AuctionCut

We write software for other crafting companies and receive royalties on each sale and to cut a long story a bit shorter, we found out that one of our clients were misrepresenting the sales figures. The company reported sales of 400 units and we have since found out that the figure is actually 15 times that amount.

We terminated the companies licenses to distribute and sell the software, and this is where the problems with eBay started. We have been using eBay for over 5 years without any problems whatsoever, my wife had an account that she used solely for selling items from our shop and my account was never used for anything except reporting items that infringed our copyright (eg: unauthorised sales of our software).

To recoup the development costs of the software we provide to the other company we re-badged and renamed it and started selling it through eBay and other venues. Within two hours of the first listing the other company had filed a notice of infringement using the VeRo system and had the listing removed. My eBay "About Me" page states and always has the names of the software we own the IP and Copyrights to but eBay still removed the item.

My wife, son, daughter and friends listed the software for us and the other company again filed infringement notices which resulted in the listings being removed. We contacted eBay who responded by saying that "as the other company filed the infringement notices then they must be the IP and Copyright holders as no one would commit perjury". We contacted eBay's legal team in Luxembourg, faxed them proof that we owned all the rights to the software and they responded by saying "there is nothing they can do about it until we get a court judgement against the other company showing that we were in fact the rights owners".

We also had to send trading standards to the other companies premises to have all our software removed from sale, they were given the same evidence as eBay but they acted on it and prevented further sales of the software through their shop and Internet. My wife and son re-listed the items and to cut this part shorter they lost their accounts, this was after the other company filed over 55 infringement notices.

I then setup a Paypal account and started listing the software and for some unknown reason my listings were never removed by the other company, so far so good as the software is popular with crafters, but two weeks ago eBay terminated my account because it had similarities to my sons "suspended" account. My son moved back home about 3 years ago, he has the same first name as me, but his banking details are totally different. eBay refuse to accept anything that would prove we are two separate human beings.

We have been dealing with this with eBay for 3 months and they have come to the conclusion that my son is me and he created my account so he could still use eBay. Now, the best bit is that my account was created 3 years before my sons.

So, what basically happened is that my son and our "Shop" accounts have been suspended along with mine, but mine was suspended for a different reason. This has all been caused by eBay refusing to acknowledge that they made a mistake at the beginning by allowing the other company to file infringement notices.

eBay will not accept the same evidence supplied to Trading Standards and we have spoken to eBay on the phone, one response was that "they had spoken to the other company and they told them that they were the IP and copyright holders".

There is no way out of this for us as eBay have done the "right" thing to protect other eBay members, I should mention that we can have our accounts back if we send a signed declaration, worded by them, to them admitting we were in actual fact selling the software illegally.

We are in the process of taking the other company to court for all monies owed to us and we have since found out that the figure owed is in excess of £50,000.00.

It's all to easy to use eBay to prevent others selling legitimate items especially if you have a grudge against them, and once the veRo system has been used in this way then it's up to the person who it was filed against to prove that they are the legitimate owners. This is something that can't be done as eBay won't look at the evidence anyway.

I apologise for the length of the message, it could have been a lot longer.

All the best

Dave

VERO can easily abused by other sellers, especially in cases like this when in the past they've been permitted to sell it. Ebay act on these reports blindly, without even considering the possibility that these reports are fake.

However, it is possible to win against VERO. If you want more details about incidents like your own, check out http://www.tabberone.com/