Amazon Sellers’ News 10/4/19 with CJ Rosenbaum: Intellectual Property Complaints, Amazon Enforcing New TOS v. Experienced Sellers & Forged Documents
1. IP / Intellectual Property Rights / Rights Owner Complaints by Brands
- Auto Parts & Accessories
- VORYS
- With more IP Complaints, come more baseless Counterfeit IP Complaints
2. Forged Documents
- Fake Invoices
- Websites selling invoices
- Stay away from forged or manipulated documents
3. INCREDIBLE UPCOMING EVENTS
- Oct. 10 @ 12:30pm Eastern time by Seller Labs – ONLINE SUMMIT
- 10/15 in Delhi – India Sourcing Trip.com
- Oct 27-29, Global Sources in Hong Kong
- eCom Chicago Oct. 16-19
4. Get Your Questions Answered – IndiaSourcingTrip.com
- Headed to India – Hyderabad
- CJ Rosenbaum is meeting with Former Amazon Staff from Seller Support, Seller Performance Amazon’s Intellectual Property complaint team
5. New Amazon TOS (Terms of Service) is being enforced against Experienced Sellers
- First paragraph of the New Amazon TOS – ongoing Business Verification
- Amazon is seeking documents from Amazon Sellers to Confirm who they are, where they are located and other information.
Brands are making more and more complaints against sellers.
We saw a dramatic increase in complaints yesterday, specifically in auto parts and automobile accessories. If you’re in that business, you better watch out. IP complaints are rolling in.
With the growing IP issues, the Vorys law firm is sending out what seems to be more Vorys letters than ever. Vorys letters threaten Amazon sellers with a whole bunch of claims. Many of them are baseless. Here and there you’ll see a claim with merit. If you receive a Vorys letter, we have dealt with countless Vorys letters, and I’ll go through the letter with you and let you know whether any of the claims have merit or if the claims are entirely baseless. Also, you do not have to respond and give any information to Vorys or any other law firm that sends you a threatening letter. Give us a call, and I’ll go over it with you: 1-877-9-SELLER.
An increasing amount of baseless counterfeit complaints are coming in.
This is where you’re accused of selling counterfeit products even though you delivered genuine products or you’re a drop shipper, and you didn’t deliver any products at all. If you didn’t deliver any products at all, you certainly didn’t deliver any counterfeit ones.
Sellers get fake documents, sellers are sold fake documents.
We’ve even seen companies entirely set up just to give you fake invoices. It is not a good long-term strategy to get fake invoices. You’re buying your products someplace. Wherever you’re buying them from – whether it’s gray market or not – get a legitimate invoice from a distributor who will answer their phone when Amazon calls. That’s how you make money in this business in the long haul. Stay away from websites that make forged documents for you. One thing you also need to know as well: Amazon has denied maintaining a database of invoices. I don’t believe it’s true, so make sure you get real invoices from wherever or whomever you’re getting your products from.
IndiaSourcingTrip.com is giving me the opportunity to travel to India for the first time.
I’m meeting with people who were trained and worked for Amazon reading plans of action. I’m meeting with people who dealt with IP complaints, who work for Amazon. If you have any questions about a plan of action, any questions about intellectual property rights that you want to be answered from people who were trained by and worked for Amazon reading these things, email me your questions and I will ask Amazon’s former staff what they were trained to look for, how they read these things, and what they want from sellers. Any questions you submit to me, I will ask from people who were trained by Amazon and who worked for Amazon.
Amazon Sellers’ News 10/4/19: Amazon imposed a new terms of service in August.
We have gone through that contract line by line by line. We have now about 20 different videos on our YouTube channel explaining each and every provision to you. What you need to know is Amazon is now enforcing those new provisions against experienced sellers. What they’re doing is putting business verification problems that Amazon imposed upon new sellers over the last year and putting those burdens onto experienced and long-term sellers. What do you need to do? You need to make sure you have your bank statements, business licenses, corporate creation documents, utility bills, leases, and your insurance policies. Have all those documents ready because at any point in time, Amazon can ask you to provide business verification documents.
