Am I in trouble?

Ok, so I am in a bit of a pickle. I am dropshipping dvd boxsets, which on the website I am ordering from says are NOT a bootleg. Plus, with the price, I can easily make some profit, right? I thought I would give it a go...

I start getting messages from buyers complaining that their items still haven't arrived, are completely different from the auction picture, and are even obviously conterfeits!

When I started dropshipping back in early May I had NO intention of selling conterfeit products to customers. I believed the website that said the items WERE NOT bootlegs.

Today I get a message that says exactly this: "The item that arrived 20 DAYS beyond the estimated shipping date is an unlicensed copy from some Asian company called Middle Point Amusement which contains only 5 discs. The picture used in theauction is of the entirely different, legitimate, box set of 36-discs from ABC Studios."

Now WTF am I supposed to do?! I have already refunded the buyer the money, but should I be worried about the authorities or something?

I doubt the FBI is going to send assault guys through your roof but you should stop doing business with that dropshipper immediately.

Thanks for the advice Jackal, all business with the dropshipper (a member of this forum) has been halted immediately.

My guess is you're ordering through the china 'wholesalers' sites and reselling on ebay. Nearly all of their items are counterfeit.

I dont think youll get into any real trouble, especially if you give refunds, you drop shipped them it wasnt even like you had em.

Alright thanks everyone, I just wanted to confirm what I thought.

It's a standard warning, something that could be used against you in court if you continue selling knock offs of there products. Dont worry about it...but stop selling knock offs

This kind of thing is one of the reasons I'm not real into dropshippers. If you are going to do it you should always place at least one order with yourself or a friend as the buyer. That way you can see how well the system works as far as shipping etc., and you can verify the quality of the merchandise. All you'll really be out if everything is good is the shipping charges, because you can just resell what you ordered and ship it out yourself.

It's better to do it that way than asking for samples, or even placing a direct order to yourself that doesn't go through the dropshipping system. If they know it's going to you they may send better quality just to hook you more. You actually want to know exactly what will happen with the entire drop ship process, so that's what you should be testing.

In this case it sounds like you might not be out a whole lot of money, but id your not careful and place a lot of orders especially if you deal with any high ticket price items, you could end up on the hook for all that money, and really have little recourse to get any money back when dealing with overseas suppliers.

I'd still give it a shot for contacting the supplier for a refund yourself, but don't be surprised if they are less than enthusiastic about the idea. You may have to just consider it a lesson learned.

ddub1218 said:

I start getting messages from buyers complaining that their items still haven't arrived, are completely different from the auction picture, and are even obviously conterfeits!

Click to expand...

Although the DropShippers provide a photo and a description of the items, you still need to actually buy the item for yourself so that you can take a good look at what you're selling.

In my opinion it is not your fault and you will not be in any trouble.
What do you think?

China = bootleg....just see Chinatown for reference.

Find an American dropshipper through OneSource and file a complaint with your China dropshipper. Keep a record of the correspondence (you never know who ordered from you). Demand a refund and/or chargeback anything you paid them.

As long as you file a complaint citing your customer complaints and keep records you at least have a leg to stand on should anything go down.

you maybe had some headache, stress and low DSR on your ebay ratings,
but as long as you give a refund, i don't think the buyer will report you to the fed

i had my ebay account suspended about a year ago for copyright issues,no questions no refunds just logged in & no account.600 + feedback all positive.i was gutted.got my account back though,most people dont argue if they are guilty,but i do lol.had to upload plenty of id & a sworn statement that it wouldnt happen again lol.funny thing was my whole ebay business was built on copyright issues,so i still have the account but not much cash coming from there anymore

You'll be fine specially since you gave refunds, but you probably should of ordered some of the products to see if they were legit before selling them.

All these suggestions are pretty valuable. As a long time ebay "seller" and as already noted in another thread it's all about customer satisfaction in this kind of business.

Especially when dealing with Chinese suppliers you might want to consider shipping a copy of your product to yourself, just to stay on the safe side. There's no way -especially from the other side of the world- to know beforehand if a merchant is reliable or not.

I'll just put a link here that might come handy at some point:

http://www.rapidshare.com/files/221783735/What_to_Sell_on_eBay_and_Where_to_Get_It_WWW.RAPID-SOFT.INFO.rar

HTH

Ya I always test the drop ship first. But I don't even use dropshipping anymore because it turns out to be more of a hassle, plus the customer will have an idea of where the package was from if they ever want to just order through the chinese company themselves. So you basically lose a customer.