These American black law firms have sharpened their knives to us, and friends who operate cross-border export e-commerce should know that there is a notorious American law firm GBC in the cross-border e-commerce circle, once it is targeted by GBC, a little carelessness is that the account is blocked, the money is frozen, and the loss of real money and silver is lost.
Before starting today's sharing, please read the following typical cases to have a little understanding of gbc law firm's routines:
Just the second month after the opening of Ali, encountered GBC phishing law enforcement, in the United States court sued us Ali on the website trademark infringement.
What happened: an American buyer sent an inquiry to ask for the unit price, the company salesman directly sent a quotation in the past (the customer inquiry did not have any requirements for OEM, we also thought it was an ordinary order), the customer directly asked to send PI, asked us to PayPal directly send him a bill. We PayPal sent him a bill as requested. The next day of Chinese time, the mailbox received PayPal the notice of freezing all the funds in the account, the same day called the PayPal customer service to confirm, PayPal the reply of the customer service made people very angry, "Your account freeze is that there are customers suing you in the United States, you have to deal with it yourself, you need to respond to the lawsuit yourself, and we have nothing to do with it, the court has an indictment, we can only freeze all the money in your account." These words make us very angry, PayPal as a payment and receiving platform, you can freeze all the money in your account at any time, which is a terrible thing! On the third day, after receiving the court's indictment, GBC lawyer's letter, we tried to contact the other party and asked the other party that our products did not involve infringement anywhere, we did not sell any products related to the other party's brand, and hoped that the other party would carefully consider and directly withdraw the lawsuit. The other party simply ignored it! Note that the opposing counsel replied with the following email: Please go to court. For this unreasonable request, we can't go past it, for the following reason: PayPal "There are not many funds frozen in the account, and it is not worth a trip to the United States + a lawyer to answer the lawsuit." I found a lot of lawyers, basically pay first, and then go and help you deal with the incident. Finally find a lawyer to help you deal with the case, and finally charge a percentage of the lawyer's fee directly according to the balance of the account. There are three options for such an event:
1. If the PayPal account has a lot of funds, directly entrust a lawyer to respond to the lawsuit, indicating that they have no infringement, such a fee is relatively high, the lawyer's fee is basically 400 knives an hour, starting from the lawyer to study your case.
2. PayPal There are not many funds in the account, so ignore it and directly cancel the PayPal account. We chose the second option, there was a lawyer to negotiate, and in the end GBC deducted 60% of the funds in the PayPal account, and we paid the lawyer 15% of the lawyer's fee. The fact is that one of the adjectives used in our title is the name of a certain brand, the product itself is not infringing, the product itself does not involve the infringement of patents, appearances and LOGOs, it is a very ordinary product without any trademark and without any brand logo. Such a thing gives us a lesson: PayPal can only be used as a way to collect sample fees, regardless of the amount (all cases that are not sample orders, formal orders), the company stipulates that the salesman must take the letter insurance policy on the Ali platform, or Western Union, T/T, and so on other payment methods. PayPal is now just a tool for our company to collect money as a sample order.
How exactly has GBC been able to succeed repeatedly?
1. First of all, take advantage of the sellers' eager mood to make money, send suspected imitation brand products to sellers, ask them if they have goods, and say that they need a lot of quantity, the price is good, so that through phishing law enforcement, freeze Ali International Station or other platform store funds.
2. Take advantage of the user-oriented psychology, repeatedly tell the seller that the operation is not successful, need to provide other PayPal account, in order to facilitate the subsequent arbitrage of more funds PayPal account. This is why some sellers themselves do not have any infringement of counterfeiting, nor have they made related transactions, but just lend PayPal account number to a friend to collect money, and then the account is frozen. The PayPal only formally notifies the seller that he needs to find a lawyer to solve the problem, and will not unblock the account until he receives the notice of the court's judgment.
3. U.S. attorneys are charged on an hourly basis, ranging from $300 to $400 per hour. Many of our small and medium-sized sellers simply cannot afford the high fees of American lawyers, so many people will choose to give up, and the funds frozen in PayPal accounts will be cleared after a period of time. Even filing a lawsuit because the amount of funds in the frozen account is too high is not only a rather complicated process, but also the loss of funds is very painful.
4. The last point has to be mentioned that a small number of Sellers in China hold the psychology of luck, often leaving a bad impression on overseas buyers because of selling fake goods and infringement, which seems to have become a "crime" that Chinese sellers cannot wash away. It is precisely because it is inseparable from the "fake" that it has been seized by the "buyer" with ulterior motives and exploited the loophole.
Second, "the body is not afraid of the shadow oblique"
In order to protect our own legitimate interests, it is recommended that sellers who are victimized by "GBC" immediately do the following two actions:
1. Immediately send an official letter to the court in the United States and the opposing party's lawyer (such as GBC) through the lawyer, clearly informing them of the following information: 1) Which e-commerce company you are in their indictment, and your accurate detailed address; require the court and the opposing lawyer not to send legal documents in the form of an announcement. 2) Refusal to admit any offences in the indictment prior to the final trial of the court. Role: Forcing the other party to serve you legal documents through legal channels, striving for your due litigation preparation time (and this time can often be as long as one year) and greatly increasing the plaintiff's litigation costs; and striving for the initiative of negotiation.
2. Send a lawyer's letter to the PayPal company, requesting that the PayPal company protect your PayPal account in accordance with the laws of Singapore and the contractual terms when the seller registers the PayPal account, and not freeze and transfer the funds in the account at will and cause other losses; and clearly inform the PayPal company that if the agreement and Singapore law are violated, we will launch a class action lawsuit against the PayPal company. Role: At the very least, to force PayPal not to arbitrarily transfer the money that belongs to you; and to pressure the PayPal to change the relevant practice of freezing and transferring account funds; and strive to unseal the account Finally, if the PayPal still disregards the provisions of Singapore law and transfers the money on your account, a class action lawsuit should be filed against the PayPal in Singapore, demanding that the PayPal compensate for all the losses caused by it.
3. How should merchants deal with TRO?
For merchants who have received temporary injunctions, active communication and response to lawsuits are one of the keys to minimizing their own losses. Merchants can solve this problem in the following ways:
1. Timely stop loss
Active processing can help merchants better communicate with the brand side and effectively control losses. The first time to suspend the sale of all the links in the entire store, because the more you sell, the more you lose, even if you don't pay, the more you will freeze, and the final loss will be heavy; timely remove and delete the infringing links, do not know which infringements are open to ask customer service; for Amazon ebay wish and the like should be immediately removed from the shelves in time to stop loss, the more it sells, the more frozen funds, AliExpress and Alibaba International Although criticized for not maintaining the legitimate operation of the merchant, but there is its particularity, At present, only the funds as of the date of receipt of the temporary injunction and the previous funds are frozen, and the funds received in the future can be recorded normally, but the risk of receiving the same injunction order cannot be ruled out later, or the court may permanently prohibit the merchant from trading on the platform, closing the store, and requiring the merchant to pay the balance in the account as compensation directly to the brand and the black law firm. There was no further escalation of the case without settlement and withdrawal, the funds frozen on the platform, the black law firm could not get a penny, and the seller could not get it. Sellers assess the risks themselves.
2. Consider the current situation, whether it is a waiver or a prosecution
If the amount of the store freeze is very small, and you don't want the store, you can give it up directly, if you are sure that there is no infringement, and at the same time there are enough funds and lawyer resources, then you can consider direct prosecution;
3. Settlement
In the absence of lawyer resources and insufficient funds, then consideration may be given to entrusting a cross-border agency to negotiate a settlement. If no action is taken after receiving the temporary restraining order (TRO), this is a very wrong choice, because the court will make a default judgment against the merchant, the merchant will lose the best communication channel and timing, the court may permanently prohibit the merchant from trading on the platform, close the store, and require the merchant to pay the balance in the account directly to the brand as compensation.
These American black law firms have sharpened their knives at us, and of course, black law firms in other countries are also targeting some of our sellers. So, business is so hard, do you still have to do it? Do, must do! As long as we learn to abide by the rules of the game - respect intellectual property rights and raise awareness of intellectual property protection.
Lesson learned: The wallet should always be in your own hands, can not be stored in anyone's hands, and every large amount of order needs to be withdrawn immediately. The small order amount should be withdrawn multiple times, and the bag is safe.