When the Corporate Bullies Cry Foul

When the big corporate bullies cry foul over something you’re doing or selling, you and I, the little guy, don’t stand a chance.  Have you had this experience?  (Tell us about it in the comment section!)

I found this out several times during my years of selling on eBay.
Overall, selling on eBay was a pretty good experience, although I don’t do much of it any more. Their support staff was pretty good to me. They always went as far as they sometimes dared to help me.

But then there’s Amazon…

Amazon wasn’t nearly as helpful. Their service was so bad that I stopped selling on that platform. It wasn’t that their staff wasn’t nice. They were very nice, including the ones in China where their software error routed me for months, as they tried their best to understand and be understood. (They understand English much better than I understand Chinese, but that’s not saying much…)
What I found as a seller is that, first of all, it’s really difficult to sell anything if you’re not using a big platform with lots of traffic. Secondly, even the largest platforms like eBay cower before the really big multinationals (like the guys who sell the really, really popular and expensive smartphone, who are the biggest corporate bullies of all).

In other words, if one of these big corporate bullies decides you’re selling something that infringes on their trademark rights, even though you know it doesn’t, you’re not going to get a chance to defend yourself. All the advertising copy that you worked so hard to create will be immediately scrubbed and you just won’t be able to sell that product any more.

I will give you a couple of examples, the second even worse than the first.

(Has this happened to you?  Please tell us about it in the comment section below!)
Years ago, I was selling an inexpensive flash drive that was disguised to look like a flip lighter. I didn’t make much money per unit, but I sold a lot of them. They were super popular, and it was great. I’d been hit with a disabling disease which ended my career, and this was not only a boost for my income, it was a big boost for my morale.
Then along came Zippo®.  They complained to eBay, who told me I had to stop selling the little flash drives. When I protested, they told me to contact the complainants, which I did. I explained that they weren’t marketed as lighter, had no brand markings on them of any kind, and were simply a novelty flash drive. Zippo®’s explanation was that they own the trademark on the shape, which means every bakery on the planet better watch out…
Anyway, when faced with a case where the government is willing to give exclusive rights for a common shape to a huge company, there’s nothing a little guy like myself can do. I stopped selling the flash drive.  What would you have done?
Some years later, I started selling smartphones running on the Android platform.  Sales were slow at first, but then they took off.  People around the world loved the products I was selling!
I rarely sold a phone anywhere in North America or western Europe, mainly because a lot of the technology available in North America and western Europe is ahead of the rest of the world. However, I sold a lot of phones all over the rest of world.
One pretty little unit was very inexpensive, yet had a lot of features and worked very well all over the world. Sales of that one really took off on eBay and Amazon.  Ever have a sweet product like that?

Life was pretty good

I could barely keep up with the sales.  In fact, my supplier had a hard time keeping up!
Then one day, Apple complained to eBay that I was infringing on their intellectual property rights in my advertising copy. eBay support worked with me and let me tell you –  they were really awesome. They helped me get my copy written perfectly so that it would properly describe all the details of my phones without breaking anybody’s rules.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that when you take pictures of your new or used Android phone to sell, if it has an app on it (for example, the Safari browser) that is an Apple app, that is technically infringing on their intellectual property rights.  It doesn’t matter that you downloaded the app to legally use it.   Unless you’re selling an Apple phone, you can’t use any photos with one of their apps displayed. The eBay support team walked me all through this, and I was set.
My sales barely dropped at all, and life was still pretty good.

When everything is going well…

Then, to my utter shock, one morning when I came into my office and went to check my sales, both my eBay and my Paypal accounts were frozen and I was locked out. All the money I had earned was frozen. My business was completely shut down. According to the emails I had from both companies, there was almost no hope of recovering my eBay account (I was an eBay powerseller). I would have to wait for weeks to recover my funds locked in Paypal, plus I would never be able to use Paypal again.
Has this ever happened to you?  Pretty scary, isn’t it?  Tell us about it in the comment section! It’s pretty nice to know you’re not the only one to be pushed around by hard-nosed corporate bullies! (remember to leave a link – there’s strength in numbers)

Imagine…

Thankfully, once again, eBay support staff stepped up to the plate.  I don’t know what your experience with them has been, but they have been great for me.  I had to go through several layers of support, but that is to be expected almost anywhere. The people I was finally connected with were very kind and understanding. It didn’t take long for them to tell me that it was because of a complaint from Apple.
Apple claimed that I was selling iPhone clones, which was so far from the truth it would have been laughable if it wasn’t doing my business so much damage. Apart from being flat, rectangular boxes in various colors with a touch screen, there was no comparison. They used the Android platform, not even the latest version, and they used old phone technology (GSM). They were cheap, plastic, low power units suitable for most of the world, except for places in first world countries where GSM was rapidly disappearing.  They weren’t even in the same market!
I explained to eBay support that there was no comparison between the phones I was selling and the units sold by my accusers. They told me they understood fully and were not disagreeing with me. Then they admitted that eBay simply didn’t want to face a lawsuit from Apple. That was an honest answer, and I hold no malice to either eBay or their support staff. After all, they need to protect their own business from these corporate bullies. It was a bit of a shock to think that there are corporations out there big enough to strike fear in the hearts of eBay executives!

But wait – there’s more…

The story might have ended there. They very kindly agreed to reinstate me completely and unfreeze my Paypal account, if I would agree to immediately remove every last reference and photograph of those little units. I did exactly as asked and was reinstated. It was a bit of a nightmare dealing with panicked customers for the next little while until they got the phones they had already purchased, because literally every reference was scrubbed from eBay, both on my side and theirs.  The dust eventually settled. I had no business left, but at least had the potential to sell something, and my Paypal account.
Unfortunately, I almost got into the same mess just a short time later with Amazon. While I was dealing with everything on eBay, I wasn’t paying any attention to Amazon. Just as I was about to start picking myself up to see what I could sell in the very heavily competitive market I was in, Amazon contacted me and told me that the same corporate bullies from the same big A corporation were again unhappy. If I didn’t pull all references to those same units off their site immediately, they might be forced to take legal action.  Believe me, I quickly complied!

What conclusion can we gather from this?

When the big corporate bullies cry foul about what we’re selling or offering, even though it might choke us to do it, we have to back down. There is no even beginning to fight for our rights. When even companies like eBay and Amazon cower before them, we’re like a flea climbing an elephant’s leg with steak in mind. It’s hopeless and potentially extremely expensive to fight back.  What would you have done?
I really do believe that what goes around comes around. The CEOs and COOs of these behemoth corporations who bully anybody who dares to even try to compete in their niche will one day have to face the music. Many of them already do, paying a heavy price socially and familially.
Your best bet and mine is to try to work in a niche that isn’t already inhabited by one of these big corporate bullies, and then to live a quiet and productive life, treating others the way we want to be treated, ourselves. It doesn’t guarantee we will be treated so well, but we will sleep peacefully at night, knowing we haven’t done any harm.
What would you do in this situation? Tell us in the comments, below. Don’t forget to leave us a link!
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