7-28-04

On July 27th I awoke bright and early at noon to find my Ebay account suspended, all of my auctions taken down, and numerous emails from our customers asking "what happened?" This was a hard question to answer, because I hadn’t a clue. Well, I had a small clue, but it was still a surprise.

In the past month, Smith and Pooter Vintage received several VeRO violations. If you’ve never received a VeRO warning from Ebay, then you probably don’t know what they are. VeRO stand for Verified Rights Owner Program. This is a program set up so that owners of trademarks can request the removal of items that they feel infringe on their copyrights. A program whose definition I have no problem with, however the execution of this program comes off as favoritism or absentee management at best. When the rights owner finds an item that they believe is violating their rights, they fax a form to Ebay who takes down the item. How does Ebay know that the rights owner really owns the rights? The form that is filled out is designed to assure Ebay that they are actually the rights owner, and the first time a form is faxed Ebay personally calls the owner to make sure there is nothing fishy. Apart from this first and only phone call Ebay states that they are not allowed to ask the nature of the infringement or question the validity and have no first hand knowledge of the problem. Smith and Pooter received three of these violations last month with no explanation as to why the items violated a copyright.

We sell vintage clothing. We manufacture 7 designs and sell them on Ebay. Other than that, everything is a shirt that you’d find in a thrift store or a garage sale. Why would there be any infringement on an authentic item? We ask this of the people filing complaints and received a response from only one of the the three.

I’m a pretty passive person. If we can’t sell one item, no big deal. I’ll move on because I’m not trying to cheat the system and sneakily list items that I know are infringing on someone’s trademark. That’s why I didn’t care much when I received the violation notices or when noone would explain to me what I was doing wrong. I began to care whenever I received an email from Ebay on July 21st stating that my account was reviewed for suspension and while they felt that suspension was not the right course of action, if I received another violation I would be suspended. At this point I got angry.

How can an Ebay program that goes on good faith judgments institute a three strikes your out policy when they openly admit to not obtaining any detailed knowedge of the offenses? Why would Ebay just trust that I’m a bad person and consider disrupting my business without contacting me first? Why is Ebay such a bitch? All questions that I ask and find no answer to.

When I received the email on July 21st, I immediately emailed Ebay telling them to call me so that I could discuss the matter personally. I received no reply to the email and the only call I received was from a sales representative at Ebay asking me if I wanted a to open an Ebay store. No, I didn’t. Several days passed without any emails or phone calls and on July 27th I got the email that informed me that I’m a bad person according to all those silent copyright holders and was being punished severely for it. The official reason given on the email was that I was being suspended due to repeated VeRO violations. I guess the first email was there to psyche me out.

We found secret numbers to Ebay customer service lines and spent most of our day talking to answering machines and Ebay lackeys who offered empty promises. We even left a couple of messages on the CEO of Ebay’s answering machine. Finally by some miracle we spoke to someone who I’m pretty sure had no real involvement in customer accounts, but was nice enough to help us out anyway. He told me he would review my account and take it to someone who would give me a call as soon as possible. If I knew his name, I’d give him credit, but I don’t so I won’t.

Later that day Larry Taylor from Ebay gave us a call. He informed us that the primary reason for our suspension was that a representative had called our home and received information from someone that stated "Josh Gilpatrick is dead". For those of you sitting on the edge of your seat, I’m not dead. Of course I’m not dead. If I were dead, I’d be the first one to know. While this sounds like a humorous little mix up that could easily be fixed, it wasn’t. They stuck to their guns and used the excuse that they were thinking about suspending me anyway, the death thing just reaffirmed the decision. The phone call that uncovered the death card was supposed to be a courtesy call. Had I not been so dead, I would have been able to explain my side of the violation story and clear things up, but Ebay stands firm on a policy of not taking crap from dead people.

Thankfully, Larry Taylor was sympathetic enough to assume the responsibility of expediting my reintegration to Ebay. On the evening of July 27th, Smith and Pooter Vintage was readmitted to the Ebay community but not without having lost two weeks of auctions and consequently several thousands of dollars for the proceeding two weeks.

Thanks Ebay. Thanks a whole fucking lot for being so uninvolved in your god damned customer's affairs. Thanks for not giving a dog crap about whether or not I get suspended for reasons you decide to take no part in. I am a hyporcrite. I hate Ebay and I depend on it for my company’s survival. It doesn’t change the fact that Ebay has become dictator in it’s own internet community. I don’t say this just because of the suspension. I have previously been instructed to not mention God in my auctions and to keep my descriptions relevant to the item. What an asshole.

We are back up and running on Ebay with little knowledge of exactly how much damage has been done. I know that, for 10 days, Smith and Pooter will receive little to no income. We’ve relisted the 180 items that were taken down to all go off on Thursday, August 5th from 9 PM to 12 AM Pacific time. If you want some cheap clothes be sure to check the auctions out that night. Typically when we list an excessive amount of auctions on one night many items are over-looked and some great shirts go for under $10. Check it out and stake your claim to some quality vintage stuff.

Hopefully Smith and Pooter will get back on track and things will get back to smooth operation. Either way I hate Ebay.

Josh Gilpatrick