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has anybody been sued?
 

i know a guy that was selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ lacoste clothes on ebay... he was sued by locoste in 3 weeks... he was banned from ebay and paypal and had to pay $5000 dollars...

has any body been sued before by selling stuff on ebay?

cause i also sell name brand stuff... but should i be aware of anything or can anybody give me the heads up... like give me some advice on what i should do...

Best thing would be to go read the subforum here about VeRo. Outright I would not recommend selling brand names. BUT in fairness to you, I am sure that if you research that subforum you will get a good idea.
There have been users here threatened with legal action. I know only of one
user who has had this actually happen. She is tabberone Others have alleged that they were sued but offered no further proof.
http://www.aspkin.com/forums/suspens...hts-owner.html
There is other info there that will help.
Also go to your User CP and put your location there. ebay around the world has different requirements : when we know the location the answers might be better. I would imagine that you have been asked to do that before today?:)

yes, you can get sued if you are selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗. If you are selling the real deal you should be okay.

i live in Florida.. but i sell stuff that is basically the same product how can they find out if it is ⊗⊗⊗⊗?

?Lacoste? The company has been after sellers for quite some time. The staff are skilled at picking up the differences between the shirts. EG, buttons, buttonholes are one part of the shirt that stand out. If the company is monitoring listings on ebay (AND it does) there is a reasonable chance of being found out. Read this from ebay

eBay View About Me for lacoste_alligator

That is not entirely correct. Many of the brand name companies object to the
on-selling of their goods.

well i am not selling lacoste i am going to sell software....

anybody have any advice on this?

What do you mean by getting "sued' , Did they get a letter from one of the Cyber Cops that patrol ebay for the vERO or was it a 'Ceast and Desist' letter also requesting/demanding payment ?.... Also Greenbean is correct TABBERONE has some of the best info you will find .. I got a letter from a company wanting $7500- , i took it to my cousin who is a Attorney and he advised me to ignore it and wait till they actually serve me with papers for a filed legal suit which after a year has never happened .... Also the items i was selling were 'deadstock' merchandise from the mid-1990's -so what oftens happens is the company running the vero for the trademark owner often does not have a clue if something does not look like it was manufactured in the last few years .

Even if you sold perfectly legit items, if they dump a million dollars in lawyers in a lawsuit against you, then you have to do that, too or you lose.

if you are worried, why dont you sell under false address details?

that is what i am going to do sell under new names and everything... but with that way i am going to have to know when to take my money out before paypal locks my account...

yea and it was not me that got sued i dont know all of the details

Coach (the handbag & accessory company) will serve you with a "cease and desist" letter if they find out that you are reselling their handbags on ebay or anywhere else online. They will also ban you from buying at any of their full price boutiques or from any of their factory store outlets. There have been many posts/discussions on the ebay handbag forum regarding this. Many ebay buyers lives hours away from the outlets and can get good buys on ebay, especially on discontinued styles. Coach does not want this reselling of their product to be happening as they say it diminishes the product. :confused:

Coach has computers that are all connected to every one of their physical stores, outlets, and online stores. When you use a credit card to purchase, Coach keeps track by date of all your purchases, styles and quantities. If they suspect that you are purchasing too much and think that you are re-selling it, they prepare a "ban letter" for you and present it to you the next time you come into one of their stores to purchase. The letter restricts you, and any member of your family, for life, from ever purchasing from Coach again.

The ladies on the purse board have gotten around this by going to different Coach stores to purchase and by only using cash. Even if using only cash, Coach tries to get your name, address and email info. So these innocent buyers must LIE and give a new name each time to the cashier so there is no continuing record. Some locations are known to post pictures of Banned Buyers in their back room in case the banned buyer comes back to try to purchase with cash.

Several other stores and chains are the same, such as Pottery One, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel and many, many more, especially the outlet stores. If they find out you are re-selling, you are banned from purchasing and receive a legal "ban letter".

Another problem with Coach, if you ever go into their store and ask to have a handbag authenticated, if you say you got it on ebay, they will tell you it is NOT authentic, even if it is. That is how much they try to control the reselling of their product.

solution: i go in and make a huge purchase, then send my sister to make a huge purchase, then her friend, then her friend's boyfriend, then his sister lol..

i never how far some stores would go to keep their items off the market. they should spend more time finding counterfeits

Isn't what coach does illegal?

I've got the best idea ever.

Don't sell counterfeits! That was a good one, huh?

Not sued. But, I did get a letter from a company. This is back when I had no idea about vero and trademarks. I sell soap and candles that I make. My suppliers have duplicates of the big names. I had listed my available scents. I don't remember who it was. But, it was a perfume company. They wanted me to remove all reference to the name and send them any money I made from selling that scent (which was none). I notified them saying that the reference had been removed and I had made no money (which was true). And that was the end of it.

so did u keep on selling?

an i would not sell counterfeits if i had a legit supplier... that did not charge out the ass

[QUOTE=boxseed;74459]so did u keep on selling?

It was the non seller performance policy and a summer's vacation that got me suspended.

Sounds like you may have been shutdown by Love Potion. They are a company in my Hall of Shame.

That's good information I live near 2 Outlet centers, I will never use credit card again.

you need to make sure the "letter" from the company is even letter. Many times its just someone trying to scare you out of money. Most times you can write a letter back to them (using a format posted online) to silence them.

If you are using a stealth account u should be ok. My advice is not to sell counterfeit vero items at all and avoid all this. :)

If you are selling legit items and can prove it it doesn't matter how many lawyers they have. Right is right.

M&M/Mars served me with a 396 page 4 lb lawsuit and when I fought back they caved.

I know an aquintance that was threatened by a big name designer (LV) with a lawsuit and jail time. She was definitely contacted by lawyers representing this designer and I know she ended up having to pay a fine of $12,000 for selling counterfeit bags. She was warned numerous times to stop selling on Ebay and having personal purse parties. In my opinion, she did no steps to change or hide what she was doing, so she ended up paying the price. Also, she was told if she was caught again they would turn her in and criminally pursue her for tax evation and fraud. I just think the risk is not worth it.

avoid! I repeat avoid! A friend of mine got sued by software company! Totally not worth it!

dang...what were you selling?

hehe i feel lucky I don't think trademark is enforced in my country because There are bootleg bags and ⊗⊗⊗⊗ cloths sold in mainstream shops near me =)
not that i am selling this sort of thing :lol:

Trademarks exists to distinguish brands and prevent customer confusion, but it's use today for completely fraudulent practices. I also sometimes see people with websites that have been around a long time and have gotten popular and I warn them that they should trademark it as someone could trademark it instead to reverse-hijack their domain. There was even a case in Britain where a guy kept tradmarking names of local businesses that didn't have trademarks and then he ransomed the naming rights to them.

"didn't have trademarks and then he ransomed the naming rights to them"
is that legal?

I received a ceast & desist letter demanding XXX amount within 10 days or legal action will be taken. The thing is that this letter came by EMAIL, a pdf file, scanned from the original. Looks legit enough, but sending such a letter by email, has anyone else gotten a letter by email?

I looked up their law firm and they are legit and it looks like they do a lot of work for other VeRo companies.

thanks~

Usually scam letters, I wouldn't worry about those. No legal entity will contact you by email first...

yes, one UK forumer was sued, indirectly through ebay, sold some copies on there, the VERO owner then sent undercover agents to a sale he did at his house of these items.

Bottoms line, unless you are caught in the act, very hard to prove with just ebay sales,

.pdf file is not a legal serving. It is a bully tactic designed to scare you.:ranger:

For all you know, I might have ⊗⊗⊗⊗d up a letterhead from a legit law office and spoofed you myself. Just in case that's true, you should pay the bribe money. Contact me via PM for a more current address where to send ca$h or a blank mony order.

On the other hand, you could simply delete the attachment.

Hint: analyze the email header, trace back to see where and who it's really from.

I received one in the mail first and followed up with an email.

Many people don't realize that you can sue a company for filing a fraudulent vero takedown. Take a look at Bogus Takedowns - Fight an eBay Vero Suspension

smells like a 100% SCAM! sleep well at night....

you would think but some basic google research shows what seems to be a real law firm and also past copyright law suits. is there a way to find out if they are a real law firm?

for the other items i had vero cancel the email from ebay states that they recommend contacting the rights owner, does this help in not getting a "letter"?

Any email contact you should really take with a grain of salt. Obviously stop selling that particular item on the account. But if theyre asking for any money, ignore it. If they were even close to serious they would mail it certified.

The vero takedown+cease and desist email is pretty much like a warning to stop selling that item on that account. Or even on that account in general. If you keep selling, youre asking for trouble.