posted on March 26, 2002 09:46:19 AM
Does anyone know if it is possible to be reinstated after being indefinitely suspended.
Here is my situation:
I have been using ebay for years. I have bought and sold thousands of dollars worth of items on ebay. Philips Corp cancelled auctions of mine using the VERO program stating that Apex dvd players were infringing on their copyrights. I feel that they were in the wrong to begin with on cancelling my auctions. If the Apex DVD player does infringe with their copyrights then that is between Apex and Philips. I did not infringe on their copyrights. These same dvd players are sold by Wal-Mart, Sam's, Circuit City and others everyday.
I have tried to contact the Philips VeRO representive and he does not respond to emails.
We have such a strong positive feedback rating. We are honest hard working people.
We bought thousands of dollars worth of merchandise to sell on ebay and Philips Corp kept us from selling alot of this merchandise.
Please tell me if anything can be done to get one or both of our accounts reinstated. I feel that we are an asset to ebay's list of customers. There are alot of people I see on ebay that need to be gone such as people that we have dealt with that bid but never pay.
WE WERE NOT SELLING ANYTHING ILLEGAL NOR WERE WE RIPPING ANYONE OFF.
Is there a phone # where I could call and talk to someone?
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
Here is ebay's response to me:
In answer to your question, yes, a husband and wife may have separate
> accounts. However, to protect the integrity of our site, eBay does not
> permit suspended users to re-register with eBay, or use eBay's services
> under any account name. eBay reserves the right to suspend new accounts
> opened by anyone in the same household of a suspended user, or by any
> other associates of a suspended user.
>
> The account "customdesigns12" was suspended on 11/14/01 for the repeated
> listing of potentially infringing items removed at the request of U.S.
> Philips Corp.'s VeRO member. When this account was suspended, it was
> advised, "while this suspension is active, you are prohibited from
> registering under a new account name or using our system in any way."
> However, the account "consuellas," which is linked to the account
> "customdesigns12," had similar items removed on December 7, 2001 by U.S.
> Philips. As such, this broke the conditions of suspension. Therefore,
> both accounts have been suspended indefinitely.
posted on March 26, 2002 10:10:43 AM
If you relisted items after being told you were in violation, you are out of luck. If this isn't the case, you might be able to get someone's ear. You can always try selling on Yahoo in the meantime.
posted on March 26, 2002 10:31:24 AM
i read numerous threads on this basically eBay will not let you sell the APEX dvd players because Philips does not allow it.....reason being is they have some sort of hidden menu to take off the region coding....
makes no sense as i noticed these in wal-mart a few days ago....
posted on March 26, 2002 11:06:16 AM
he was initially suspended for 30 days for the copyright infringement by ebay.
but he quickly registered to sell under his wife account violating the 30 days suspension,thats the reason why he is now permanently suspended.
ebay can be very strict ,there are some sellers who never get reinstated and now sell on yahoo.
the only way out of this is to move in with your mother in law,use her pc and her phone line and her id and sell under her name/
posted on March 26, 2002 12:08:40 PM
It sounds like your wifes account was already established before you were suspended? Is that correct? If so then you might get them to listen to reason. I'm not sure, but I wish you luck!
posted on March 26, 2002 12:38:43 PM
it does not matter if his wife account is new or existing,his wife account sold items which violate copyrights.
see this is unique with cyber sales,you dont really know how many people are involved behind the account id?it could be one person with multiple ids or could be one person one id in one household??
you can argue your wife lists the same items because she does not know any better,which makes me wonder how can two persons as close as husband and wife both list same items on ebay not talk to each other??
if ebay suspends the wife for 30 days,then a son in law pops up and list the dvd players,got suspended,then daughter number one will pop up and list and so on and on??
there is a woman who reads these forums called DOTTIE?? May be she can help,this is not a FBI case ,just sellers anxious to please ebay bidders duing xmas season.
posted on March 26, 2002 02:34:21 PM
I remember this being brought up before. The thing about it is that you were not suspeneded without warning. You just ignored the warning. If you thought they were in the wrong, you should ceased selling on ebay, and taken them to court or something like that. It does not matter who else sells them, Ebay told you NOT to sell them, as Phillips was obviously interested in what you were doing. Ignoring Ebay's warning and continuing to sell them JUST BECAUSE you THOUGHT you were not wrong seems kind of arrogant. Ebay has specific rules of conduct that you agree to, and you broke them. Just because you disagree with the rules does not make you immune to them!
posted on March 26, 2002 03:02:42 PM
i agree,ebay owns the auction site and we have to comply with their rules.
we can #*!@ and moan while we list,but we have to comply.
there was a case last year of a disabled seller who was suspended and this lady DOTTIE?? get him reinstated.
so where is dottie now??
posted on March 26, 2002 03:13:10 PM
Happened to my brother and he does 600 sales a week and pays the $100+ featured/featured. He begged and pleaded and they wouldn't take him back. Eventually they did after several months passed, and he's back selling.
posted on March 26, 2002 05:20:47 PM
[b]11/14/01 for the repeated
> listing of potentially infringing items removed at the request of U.S.[/b]
they warned you ,you thumbed your nose at them and they responded ..end of story
why should ebay reinstate you ?
there are pleanty of sellers willing to play by the rules why should they mess around with peaple who feel they can set their own rules
spock here......
Live long and Prosper
posted on March 26, 2002 05:47:07 PM
ashlandtrader:
"It sounds like your wifes account was already established before you were suspended?"
No it was set up after the suspension. We were desperate to move several thousands of dollars worth of merchandise to move before Christmas and ebay was our only source for moving this merchandise.
ahc3:
"If you thought they were in the wrong, you should ceased selling on ebay, and taken them to court or something like that. It does not matter who else sells them, Ebay told you NOT to sell them, as Phillips was obviously interested in what you were doing."
There is no way to fight ebay in a legal battle over this issue. I did however speak with an attorney about Philips. The lawyer stated that if I and two other people would join in that we would have a class action lawsuit against Philips. But again I don't figure that it would be feasible to fight them. Philips probably kept me from making a few thousand dollars. If it really violated their copyrights then Philips should sue Apex for the number of units sold or manufactured and then they would have all the money that is due them. Philips cancels auction for copyright infringements yet they sell CD Recorders. Reckon how many copyright infringements have been committed with those things. I even sold some of those, but I will never buy or sell anything with Philips on it again.
stopwhining:
"i agree,ebay owns the auction site and we have to comply with their rules"
You are right I broke the rules and I feel that I have been punished for that. I think that ebay should look out for the sellers a little more than what they do. They took Philips opinion without checking into the situation at all. It didn't matter that I had hundreds of positive feedbacks not that I spent thousands of dollars with ebay.
Philips was wrong by having my auction canceled.
Ebay was wrong by just taking there word for it.
I was wrong by relisting them after being warned.
Who got hurt in this. I did because I lost an avenue of making money and ebay did because they lost the revenue that I was generating for them.
Philips come out smelling like a rose. They lost nothing nor did they gain anything.
posted on March 26, 2002 06:21:35 PM
"I did however speak with an attorney about Philips. The lawyer stated that if I and two other people would join in that we would have a class action lawsuit against Philips."
Well, if you had a suit worth taking, I would think the lawyer would take this on. Class action lawsuits tend to make money for attorneys, not individuals. I think any lawyer would be interested in a class action suit. If they were completely in the wrong, then I think a lawyer would take that case on its own merits.
Phillips and Ebay may be wrong, but that is not relevant. What is relevant is that you relisted after being warned, breaking Ebay's rules. Doesn't matter that you think you were right or wrong, but that ebay thought you were wrong. You should have tried to convince them otherwise instead of ignoring them and relisting. What did you think they were going to do, and why should they believe that you are not going to relist once you are back on. It seems to me that you would go right ahead and start selling again on ebay the same product!
posted on March 26, 2002 07:58:31 PM
i guess im lost on this one--you own a dvd and you cant sell it because the manufacture says its violating copy law rights? i dont see where this is violating any copy law rights selling an electronics item-what about all the vcrs radios etc
does this mean any manufacture can go thur vero and do the same?
posted on March 26, 2002 08:52:38 PM
Can they stop you from selling your own merchandise. I think if it was illegal for him to sell the dvd's then Apex should never have sold them to him. I thought, and I guess I shouldn't, that once you bought merchandise and had a receipt for that merchandise that it was yours. Did it say anywhere that you were not allowed to sell those dvd players. I can see a vero program where fakes are sold, and also software that says not to be resold, but what about merchandise that is paid for and now you own. Seems to me there is something wrong.
posted on March 27, 2002 05:47:03 AM
he bot them at sam's club.so they are sold at sam and at kmart and other places.
philips is flexing its muscle on small sellers,they cant go after sam or kmart as they need their business.
but this issue leads to another issue which is EBAY 30 DAY SUSPENSION.
seller defied the 30 day suspension and used his wife's account to sell and get caught,so now he is permanently suspended.
i would keep pleading with ebay,wave your patriotic flag in their face and ask to be re admitted to their hall of fame.
by the way,ebay is hosting a pow wow and you get to meet other sellers and chat with meg,if you are in ca ,may be you can drop in and chat with meg.
or is it just for powersellers??
posted on March 27, 2002 06:03:39 AM
Isn't there a way to challenge VeRO? I thought there was a form you filled out & the VeRO member had to respond to it w/in a certain timeframe or ebay would reinstate the auctions.
posted on March 27, 2002 06:21:44 AM
In fact, Philips has nothing to do with this. If you were selling the Apex player with the "hidden" menu, your product is in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) that prohibits the sales of any product that defeats built in copy protection schemes (i.e the Macro buster that allows you to make and sell illegal copies of DVDs). You can look this up on the net to get an idea of why your product wsa *really* banned. The multiregion capability has nothing to do with these ... these types of players have been (legally) available for many years.
Besides, the Apex product is a piece of crap anyway and shouldn't be sold or bought by anyone
[ edited by RB on Mar 27, 2002 06:25 AM ]
posted on March 27, 2002 06:22:55 AM
There is a legal counter notice form that you are entitled to fill out to challenge VERO's in the field of copyrighted music, movies, etc. I am not sure if this can be applied to electronics as I have never heard of a copyright claim being made in that area.
In music/movies, if you file a counter notice, the VERO has 14 days to file suit against you, otherwise Ebay is obligated to relist the item. What many people don't realize is that it is very common for VERO's to make mistaken claims of infringement. I have filed many counter notices and in every case my items were restored to the site. I have even received letters of apology from the VERO's who originally had the item cancelled. They said they cancel hundreds of items each week and mine got caught in the net by mistake.
The rights to file the counter notice are detailed in section 512 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (you can find the entire act online - just go to a good search engine like Google and type in Digital Millennium Copyright Act and it will take you to the link). Fortunately Ebay follows this federal law to the letter in the areas of entertainment. Yahoo Auctions apparently is ignorant of the law and they are currently blatantly violating it (you can read details of that in a post I made in the Yahoo forum in a thread titled "Is it worth going back to Yahoo".)I have filed complaints against them through the Federal Trade Commission and the California Attorney General's office as they are damaging countless sellers with their illegal behavior. Incidently, anyone who has had their rights abused by a company can file a complaint online at no charge at the web site of the FTC and most state's Attorney Generals.
posted on March 27, 2002 06:40:49 AM
rb,
if this is not legal for sale due to the ACT,then how can sam and kmart sell them?he bot them from sam's club??
should walmart management go to jail then??
posted on March 27, 2002 09:03:20 AM
outoftheblue:
"What the heck is "region coding"?"
Motion picture studios want to control the home release of movies in different countries because theater releases aren't simultaneous (a movie may come out on video in the U.S. when it's just hitting screens in Europe). Also, studios sell distribution rights to different foreign distributors and would like to guarantee an exclusive market. Therefore they required that the DVD standard include codes that can be used to prevent playback of certain discs in certain geographical regions. Each player is given a code for the region in which it's sold. The player will refuse to play discs that are not coded for its region. This means that discs bought in one country may not play on players bought in another country. Some people believe that region codes are an illegal restraint of trade, but there have been no legal cases to establish this.
Regional codes are entirely optional for the maker of a disc. Discs without region locks will play on any player in any country. It's not an encryption system, it's just one byte of information on the disc that the player checks. Some studios originally announced that only their new releases would have regional codes, but so far almost all Hollywood releases play in only one region. Region codes are a permanent part of the disc, they won't "unlock" after a period of time. Region codes do not apply to DVD-Audio.
There are 8 regions (also called "locales". Players and discs are often identified by the region number superimposed on a world globe. If a disc plays in more than one region it will have more than one number on the globe.
1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)
posted on March 27, 2002 09:25:27 AM
K-Mart and WalMart (Sam's Clubs) don't give a hoot about anything but making money. They will happily sell these illegal Apex players until they are told to stop. They are also happy pretending to be all-American while most of their merchandise comes from China and the like. They are despicable operations.
It is very likely that there are no Phillips items in any of their stores, and so don't care about VERO or anything else relating to APEX. To repeat one comment here, the APEX machines themselves are garbage.
The only people who would buy them are cheap consumers who want to violate the regional coding on DVDs.
posted on March 27, 2002 10:15:51 AM
RB:
"If you were selling the Apex player with the "hidden" menu, your product is in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) that prohibits the sales of any product that defeats built in copy protection schemes (i.e the Macro buster that allows you to make and sell illegal copies of DVDs).
Who would want to buy a VHS copy of a DVD anyway. If anyone is selling copy of DVD's on VHS tapes then they should just copy VHS tapes to VHS tapes, much easier and same quality.
litlux:
"The only people who would buy them are cheap consumers who want to violate the regional coding on DVDs."
There are alot of DVD players that can be converted to region free. Including a lot of Philips models. Look here for a list of them; http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayershack.php?dvdplayer=Philips+DVD701%28AT%29&DVDselect=Philips&Search=Search
I think alot of you are misunderstanding the controversy between Philips and Apex.
Philips problem with Apex is not the fact that the DVD player can be converted to Region Free or that it can have the Macrovision disabled on it. Philips problem with Apex is that Apex supposedly has not paid to Philips licensing fees for the DVD technology. Philips owns the copyrights on technology of the DVD playere and all other makers of DVD players pays Philips licensing fees to use this technology. I have spoken with Apex and they say they fill that they have paid everything that they were supposed to.
This is the reason why Philips is stopping the auctions on ebay not because they are region free or macrovision free.
This is why I thing ebay should look at things a little closer and try to listen to there customers.
It is absolutely ridiculous that Philips can halt all auctions of Apex dvd players because Apex has not paid them some fees. Apex has already sold the unit to Sam's and Sam's has sold it to me, but I can not sell it on ebay.
Philips needs to go after Apex not little sellers on ebay.
Thanks again for the comments.
I really wished I knew how to get back on ebay. I would definately not sell anymore Apex DVD players even though I should be able to.
I have sent multiple emails to Philips but they don't respond. I have sent multiple emails to Ebay and they say they can not get into the middle of it. They can only take Philips word for it.
This is from a person who also got their auctions cancelled by ebay:
[Post] Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2002 3:52 am Post subject: eBAY/Phillips Cancellation of APEX sales
I'm the one who got this thread started when my auctions were cancelled by eBAY . I challenged Phillips America on their authority to do it, and I WON! The basis of the challenge is that their action is capricious and discriminatory. There are millions of APEX machines being sold in the US and elsewhere as they have for several years. Phillips ingorance of these sales and failure to take action for so long, negates their ability to now decide to force sales of such devices to be stopped, and ONLY on eBAY.
If you get an auction pulled by PhillipseBAY , exercise your right to CHALLENGE their action. You do it by filing a "Counter-Notice Regarding Removed Listing", which you obtain from eBAY 's customer service department. When you file it, Phillips will be given 14 days in which to either get a court order prohibiting the sale, or they will back off. They will NOT get the order. At the end of 14 days, you can RELIST your item and sell it. Be SURE you note in the discription that it is a RELIST of a previously removed item pursuant to your counter-notice request.
I relisted my AD600A this way, and it sold within 24 hours. I have the approved document from eBAY in my posession and I now defy either them or Phillips to try and take any action on the matter.
If you want a copy of what I wrote in the brief, contact me via email, and I'll send it to you so you can include it in your own challenge to them. If we overwhelm the suckers, they will back-off or will try and stop ALL sales EVERYWHERE, which ain't gonna happen!
Please keep us updated on how this turns out.
[ edited by professorhiggins on Mar 27, 2002 10:30 AM ]
posted on March 27, 2002 10:54:38 AM
This may solver the philips vs apex issue,but would ebay forgive him for defying 30 days suspension ??
during that 30 days,he set up an account under his wife name and started selling.
thats how he got permanently suspended.
with all these big time crooks on ebay running off with lot of money ,i think ebay should let him back.
does anyone have DOTTIE 's email address,i think it is posted somewhere last year??
dottie always started by saying OH DEAR,GIVE ME your USER ID AND I WILL SEE WHAT I CAN DO.
and she does produce results.
posted on March 27, 2002 10:56:59 AM
Sam's and WalMart et al were given an order to remove all of these "special" players from their shelves when the DMCA came into effect. Those in-the-know will recall some of the ridiculous prices these were getting on eBay (over $600.00 at one point). eBay followed suit when they were told to end all listings for these players.
The APEX players you see in the stores now may look the same but they do not have the "hidden" menu features.
posted on March 27, 2002 11:51:46 AM
Which is true?
Well, you have a couple of ways to check that. You can go to the Department of Justice website and check out the wording of the DMCA, or you can simply contact Sam's and ask them. You may also want to contact eBay and get their POV.
For the person who wonders why anyone would make a boot from DVD to tape, I wonder too. Fact is, it happens so much that organizations like the MPAA spend a lot of time and effort tracking down the varmits who do this.
You may also be interested to know that the sales of GO Video Dual VCRs that can "copy any tape" was also stopped by the DMC Act. GO Video is no longer able to manufacture these Macro busting units. Many dealers had to send their inventory back to have it "remanufactured" to comply with the law. Check their website FAQ to see what I mean ...
posted on March 27, 2002 05:47:35 PM
Although this thread is intended to be about how eBay runs it's VERO program, the real issue here is starting a new ID to sell under once suspended. You can argue until your blue in the face, you can get a lawyer and WIN your case against Phillips and even if you were given exclusive rights to sell this Apex unit by both Phillips and Apex you would still be suspended indefinately!
Your "sin" was starting to sell under another ID while suspended. A big NO NO clearly stated on eBays site and of course it's been harped upon here more than once.
All the stuff about Phillips, Apex and the Vero program which got you originally suspended is now incidental.
Perhaps you could plead your case with eBay by assuring them that you will never do anything again, that could remotely be considered against any of their TOS and if there is any "confusion" or lack of complete understanding on your part as to eBay's definitions or TOS, you will get permission from eBay before listing.
It's kinda "hokie" I know, but if you had a thriving business and eBay was making good money off of you and you had very few complaints from customers, maybe they can be persuaded. eBay does like making money.
posted on March 27, 2002 06:02:32 PM
Just one question, if you were reinstated, would you start selling the same product that ebay told you not to sell?
. Players and discs are often identified by the region number superimposed on a world globe. If a disc plays in more than one region it will have more than one number on the globe.