I am a top rated power seller on ebay and decided to sell some items made by Intelligent Beauty on ebay. These items included: Sensa, IQ Derma products like SkinTensive, RestorEyes, Firmaceuticals, Life Without Wrinkles, Clear Remedy, idisquise, Cell Defense, Kronos products like Hydresse Shampoo & Conditioner, K-Charge Shampoo & Conditioner, Phxy Overnight Repair Masque, Liquid Theory, and a few other products Intelligent Beauty manufacture. I took pictures of all items so they were images owned by me. Nothing was counterfeit; all items were paid for and sent by either iqderma.com, sensa.com, or glow.com to my home address.

I was selling these products for up to 80% off the retail price that Intelligent Beauty has them valued at. I was the top seller on ebay on these products and sold more than any other ebayer who listed these products. As you can imagine, they were selling fast and my customers were happy.

First came an email on my ebay mail account from an ebayer with a new account, this is what it said:

Hello,

I have contacted several of the companies whose products you
sell to verify these are authentic products before I make a
purchase. I was informed that the products are sold directly on
their websites only, and there are no other outlets of
distribution.

If the products you sell are indeed authentic, where do you get
these items?

Regards

I thought this was a weird email, especially since the ebayer just got a new account the day he emailed me. And he did not ask about any specific product as I sell many products from many manufactures.
I politely told him that every item I sold was 100% authentic and that ebayers sale their item at a discount because they buy them for a discount. To disclose where I bought my items would mean that he could turn around and start selling the same items as me and any good ebayer does not give out secrets like that or else they would be out of business. I told him if he didn’t feel comfortable buying from me, he shouldn’t. I then blocked him because I didn’t feel confident entering into a transaction with him.

The very next day I got an email on my yahoo account from a guy claiming to represent some of the companies whose products I am selling on ebay. When I emailed the person on ebay, it allowed him to have my personal email address since I never block that from my bidders as I try to make it easy for them to communicate. Now this person was able to have my IP address by emailing me through yahoo.
In this email he never did tell me which companies he represented but informed me to take off my auctions while insulting me saying my auctions were unprofessional because I took my own pictures. He said that I was an unauthorized reseller and if my auctions did not come down, they would be forced to take legal action against me. I had hundreds of auctions up! How was I to know which auctions he wanted me to take down? It sounded like a very generic email because of this and I suspect it was sent to other people.

This terrified me but at the same time confused me. Isn’t 99% of the items on ebay being sold by unauthorized dealers? Do I really need to ask Levi for permission to re-sell my used jeans? It didn’t make sense so I contacted a lawyer. He told me that what I was doing was NOT illegal as long as my items were not counterfeit. Since I have never sold anything counterfeit and had receipts from all my brand new products listed, I kept up my auctions and contacted ebay about both harassing emails and kept selling my products. I assumed that maybe it was a ebay competitor trying to make sure I was no longer the top seller of the products I sold since many items I list below my ebay competition as well.

A month later and less than a week before Thanksgiving:

I got an email from ebay informing me that my Sensa auctions were taken off and I now had a strike against my account for selling counterfeit items. I immediately called ebay. The guy on the phone was very nice but seemed to not know anything about what he was doing. He informed me that ebay was contacted by Intelligent Beauty to take off those items. I told him that I had proof they were real, receipts, credit card charges, delivery conformation numbers from sensa.com proving these items were authentic. He told me that ebay is not equipped in verifying if an item is authentic or not. They just follow what the VERO (Verified Rights Owner) tells them to do. I told him about the emails, and I asked him if ebay requires me to be an authorized dealer as I know this is why my auctions were really being taken off. He said that it is a good idea to check with the manufacture of everything you sell to see if it is ok. I told him that people sell used items on ebay all the time for just a few dollars, if they were going to spend the time and resources to do that, no one would sell on ebay. If I own it, I should be able to sell it! If not, then thrift stores, second hand stores, flea markets and yardsales would not exist. He told me he was sorry but there was nothing else he could do and I should ask the manufactures of all items in my store if it was ok to list them on ebay! I asked to talk to his manager. He told me his manager couldn’t do anything for me either because it was the computer who did this and they can’t change the computer. So I figured I would just write off Sensa and asked if he could check if they had issues with my other auctions. I read him off the names Kronos and IQ Derma and he said that both brands were ok to sell and that Intelligent Beauty didn’t file saying they had any problems with those auctions. So I got off the phone and left up my other auctions.
Less than 1 hour later all my Kronos and IQ Derma auctions got taken off and I was given notice by ebay that my account had be suspended for 7 days! All ebayers know that the best time to have auctions up is Black Friday (The day after Thanksgiving.) Ebay took away my ability to sell anything on this day, while still charging me for the price of the auctions they took down, the monthly price of my store, and the price of all my other auctions that I could no longer sell from. To add insult to injury, they took away my Powerseller status that I had JUST been given and which took me two years to earn! This also took away a 20% discount that I was given when I entered the Powerseller program. Ebay profits more when I lose my powerseller status, thus ebay profited from Intelligent Beauty taking off my auctions. Sounds like a MAJOR conflict of interest. This week I lost thousands of dollars!

So I took some time doing some research since I had 7 incredibly frustrating days off. I learned that Intelligent Beauty has to sign a legal document with ebay and if they know what they say is untrue, they are legally committing perjury. They agree to this when they enter the VERO program and file any document with ebay to close down an auction. They electronically signed this document and lied about me with the knowledge they were doing so. They know my IP address, they know I placed orders with them. They know all about my transactions. It wasn’t a problem until I started to make money.
Also ebay required me to do a little test to make sure I learn what I could or could not sell on ebay. It was a total insult as it was something I already knew as a seasoned ebayer, and every answer confirmed I did NOTHING against ebay policy. The questions were simple and stupid and I had to complete the test in order to sale on ebay again. My 7 days off also provided me with proof of this as I searched ebay rules and found no rules that I could have possibly broken.

I stopped selling IQ Derma, Kronos, and Sensa products for a while. But once ebay won the suit against Tiffany & Co which said that ebay was under no legal obligation to verify if items sold on ebay were counterfeit or not since ebay does not have the resources to verify such things. I decided to watch and see if other people started to sell Intelligent Beauty items again. They did, and Intelligent Beauty did not take them down it seemed. So I listed a few items as now ebay had no legal excuse to take these items down and I have 100% proof all these items are authentic.

All my auctions got taken down again, my account got suspended for 30 days this time! All my emails from ebay were just a few of the same emails over and over again but with different customer service people names as the sender. My emails to them were detailed, offered ways in providing proof of authenticity, and provided a look at the company who had made these accusations about me as Intelligent Beauty is known for their trial offer scams. Same generic email from ebay over and over with ebay urging me to contact Intelligent Beauty and asking them to say it was ok to list these things. Obviously ebay rarely answers your emails by typing a response. I think they have just a click and paste button available to them! There is no legal justification for ebay taking off these auctions. There are no rules published by them that I have broken. What ebay did was unjustified, illegal, and hurtful! Also my emails to Intelligent Beauty never got a response, but that was obviously expected.

So, since ebay is my ONLY source of income, I could not live for 30 days without selling anything. So in the mean time I used my boyfriends ebay account and sold on there. If he didn’t have an account, I seriously would have had no way to pay bills, rent, anything. Ebay and Intelligent Beauty could have literally put me and my disabled mother on the street with their lies!
After my 30 days of being grounded were up, I was forced to take the stupid little test again and got my account back.

I finally got my Powerseller status back after 6 months of having to wait for something that was always mine to begin with, and just recently I got a Top Rated Seller badge since all my stars are 4.9 or higher and in 4 years I still don’t have one negative feedback and never once had a paypal claim filed against me. Ebay has made thousands off of me, and they still side with a company whom I can prove is committing perjury against me and defamation of character since each time they took down my auctions ebay informed my buyers that I was not following ebay rules which is a complete and utter lie and ended up costing me business.
I am upset at Intelligent Beauty for their abusive and illegal actions taken against me, but I am even more upset and hurt by ebay for going along with it and profiting off what Intelligent Beauty has done to me. I am the customer of ebay, where is my protection? Where is someone that will stand up for me and provide me the services promised? Ebay continues to make sellers jump through hoops to make money on ebay, but at the same time their fees go up and their customer appreciation, and safe ebay selling environment continues to go down. This is a place where people go to make money to feed and clothe their families. Ebay is threatening to take this away by punishing us with unpublished rules, poor customer service, and outrageous selling fees. Ebay now only wants big business; this is obvious in not only their payment structure, but in their rules, and promotions. Ebay is not the ebay I loved when I first started selling years ago. I have lost thousands because of both ebay and Intelligent Beauty. This type of abuse from ebay needs to stop! If this has happened to anyone else on ebay either in partner with Intelligent Beauty or any other company, please email me because I would love to hear your story!