be different as police have access to a lot of information but lawyers only have what the marketplace can provide and that is almost nothing

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

I'll do the same

did you receive the letter home?
I live in Europe, very far from the USA, and I doubt they will send any correspondence other than e-mail

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

I forgot to add that this process appears in lists of legal processes in the USA - such as law360, etc

You can more or less follow its course

I think this is a civil lawsuit

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

they can get you in europe too and if they contact you at your home address do not ignore them but instead reply you do not know anything about the matter and it is not your account , someone must have used your personal details to open , ask them to find out who that is as you want to know this too

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

so I shouldn't count on et$y refusing to share my details such as name and address?

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

etsy has shared everything

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

How do you know that?

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Ignore these 'ambulance chasers'.

They will NOT get you into court, just ignore them and they'll go away.

Countless forums discussing this scenario, I've been there myself, and the advice is categorically to ignore them.

For a fourth time in case I wasn't clear....ignore them.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

ok, I'll do that, have you heard of people contacting them at their home address or only by email?

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Depends on who is asking?
You,me,or the government or government agency

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

if the marketplace does not share data they risk being made liable

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

emails you can ignore but if you are contacted at home it is better to do what I wrote before

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

I'm asking as you said Etsy would give the info to the claimant.

Edit sorry not you, Murdered_by_ebay

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

all marketplaces provide seller details to copyright owners and to all government agencies incl. tax authorities , they do it to avoid liability so that data protection does not exist if the enquiring party can show legitimate interest

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Isn't that somewhat of a contradiction? In one breath you're (wrongly) saying that ALL marketplaces provide seller details to copyright owners and all government agencies (they don't) and then retract that blanket statement by saying 'if they can show a legitimate interest'.

I simply do not accept that, on the strength of an email, they would release a sellers information - that's why we have data protection laws.

Anyhoo, for @sellerstealther, I can only repeat what I said above, do not respond to anything, email or letter.

These legal firms make their money by threatening sellers, sometime legitimately I accept, to make a settlement with them. That's how they can offer this policing service for free or a modest retainer, to the copyright holders. They only make a living if you fold.

To make a claim they need to quantify the loss to the copyright holder - they can't do that or if they could it would, in your case, be a very small sum and not worth legally pursuing particularly to a non-resident. They make their money by relying on seller panicking and folding.

I've had letters, even had one send mock court papers which must have amounted to about 100 sheets of very serious looking paperwork, the whole gambit of threats. I have ignored them all and nothing ever comes of it.

At the risk of repeating myself, I can only repeat what I said above, do not reply to anything.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Did you receive e-mails from these law firms first or did they send you letters immediately? Recently there has been a lot of talk about being sued for the smiley trademark, I haven't heard of anyone receiving a letter - only an e-mail
I would like to avoid any letter being sent to the address I provided when registering the et$y store

in addition, I did not provide any identification numbers because I am in the EU - as far as I know, in the USA you need to provide an SSN number, and in the UK I don't even know.

the letter to me alone would cost as much as my profit from this company's trademark.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

I know from experience where both eBay and Amazon were subpoenaed for my sales figures due to being sued over intellectual property rights and both refused to provide them (I was impressed by that and they have the right to do so under case law) so I was ordered by the court to produce them myself.

If you are in the EU I doubt that a small seller will be sued, I would just stop selling that item and ignore the lawyers trying to contact you, give no information to incriminate yourself, this is a civil matter

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

as I said earlier, I only wrote them an email (one of three that etsy provided in its email to me) asking for access to the documents that etsy sent (it's a sharepoint link that was created by this law firm), apart from this email I have no intention of contacting them in the future or responding to their emails. I just wanted to review the documents. I didn't provide any information about me or the store and I didn't write anything like "I had no idea it was something bad, etc.", just a short e-mail asking for access to documents.

I followed their other stuff at c@urtlistener.c@m. For several months now, they have been suing sellers from amazon/ebay/redbubble/aliexpress alibaba wish etc... all related to a specific company and a specific trademark.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

with VERO removals they provide that info automatically , with government they can not refuse anyway

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

they provide all personal details though as soon as an item is removed through VERO

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Again through my personal experience, subpoenaed sales information from attorneys to eBay has to specific to any IP case and the patent they are going to sue you on. In my case I was selling 100’s of products in volume of different types, eBbay did not have the time or expertise to differentiate what was a complying VERO sale and what was not a VERO sale in order to comply with the order and posted to the court that due to this what was required by the attorneys was an unreasonable and un achievable under Rule 45 Subpoena.
So not all VERO cases information is passed along as eBay has to walk a thin line as they can be sued by the seller for not protecting their privacy in requested information. Believe me both eBay and Amazon washed their hands of the subpoena.

That’s in a civil case, criminal cases are different and information will be passed to government agencies and the police under a warrant issued by the courts.

If you are going to make statements murdered_by_ebay get it right.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

below is 5.2 of the privacy policy , that clearly says they can disclose information. in many if not all cases they just send it on request without letting you know if the request was sent by a verified VERO participant


"Complying with information requests from third parties based on any statutory information rights they have against us (e.g. in the event of an intellectual property infringement, product piracy, or other unlawful activity)."

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

100% they do not.

Have you ever seen a VeRo removal request form?

I have because I hold trademarks. When I get an item removed I fill in the form and they remove it, they do not give me ANY personal details of the seller whatsoever. Nothing. Your claim is ridiculous.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Just because they can, doesn't mean they do. What proof do you have that they do. I.e. it's actually happened not could happen?

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

at least in several european countries they provide that information , for example germany , maybe it varies from country to country but you can assume that there is no secret information in case of trademark complaints

in germany there is a system called "abmahnung" , you can google it , there are mass removals of items on ebay with subsequent legal action against sellers

the TO is from holland by the way , you can bet Germany and Holland are similar

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket...nincorporated/

what do you think about this 2021 legal process? the default judgment was $100k from each defendant. Trademark of M@sha and the Be@r

the text of the judgment in PDF at the bottom of the page

my case concerns another company's trademark

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Seek legal opinion for research and comparison?

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Any idiot can send a cease and desist letter, stop bumping this. Like you're freaking out over $50. $50 is the new $1, you think a lawyer half a way across the world has a case here? Relax madoff.

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

I’ve had a couple of these, all from the states. would it be avoidable to just not ship to USA ?

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

They probably have, in any case in situations like these, you do need to assume they have all the info you were trying to change, and have already handed it over.

Dont log into that account or talk about it over email, and move on with life. Take it easy, dont worry about it. They wont bring you up on anything they cant prove, and even if they could...you wont be pursued because it would cost more to draw up a subpoena for your account anyway, that is why they reached out in the first place, hoping you would be one of the many that will react emotionally and indict yourself. =}:en:

Re: Et$y - Notice of legal process seeking information
 

Why have you replied to my comment?