Hermes wins in court battle over counterfeit merchandise on eBay

Yesterday, according to this article in WWD, Hermès International won a major victory against eBay France and eBay International, for committing “acts of counterfeit” and failing to monitor the authenticity of the goods being sold on its website.

What I’d like to know is… why aren’t there more court successes like this one stateside?

Everyone I know who uses eBay has been screwed doing so at least once: Sometimes it’s because the item never comes. Or, other times it does come but it sure doesn’t look the way it appeared in the photo or description. Very often, however, the problem is phony luxury goods being hawked as the real thing.

I’ve been tricked, more than once actually. A few years back, I bid on and won a fake Tiffany dog tag necklace. Hey, who didn’t? In fact most Tiffany necklaces you see adorning people’s necks these days aren’t even actual Tiffany designs, as I recently learned from a company insider. Call them Tiff-on-eBay. I’ve also been sold a set of bootleg DVDs and a fake Anna Sui top through eBay.

But I digress. The point is, while the online auction giant’s policies regarding things like false advertising and customer satisfaction have improved over the years—it used to be a simple “we believe people are good, so odds are you won’t lose your money to a con artist—good luck!” there is still an abundance of sellers dealing in counterfeit goods. Sometimes it’s obvious, like that $18 Louis Vuitton bag with the logos on backwards. Sometimes, it’s not so obvious, like the $1800 Louis Vuitton bag from the seller with over a thousand glowing comments listed from happy customers.

Over time, I learned what questions to ask before bidding or what kind of auction to stay away from altogether, but eBay gets new users all the time. There are still too many peddlers of counterfeit crap taking advantage of new buyers. eBay seriously needs to stop shirking its responsibility on this issue and make more of an effort to put a stop to this slimy practice.