Warning: 5,000 sellers were scammed, and some lost up to 1 million

While Temu sellers were still struggling with the contradiction between low price and quality, a large number of people encountered new troubles.

Frisbee, a popular product on Temu, has been targeted by a rogue law firm. 5,000 sellers have been sued so far. Some of them received thousands of orders a day and could receive up to 1 million yuan in monthly payments. Now their funds have been frozen and they cannot withdraw cash normally.

Temu was also sued along with the sellers . Unlike the infringement cases involving sellers on Amazon, eBay and other platforms, Temu was the seller this time, while the platform sellers believed that they were just suppliers. The lawsuit between the law firm, the platform and the sellers seems to be in a stalemate. Who is specifically responsible and how should it be resolved?

Hot seller sues Temu for infringement, 5,000 sellers affected

Recently, Temu seller Wang Zhiwei suddenly discovered a terrible phenomenon: his store selling groceries was restricted from withdrawing money, but the reason for the restriction was not explained. He then contacted the platform's buyer, one of the products in the defendant's store was sued for infringement, and sent the information, asking whether he wanted to settle?

The infringing product involved in this case is the popular Frisbee flying disc. According to Wang Zhiwei, the sellers on the Temu platform are only suppliers and are not involved in operations. When translating the titles of flying discs, the platform used the word Frisbee, which was a trademark applied for by someone else. As a result, all the stores on the platform containing Frisbee were sued.

" The list of defendants has been circulated. There are 500 pages in total, with 10 companies on each page, which means that we know of 5,000 sellers ," Wang Zhiwei explained.

The Temu sellers that were hacked this time affected a wide range of people for the following two reasons:

First: Frisbee is a hit product. Whether on Temu or other platforms, Frisbees are very popular, and the search popularity of the keyword "Frisbee" is also high. According to Wang Zhiwei's observation, the top Frisbee sellers on Temu sell about 3,000 to 4,000 orders a day;

Second, there are many Frisbee sellers on the platform. Temu is different from Amazon, which has strict category restrictions. Frisbee can sell in multiple categories such as home, outdoor, and groceries. The platform does not review the relevance of categories, so Frisbees are sold in multiple categories.

This infringement case not only affected a wide range of people, but also caused heavy losses to some of the sellers affected.

After the product was sued, the sellers' store funds were frozen and they could not withdraw cash normally. As for Wang Zhiwei himself, he only sold less than 20 frisbees , which is almost negligible, but the store also sells other products. The payment was delayed for about a month, and about 100,000 yuan of funds were frozen.

Wang Zhiwei did some calculations. For example, the top Frisbee sellers sell 3,000 to 4,000 orders a day. Based on the supply price of 15 yuan per Frisbee, their daily turnover is 40,000 to 50,000 yuan. The payment cycle is about 30 days, which must be more than 1 million yuan . In other words, if we only count one Frisbee product, the funds frozen in the top sellers' stores exceed 1 million yuan.

Who is responsible? Infringement handling is stuck in a stalemate

At present, Temu has taken the initiative to remove the relevant infringing products . The platform has created a group for all the sued sellers and organized them together.

In the group, the platform @ all sellers’ information includes: 1. Rectify the links containing the word Frisbee; 2. Prohibit the use of Frisbee while the case is pending/unauthorized; 3. Give the plaintiff information, and if any merchant wants to negotiate a solution, they can contact them.

" The platform's intention is for us sellers to settle the issue ourselves, but this word was not written by us, and it has nothing to do with the sellers. We did not fill in a single letter. And in principle, we are just suppliers. " Wang Zhiwei objected to the platform's current handling attitude.

Like him, some of the other defendants have the same doubts. Some sellers with smaller losses prefer to wait for the platform to handle the situation, but some big sellers with larger losses are actively following the progress of the incident and prefer to reach a settlement as soon as possible.

"I saw that some people were very anxious. It must have had a big impact on them. I don't mainly sell frisbees. I just posted a link and the sales are not very good. I don't have much inventory. It doesn't matter if I dispose of it or get fined, but the attitude of the top sellers is obviously different." Wang Zhiwei introduced.

Wang Zhiwei said that the Temu platform was also sued along with the sellers . This is probably the first time the platform has encountered such a large-scale infringement case, and the current investment manager does not know how to solve it. Many of Temu's sellers are different from those on Amazon and other platforms. Most of them come from factories and do not understand operations, and have no experience in dealing with infringement issues.

When the investment manager consulted about the matter, an experienced seller proposed a solution in the group, which roughly included three points:

1. The other party is a law firm, and it is definitely difficult for the seller to solve this problem on his own;

2. After Temu organizes the sellers, it can negotiate with the other party on their behalf. After the negotiation, Temu will bear part of the compensation and the seller group will bear part of the compensation.

3. The share of the seller group is allocated according to the proportion of everyone’s turnover.

Temu platform has not responded with any solution. In Wang Zhiwei's opinion, many sellers should wait for the platform to handle it like himself, or wait to see how the top sellers handle it. In the end, if the sellers do not solve the problem, Temu will also solve it.

According to information from Temu, the law firm that sued Frisbee for infringement is Keith, which is familiar to cross-border sellers. Frisbee is a legal and valid registered trademark. As early as 2018, Keith was commissioned to protect its rights. In the past six years, a total of 25 cases have been filed, and the number has increased in the past two years.

In April 2023, the Frisbee rights protection case broke out, affecting multiple e-commerce platforms including Amazon, eBay, Wish, etc. More than thousands of Chinese sellers’ stores were sued for trademark infringement in the Illinois District Court, and their accounts and funds were frozen.

It is understood that Frisbee was registered and used as a trademark long before it even meant flying disc. The Trademark Law stipulates that when a trademark becomes a generic name for a product during use, any individual can file a claim that the trademark is invalid on the grounds that the trademark has become a generic name.

On August 9, 2022, a Shenzhen company filed a cancellation application for the trademark. On April 26, 2023, the Shenzhen company withdrew the cancellation application and reached a settlement with the plaintiff. The Frisbee trademark is still a legal and valid trademark.

When facing infringement defendants, Chinese sellers generally deal with small settlements and large lawsuits . In the past few years, there have been few defendants in Frisbee cases, which has also increased the arrogance of some rogue law firms.

"This rogue law firm is very famous. In fact, it has already sued sellers on Amazon, eBay and other platforms. Temu is a new platform, but it has not escaped the fate of being sued!" Wang Zhiwei sighed. Will Temu platform respond to the lawsuit on behalf of the sellers in the end? The final outcome of the case is always on the minds of 5,000 sellers.

(Wang Zhiwei is a pseudonym in this article)

Seller

Loss of 1 million