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I woke up to a message this morning that eBay has revoked my selling privileges for the next seven days! All because of a listing for lego type tape (Build Bonaza Brick Tape). It’s made to put on walls and stick legos to. And it didn’t work well on our walls, so I decided to just list and sell what we didn’t use. Big mistake apparently.
Is there any way to call ebay and get this reversed? Obviously I wouldn’t have listed it if I had known. I have no idea how to know all the different things that can be vero items. Over the past year plus, I think this has been my third. My first was for using the word “Onsie” in my title. The second was for an “Elf on the Shelf” book.
I’m working my way up to ebay being the main source of my income. I just got over the 500 listings mark and am regularly having things sell. I can’t have something like this happen when I’m depending on it for my income though.
Any advice?
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Sorry this happened. eBay is pretty inconsistent about catching and punishing “bad terms” in listings. As we were told, it’s like a speeding ticket. Everyone speeds but only a handful get caught.
No way to know if eBay will change their mind unless you call. That’s all any of us do.
If they suspended you, I assume they do some kind of statistics between how much you sell and how often you get dinged. If this has become a problem, I encourage you to read over eBay’s list of Vero violations: https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/listing-and-marketing/verified-rights-owner-program.html#m17-1-tb3
This is one reason why we enjoy selling weird, vintage items. They fly under the radar. Selling new stuff has its pitfalls.
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Good point Jay. Never hurts to fly under the radar at all. That also points to the value of having other platforms to be selling on. A sort of self directed diversification program.
BTW Melmn, if you do cross post on other sites, get that item ended ASAP so you don’t get dinged on another platform. Some companies, as reported here on SL several times before, have staff members – employees constantly searching for their stuff being sold by people who are “not authorized sellers” of their products.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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I got a VERO earlier this year but didn’t get suspended. There were 20 or 30 active listings and plenty of solds at the time of removal – mine was seemingly randomly picked out of the bunch after sitting for a week or two.
It’s incredibly unfair if eBay is arbitrarily suspending accounts. Mind sharing more details about your selling habits? How many items? Do you have a store?
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Happened to us a year or two ago with a Subaru hat. Multiple others like our’s were listed. It was not fake, but it was hit as a fake.
The issue was, back then we were doing 30 day listings and relisting after they ended. Each new listing had a new item number. So we ended up getting hit with 3 or 4 vero violations in a few weeks and we’re suspended for 3 months.
After about a week we got it solved by calling multiple times. We got Subaru to say it wasn’t a fake and finally got someone at eBay to understand the multiple item number issue.
My advice is to call, call, call.
P.S tried listing on Etsy during that time, but found that I didn’t like it at all.
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I hear what you are saying, but SL members have said many times before, it is still good to have an almost duplicate store cross listed on other platforms. We are working on our goal to cross list everything on Etsy that qualifies as vintage [20 years old or more] according to Etsy.
That is one of the benfits of using SixBit listing software. One dashboard, one listing location, customize everything to your liking and then the software automatically [almost] cross posts on Ebay and Etsy for you, synchs, the sales on each, and also removes any sold items from the other platform. In other words tracks all activity on both platforms and keeps them in synch.
This is a safety measure that is well worth the price to make sure a seller always has a store up, running and functional.
Mike at MDCGFA
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Amen Mike. Diversification is a good thing. When everything is on one platform, and that platform is taken away…
I still remember our suspension. And for some reason, our PayPal account was hit at the same time, so we couldn’t collect and ship! So we had to use our personal PayPal to send invoices and to process shipping. Now, we could ship manually from ShipRush, but that was a stressful week, trying to keep everything running without making life worse.
So we did photos and scheduled listings to use our time wisely. And now I would do more crossposting to keep some sales and cash flow coming in. Won’t be a replacement for eBay since they are so big and our sales are so good there, but at least something coming in…
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Thanks for all the responses. To answer your questions, IndySales, I have a store. I recently upgraded from Basic to Premium. I am just passed the 500 mark. I list almost daily, and maintain regular sales.
Now that I’ve been doing this for about a year and a half (very casually at first), I’ve learned that I enjoy selling old, unique items as well, Jay, but I still come across a newer item I think might sell well and go ahead and try it. Shoes and western wear are my other main items. I haven’t come across any vero-ed shoes, but I guess I should check into that now.
Also, like I said in my above post, this was a gift for my son that he didn’t want, so I thought I’d just list it, which I do regularly instead of donating. And, no, I didn’t put Lego in the title. Is that a vero item too? My son has listed and sold many Lego items with no problems.
I don’t get why they randomly picked my listing and left all the others. That happened with the Elf on the Shelf book too. I searched and found several other listings for those as well.
I haven’t had a chance to call today, but am planning to in the morning. If they do uphold the seven day period, I’ll just create lots of listings and list them all as soon as they open my store back up.
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melmn:
The VERO program has been discussed in the past here on SL. If interested you may want to do a search here on SL for the term VERO and read over those threads.
At that time I posted the link that has all of the companies that participate in the VERO program. Each company participates on different levels of activitiy and some are very sticky, i.e. Velcro, John Deere [the one we got dinged on] and others. Some are tenacious. We even got a letter from the John Deere Company directly stating we were not an “authorized reseller” and we were to cease selling any John Deere product, period. In my opinion, these tenacious companies probably are very active in pinging Ebay and bending their ears on who they find that are in violation and Ebay responds to those big corporate entities.
Here is the link again and it is a much longer list than one may think.
The VERO stands for Verified rights owner program and the key words are rights owner. All trademarks, copy rights, circle R and circle C symbols that are on items indicate the rights owner. When you buy a song, a book, a drawing, print, painting, photograph, you the buyer does not “own” the copyright and as such do not have the right to reproduce that item in any form any where as a photograph, include the company name for resell unless you have specific written permission from the Mfg. Thus as John Deere told us, we are not part of the “authorized reseller program”. A authorized reseller has to sign an agreement with the mfg. and agree to and follow a bunch of protocols with regards to how you present their products.
As resellers on Ebay we are all just taking a gamble that the items we sell do not bird dog their products on line and that Ebay also doesn’t find them through some sort of search.
Hope this helps
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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Yes, we have had this happen with a few items and it is so frustrating. Basically, ebay had to contact the manufacturer that reported the violation. They requested very specific photos, and eventually said yes, the items were real and we could relist. In both cases, they said that the manufacturer (Tiffany and Fendi) reported the violations because they couldn’t tell for sure! We had authenticated these items . . . so we were sure. It took about a week to get back up and running, and probably the equivalent of an 8 hour workday on the phone trying to resolve it.
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Yes Libby.. and I was just re-reading the VERO document and Ebay says a seller needs to contact the Mfg. and not Ebay. It is the mfg. that a seller is offending first of all, then Ebay is just doing what they promised all the companies who signed up with Ebay’s VERO program, and that is to take down the item and or seller. It is the Mfg. who is offended or harmed [so they claim].
One of the big arguments, even if the item is genuine, is that their brand is getting “diluted”. The other is the status of the brand. Tiffany does not like their products being sold on Ebay, which is seen as a big discount marketplace. Tiffany wants customers in suits and ties and coming into their stores to buy items for thousands of dollars and not on Ebay at a 20% off sale, then taking offers 20% less than that. Also those prestige brands want their prices to be supported by high prices, prestige sales and ownership and not undermined by sellers who don’t know how to grade the quality of their diamonds, glass, crystal and workmanship.
I can see their point.
But doing some homework on Ebay will bring up their VERO agreements and policies. Calling over and over agagin has less value than calling the Mfg or company, tell them your situation and getting them to tell Ebay that the item you are selling or you as a seller is OK to allow to be re-instated.
I called and talked to John Deere directly. They told me what we could and could not do. It wasvery informative.
But we still buy and sell items all the time that could get a violation at any time. It is Jay’s point of many people speed but only a small fraction get caught and get a ticket. All you can do is bear the punishment, pay the fine, and keep driving but with care.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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There are a couple things that are infuriating about VeRO. First, not all the companies that aggressively enforce their intellectual property are listed on the eBay VeRO page. The companies that own the Build Bonanza, Ringer, Elf on the Shelf, Suburu, and Lokai trademarks, to name a few that have come up, are nowhere to be found. And the companies that are there are listed by the name of the company, not their trademark. For example Gerber Childrenswear is there but you have click the link to their pdf to see it is for Onesies. So how would you know? It would be most helpful if Ebay created a searchable list of the trademarks for which they have received notices rather than playing Whack-a-Mole with sellers. It just creates hate and discontent with uneven enforcement and no prior notice of what they’re doing is wrong.
Second, even eBay admits that you can state the brand name of a brand-name product that you are selling and include photos of the item and you can’t suggest or say that you’re an authorized dealer if you’re not. It’s called fair use. And yes there are some caveats but if I legitimately obtain a physical item free and clear, the manufacturer has no legal basis to prevent me from reselling it. On eBay or anywhere else. These companies that are out to eliminate the secondary market in their merchandise need to be slapped.
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Thanks for your response Temudgin. That’s the way I felt about owning something and reselling it. What is the difference in listing the item on eBay or selling it at a garage sale at my home? How come thrift stores and pawn shops can sell these things to the public with no repercussion? Just being rhetorical. Not expecting an answer. 🙂
My New Year’s resolution is to start selling on more platforms!
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