Seller Facebook groups and industry forums are full of posts from resellers who can't wait to share their thrift store, yard sale and bin finds, complete with pictures and the prices they paid.
Brand-name handbags, sneakers and even Pokeman cards are a few of the items that sellers often cite as "BOLO." (Be On the Look Out). And as often as not, when warned that their pictures indicate the items look like fakes, resellers don't take it well. Sometimes the seller says they'll turn to a different platform or say they will note in the listing that the item is a fake or a knockoff.
Those were never good decisions, but now, they could have extremely costly consequences, including the loss of their platform accounts - and sizeable financial penalties.
Even when an item is authentic, reselling branded goods can get a seller in trouble. An eBay seller told us he owes tens of thousands of dollars because he listed an item purchased at a thrift store that the brand owner claimed was counterfeit.
Until recently, the risk of selling an item picked up at a thrift store or yard sale - or from unauthorized suppliers - was that a brand might issue a takedown notice to the marketplace where it was listed. Sellers know this practice, called VeRO on eBay, and simply continue on.
But now brands are suing merchants instead of just reporting their listings to the marketplaces in a practice that one expert said was weaponizing the legal system.
When sellers in these cases are finally notified they've been sued, the judge has already granted an injunction and ordered the marketplace to freeze their accounts and the sellers' funds.
Sellers don't understand what's happening, and if they don't respond quickly, they lose by default and are required to pay the brand significant sums of money as well as losing their marketplace accounts.
The seller cited above who reached out to us said he was having panic attacks and ultimately asked us not to use his information, but we were able to publish an article about the lawsuits, called Schedule A Defendant (SAD) schemes, because his story has been replicated in thousands of lawsuits brought by numerous brands against hundreds of defendants at a time.
This isn't limited to resellers - brands are targeting merchants on Amazon, Walmart, AliExpress, Alibaba, Wish, and other platforms.
Don't let what you know about VeRO and marketplace takedowns keep you from recognizing this new serious trademark-infringement threat. Take a look at today's article - "
Small Sellers Are Getting Swept Up as Brands Weaponize the Legal System" - where we took an indepth look into the practice, and let us know if you have questions and what you think of SAD schemes.
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Brands Go Beyond Takedowns and Start Suing Sellers
by: Rexford