A large number of Amazon sellers have been cheated! They have been maliciously blackmailed

Domain name squatting happens frequently in the cross-border circle, and many sellers have suffered greatly from it.

Recently, many sellers have reported that not only have their domain names been preemptively registered, but they have also been maliciously blackmailed.

Multiple sellers’ store domain names were snatched and they were blackmailed!

Seller Chloe said that the domain name of the brand authorized by her Amazon store was suddenly registered by someone else.

At first, after the other party registered the domain name, they contacted Chloe to purchase the brand store domain name they registered, but Chloe ignored it.

Who knew that the other party would go even further and use more than 50 different accounts to purchase the same ASIN from the Chloe store at different times.

Since these people bought products from Chloe's US store, the US brand is being registered and is in the public notice period, and the current US store is authorized by the European store brand, they threatened that if Chloe did not purchase their domain name, they would file a counterfeit and copyright complaint with Amazon.

Chloe expressed her headache over this malicious blackmail .

Another seller, Austin, encountered the same problem. He said that his trademark was applied for in 2022 and became an R mark in early 2023. In November 2023, because the new account he registered needed to be filed, the domain name was preempted shortly after the successful filing, and then he received a blackmail email in January this year.

Austin originally planned to use the new account to sell new products. He had already made the mold and the new products had arrived, but he encountered this bad thing.

Generally, the other party will ask the seller to contact the seller to obtain a domain name quotation within 7 days and initiate a repurchase through the domain name trading platform . If the seller fails to complete the repurchase within 7 days, the other party claims that it will immediately file a complaint with Amazon through the independent website of the brand's international domain name and file a copyright complaint . At that time, Amazon will remove the corresponding product listing .

The repurchase amount ranges from 5,000 yuan to tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan.

Considering that Amazon always takes down products as soon as they are complained, even if the seller can get the link back, the sales will be lost. Sellers can’t say anything about it!

Beware of domestic trademarks! They are directly related to customs filing and export

One thing that sellers need to pay attention to is that trademarks are not limited to foreign trademarks. Domestic trademarks are equally important because they involve customs filing and export issues. In recent years, the proportion of trademark infringements seized by customs has been rising.

Recently, a seller claimed that his registered foreign trademark was preemptively registered as a Chinese trademark by someone else, and the trademark was directly filed with the customs, resulting in the inability to export his goods smoothly.

In such cases, sellers often need to pay very high licensing fees to solve product export problems caused by trademark squatting.

Because the other party has registered the place of production trademark at the customs, if the seller's goods are sampled or reported by the customs, they will be directly identified as infringement, resulting in the goods being unable to be exported.

Previously, a seller revealed that a company in Tianjin registered a large number of Amazon trademarks in the country.

After investigation, it was found that the company's registered trademarks covered many categories, including clothing, tableware and tools, etc. Some sellers found that their own trademarks were also listed after checking.

The query shows that there are currently 9 successful trademark registrations, 45 trademark registration applications, and 20 trademarks have entered the preliminary announcement.

This company registered Amazon trademarks in batches. The purpose behind this is most likely to sue the corresponding sellers through legal means after successful registration in order to obtain high compensation.

If the seller is large in size, once the other party has registered the goods with the customs, it may affect the seller's export, and the final solution is mostly to spend money to resolve the issue.

Sellers are suffering from malicious registration, high demands for products and direct complaints and removal from shelves.

Some time ago, a seller reported that his product trademark was maliciously registered. Not only was he taken off the shelves due to complaints, but he was also blackmailed for 80,000 euros (equivalent to more than 600,000 yuan). It is understood that although the seller's product has long been registered, the accessories that go with the product have not been registered, so someone with ulterior motives took advantage of this loophole and filed a complaint. In the end, the complaint was successful and the seller's product was taken off the shelves.

Industry insiders said that this kind of thing is very common in the cross-border circle. Some sellers even have their links taken away after their trademarks are preemptively registered. However, most people will choose to pay to solve the problem in order to minimize the loss.

When faced with domain name squatting and blackmail, some sellers will choose to ignore it, but this cannot solve the problem at its root.

If the seller does not want to be blackmailed after his domain name is preemptively registered, he can perform the following operations according to the actual situation.

① If the seller’s brand’s com domain name is preemptively registered, you can choose to immediately register the brand’s cn or com.cn domain name, and then use the domain name to build a simple website as the brand’s official website.

②Then the seller can synchronize the products he sells on Amazon on the website, and then add the newly registered domain name in the product packaging box and instructions, and mark the R mark and the registered company and address of the R mark.

In addition, there is another method. The seller can prepare business licenses, trademarks and other materials and go directly to the domain name platform to complain and have the registered domain name directly deleted.

The specific steps are very simple. You just need to open the China Internet Network Information Security official website and fill in the complaint and report information according to the prompts.

It should be noted that the information filled in must be true and valid. After filling in, wait for the processing progress.

If the other party complains through the Shopify independent website, you can complain about the other party's infringement on the Shopify independent website. Then submit a screenshot of the processing results to Amazon, and you can withdraw the infringement complaint against the seller.

Since the beginning of this year, the frequency of "trademark domain name" extortion has increased. This is because the increasingly serious internal environment and rising costs have provided fertile ground for the development of black and gray industry services.

What should sellers do in their daily operations to effectively prevent trademark domain names from being preemptively registered?

First of all, whether it is a product you plan to list on Amazon or a product that is currently on sale, one operation that must be performed is an intellectual property search. It is important to understand whether there is a risk of infringement on the product itself, product images, and listing.

Secondly, you should register your company name, trademark, etc. as domain names as early as possible to avoid unexpected situations such as domain name squatting and blackmail, which will affect the daily operations of your store.

The third aspect is that you must pay regular attention to the registration status of the Trademark and Patent Office on a daily basis, and if you find identical or very similar trademarks, you must file an objection or file a lawsuit in a timely manner.

In short, as more and more companies expand into overseas markets, sellers must pay more attention to information related to intellectual property rights on a daily basis to avoid being taken advantage of by people with ulterior motives.

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