posted on October 3, 2000 03:57:55 PM
Hi Everyone! I remember reading here a few weeks ago about the Mary Kay Corporation giving some other sellers a hard time. Well, over the weekend, I picked up a big lot of Liquid Foundation, at a ridiculously low price. I've listed most of in on ebay, and tonight I came home to find a message where "marykaylegal" has requested my user information.
So what now??? Will ebay be pulling all my Mary Kay auctions? I'm not a distributor of Mary Kay, just lucky enough to buy some real cheap. Obviously, Mary Kay can find out that I'm not a MK distributor, so can they really do anything?
posted on October 3, 2000 04:06:33 PM
If you knew other sellers were having all those problems before you listed the items, why would you go ahead and list them anyway?
____________________________________
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posted on October 3, 2000 04:17:34 PM
Seriously though, folks, there are a TON of Mary Kay products on eBay. I'm curious how they are different from any other brand name product which is sold on eBay. Any answers?
posted on October 3, 2000 04:25:43 PM
I suppose MaryKay has a particular distribution process that it prefers to use, which doesn't include selling at auction.
You could write to marykaylegal and ask 'em, I guess.
posted on October 3, 2000 04:28:04 PM
Well Muriel, when Disney can force a day care to repaint its walls to cover Disney character likenesses, Big Corp. can do anything their legal dept. can come up with. I believe you have to be Mary Kay rep in order to sell their product. They even have a dress and makeup code for their reps. Good Luck.
posted on October 3, 2000 04:34:05 PM
<I>If you knew other sellers were having all those problems before you listed the items, why would you go ahead and list them anyway?</I>
Well, I guess because I like to make money. I got them for about $1 each, and they retail for $11 each. I really don't remember exactly what was happening with other people, just that MK was giving them a hard time. Rather than being criticized immediately, I was looking for some positive input and advice.
posted on October 3, 2000 04:42:49 PM
IOW, you KNEW "MK was giving them a hard time" but ignored it when you saw those $$ signs, and now you're upset because what you knew had hapened to others happened to you? And you want "positive input and advice"?
Okay.
Next time, THINK before you buy something for resale.
MK may be out of line in "giving people a hard time", but unless you're willing to figure into your costs whatever it takes in time and energy to beat MK, who's "right" is immaterial.
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Oct 3, 2000 04:44 PM ]
posted on October 3, 2000 04:59:32 PM
I believe that in the other case MK lawyers were trying to find out who gave them to the charity that was auctioning the items so that they could go after that offender in their organization.
posted on October 3, 2000 05:12:02 PM
Last I knew it was still legal in the USA to purchase make-up for re-sale. Mary kay is going after thier consultants. Don't fret and keep selling, if not on ebay then do as Labbie says and move to yahoo.
Good luck!
posted on October 3, 2000 05:49:45 PM
what kerry said.
VeRO folks usually don't bother pulling a possible infringing user's info- it's just too quick and easy to email eBay and have the auction pulled (eBay provides them an email address for this, and eBay pulls the auction within about 12 hours).
They are checking for their consultants selling online in violation of their MK agreement, or so it seems to me.
BTW- VeRO folks can pull you user info without you being notified. Just FYI>
posted on October 3, 2000 06:27:52 PM
I hesitate to jump in on this, but this really burns my you-know-what! If any of you reading this were around during the Jeff Buckley saga you will remember that I had my father, a corporate attorney, come on for a question and answer session regarding Ebays VERO program. One thing that really stuck out to me is this: there is a law, and I don't even remember the name of it(he is out of town or I would have phoned him about it!)that states that when you buy something you have every right in the US of A to resell it! That means that if you go to the flea market on Sunday and pick up oodles of Mary Kay foundation for a quarter then you can put it up for auction as fast as you can type your auction description!!! That goes for Mickey Mouse, Coach, or any of the other multitudes of famous brand names that we all know and love. The problem enforcing this? Who's gonna sue Mary Kay? And quite frankly, Ebay doesn't give a rats behind what Mary Kay's legal department does as long as they stay off of their back!!
So, the moral of the story is that you have every right to sell it, but Ebay doesn't care.
When I first started ebaying back in July, I put some MK items up for bid - gifts that I had gotten that didn't interest me. Boy wasn't I surprised when I found out MK Legal was asking about my info!! Well I did write to them to ask who was requesting my info and guess what?!! Not a word came back to me regarding it. Maybe it's just a scare tactic on their part? I don't know but I was pretty peeved that they didn't reply, that's for sure!
posted on October 3, 2000 06:36:07 PM
You could get inventive with your ad, and write something like this. I have some wonderful, new, VIRGIN products for the face, oKay? This is a foundation blah, blah, blah, a well known brand, and just a quick email will let me tell you which one it is! You won't be sorry you took the time to write! Let them go after ya for that one!
(edited coz I am zoned on cold meds and can't spell)
posted on October 3, 2000 06:49:44 PM
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-1470.ZO.html
Explains the "RIGHT OF FIRST SALE" ... basically Mary Kay is SOL unless you are a distributor with a contract. and there is a Superme court decision behind it from 1909, so they are purely trying to intimidate.
posted on October 3, 2000 07:40:56 PM
I think the person who suggested that marykaylegal is just checking to be sure this isn't one of their "beauty consultants" is correct. Trying to remember the gist of the emails on the Ebay board, but I believe the auctions that were pulled were from the left-over inventories of reps that were no longer selling as consultants and had listed the stuff on Ebay to get rid of it, which violated their contracts with MK.
