Siglent They filed a "wrongful trademark claim"

[SL4P]

TL;DR
Any manufacturer has zero responsibility for ownership if a product once it is paid for, and leaves the warehouse.
If it comes back in as a repair, replacement, liability or complaint, then their rights are only reinstated by their legal responsibilities - not by a staff error or one-sided management decision/ policy.

[TheSteve]

End of the day they had an item removed claiming it was a counterfeit when they really just didn't like the price it was listed at. Seems like a clear abuse of ebay policy to me and fraudulent on the part of Siglent.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

Regardless of who they want to pass the blame on, they committed, Illegal Price fixing and perjury and is very serious. Plus fact my account has now a violation I have to get resolved due to this crap and can't just easily file a Counter Notice or put-back, due to it was to affirm a counterfeit, which is now a process. I also pretty sure a few others were affected as lack of used listing on eBay. It one thing to make a minor mistake. It a whole another thing to send a DMCA takedown letter to falsely state I had a counterfeit, when in reality it was to protect your local distributors and to maintain a set price, which is "price fixing". Beside just having the listing deleted the fact I could have lost a account due to the nature of the violation, as eBay take counterfeit claims very seriously that took many years to built up and could have resulted in suspension and does affect placement of listings as rating drops down.   

No it wasn't a mistake, you guys knew exactly what you were doing as you admitted to it earlier and pretty clear what the intent was. No where in my listing did I ever state in my listing I was a authorized dealer, or even listed the item as new and used my own pictures and wording, so zero legitimate reason to suspect otherwise. Plus filing a false DMCA claim is consider fraud and perjury and under Federal law you face severe civil and criminal penalties on that alone, not including "price fixing" and then damages. 

[sleemanj]

When someone tries to compete against an authorized distributor (who has invested time and money to carry our line)  at some discounted price, the legitimate ones do not like it and we fully understand that. We can not - and we do not - tell our distributors what price they can or cannot charge.

Your distributors is the operative phrase.

In the US, I understand that Parallel Importing is at least still legal:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_import#United_States

Certainly it is absolutely legal in NZ and even the onerous TPPA is promised to not unduly affect that.

If somebody chooses to purchase Siglent Equipment in China, import it to the US, and sell it at a cut-rate price, that is their prerogative, and Siglent has no legal, and I would argue moral or ethical justification to prevent the advertising of such a parallel imported product at any price.

I'm sorry but the actions of your staff member, and the statements you have made lead me to believe that you think that limiting the advertised sale price of parallel imported goods sold by businesses with which you have no contractual agreement is a legitimate legal business practice.  It is not.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

End of the day they had an item removed claiming it was a counterfeit when they really just didn't like the price it was listed at. Seems like a clear abuse of ebay policy to me and fraudulent on the part of Siglent.

Plus they already admitted to it already and even had the nerve to ask me to raise the price and they will withdraw the complaint. So you know it complete bullshit when they claim they are not trying to control prices  and that they do not - tell their distributors what price they can or cannot charge. As they stated otherwise below.


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Siglent They filed a "wrongful trademark claim"
« Sent to: OldSchoolTechCorner  on: Yesterday at 01:28:53 PM » 
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Dear OldSchoolTechCorner,
Greetings!
Excuse me.I just finished checking all details on this case. I did really not receive your email about this issue. And now I think I could explain the reason for you.
First,we claim it  because that you are not our registered reseller.
Second, your marked price$700 is lower than our end-user price $935.Actually,We have a lot of distributors in the local area, in order to protect their rights and interests, we have to control the  price. And I did't see you marked your item as a used one.
So we affirmed that your item is a fake.

Each SIGLENT instrument has its own serial number. Please send it to us.You can find the serial number at the rear panel of instrument.  After we confirm the serial number, we will withdraw the complaint on Ebay.
And please change your price on Ebay.

Thanks for your understanding.Wish you all the best.
Any questions,please contact me:
#####.###@siglent.com

Sincerely,
SIGLENT Marketing Department

[georges80]

Siglent USA:
Again, Siglent Technologies and I personally apologizes for our error. We were clearly careless in reporting this issue to eBay.
Once again, it had nothing at all to do with a person selling their used instrument. We made the careless mistake of assuming this was a unauthorized dealer trying to sell against our authorized dealers. Siglent - and our competitors - uses authorized distribution partners. When someone tries to compete against an authorized distributor (who has invested time and money to carry our line)  at some discounted price, the legitimate ones do not like it and we fully understand that. We can not - and we do not - tell our distributors what price they can or cannot charge. We do, however, have the common practice of not allowing them to advertise at a price different from list price. Again, this is a very common industry practice. But I will repeat, our distributors can sell at whatever price they wish.

So, it might appear that we were trying to prevent an individual from selling their Siglent generator on eBay but that was not our intention. The Siglent employee apparently thought it was a new unit being sold by a dealer that she did not know.
--------------------
WTF...

The story is a moving target... "Employee" writes in the PM that it was counterfeit issue. Then writes to raise the price (price fixing). Siglent USA claims there is no price fixing, but the "employee" that has obviously sufficient authority to push through the dmca to Ebay states to raise the price in a further PM.

So, if indeed a distributor/dealer can sell at whatever price they want, why is anyone from Siglent even looking at any sales on Ebay? Furthermore, if someone imported units directly from China and wanted to sell them on Ebay why would anyone at Siglent step in to block that? And Siglent USA states only 1 known counterfeit issue - so again, why this proactive stance checking on Ebay sales? Using dmca as the mechanism to block the sales of 'a dealer that she did not know' - seriously?

Regardless of whether the Ebay listing was new or used, what right does Siglent have to block the sale based on PRICE?

No chance I'll ever purchase a Siglent product after reading the Siglent responses in this thread - real bad smell of total and utter BS. Shame on them!

cheers,
george.

[EEVblog]

Dear OldSchoolTechCorner,
Greetings!
Excuse me.I just finished checking all details on this case. I did really not receive your email about this issue. And now I think I could explain the reason for you.
First,we claim it  because that you are not our registered reseller.
Second, your marked price$700 is lower than our end-user price $935.Actually,We have a lot of distributors in the local area, in order to protect their rights and interests, we have to control the  price. And I did't see you marked your item as a used one.
So we affirmed that your item is a fake.

Each SIGLENT instrument has its own serial number. Please send it to us.You can find the serial number at the rear panel of instrument.  After we confirm the serial number, we will withdraw the complaint on Ebay.
And please change your price on Ebay.

Wow, that's bad.
Have Siglent removed the ebay complaint?

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

Dear OldSchoolTechCorner,
Greetings!
Excuse me.I just finished checking all details on this case. I did really not receive your email about this issue. And now I think I could explain the reason for you.
First,we claim it  because that you are not our registered reseller.
Second, your marked price$700 is lower than our end-user price $935.Actually,We have a lot of distributors in the local area, in order to protect their rights and interests, we have to control the  price. And I did't see you marked your item as a used one.
So we affirmed that your item is a fake.

Each SIGLENT instrument has its own serial number. Please send it to us.You can find the serial number at the rear panel of instrument.  After we confirm the serial number, we will withdraw the complaint on Ebay.
And please change your price on Ebay.

Wow, that's bad.
Have Siglent removed the ebay complaint?

They haven't yet, in the process of having it removed, due to what they claimed, sent over documents needed to have it withdraw.

[nctnico]

The person that has made the posts going back to 2013, that your refer to, was a different person. The person that made this mistake has been with Siglent 3-4 months.

So a junior with a lack of english knowledge has to take care of takedown requests on an english website.
A) that person has been put there wrongfully by management B) that person lacks any legislative knowledge of the country in this case (it's a free market and a free country!) C) a junior should not handle legal stuff that can bite you in the ass D) a junior does not work on his own, but takes orders. E) You're looking for someone to take the blame.

Select any that apply - but in this case; just choose A-B-C-D and E

Another problem is that Ebay is way too quick with taking listings down. What if I register a company called 'Keysight Instrumentation' and have all HP/Agilent/Keysight listings removed? I think anyone can pull this off.

[nctnico]

So, it might appear that we were trying to prevent an individual from selling their Siglent generator on eBay but that was not our intention. The Siglent employee apparently thought it was a new unit being sold by a dealer that she did not know.

And who told her that the correct response to this was to file a false counterfeit claim and then demand the price be raised?

You have to love the fact they blamed this bullshit on a woman.

VERY early in this thread I emailed the Kevin at Siglent that was supposibly responsible for this saga, the OP's email was bounced, but not mine and indeed I got a reply from a woman. 

I'm in a position to know a little more than most of that that has been posted and I firmly believe Steve's reply to be truthful and sincere.

IMHO now the issue is whether a manufacurer should be involved in the manipulation of listings on eBay or any other online sales provider. I say no. 

I'd go one step further by stating I'm pretty sure fixing the market is highly illegal in many countries and could result in severe penalties!

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

The person that has made the posts going back to 2013, that your refer to, was a different person. The person that made this mistake has been with Siglent 3-4 months.

So a junior with a lack of english knowledge has to take care of takedown requests on an english website.
A) that person has been put there wrongfully by management B) that person lacks any legislative knowledge of the country in this case (it's a free market and a free country!) C) a junior should not handle legal stuff that can bite you in the ass D) a junior does not work on his own, but takes orders. E) You're looking for someone to take the blame.

Select any that apply - but in this case; just choose A-B-C-D and E

Another problem is that Ebay is way too quick with taking listings down. What if I register a company called 'Keysight Instrumentation' and have all HP/Agilent/Keysight listings removed? I think anyone can pull this off.

With DMCA it a legal notice you have to use real info and have to have grounds to file one, you can't just do a eBay report, or claim. To make matters worst they used the DMCA to assert a trademark claim, so eBay would have been held liable if they didn't take it down. eBay can go after them as well. They have a HQ in the USA.

1. The SUBJECT
2. IDENTIFY who you are
3. EXPLAIN why you are sending a DMCA Takedown Notice
4. SHOW proof of the copyright
5. Good faith statement
6. Perjury statement
7. Electronic Signature and personal information

[nctnico]

From my own experience I know it takes a whole lot less and Ebay doesn't check either before taking a listing down.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

From my own experience I know it takes a whole lot less and Ebay doesn't check either before taking a listing down.

I did call eBay legal team directly to find out details, before even starting thread.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

I am allow to use eBay markdown manager that eBay themselves promote to attract potential buyers. It was clearly marked as USED IN MINT CONDITION, which it was in. Pictures and wording in description were mines completely and nothing copied. Even with all that said, doesn't still even give them a right to go after sellers even selling them as new, so long they don't falsely claim to be a authorized distributor/reseller, as they have no binding contact with them. Sending a DMCA and using it to affirm trademark takedown for price control, or price fixing which they clearly admitted to already, is a criminal offense and consider perjury and breaking a few consumer protection laws.

Even using their stock photos you should be able to claim fair use, but actual photos always make the buyer happier.

The best thing we can do now is to:
1) Acknowledge our mistake and apologize for it. (Ongoing process!)
2) Change our policies / procedures to prevent this from happening again (In progress).
3) Contact the customer to apologize to them (PM has already been sent by me several hours ago. I am waiting for a reply).
4) Regain the trust of our customers (This is in the hands of our customers. We will never knowingly or purposely make a mistake like this again).

I am sorry for our serious mistake.
I appreciate your taking the time to read this.

Steve Barfield
General Manager
Siglent Technologies America

You seem to not understand what has been triggered here, these processes with large corporations like eBay/Paypal Google etc are extremely asymmetric, the end customers will now waste hours and days of time to return to the position they were in before if thats even possible since their accounts will now be marked with violations, possibly permanently and irreversibly. I hope the wrongful DCMA process will be covering whats happened here.

Plus 1

[dadler]

We made the careless mistake of assuming this was a unauthorized dealer trying to sell against our authorized dealers. Siglent - and our competitors - uses authorized distribution partners. When someone tries to compete against an authorized distributor (who has invested time and money to carry our line)  at some discounted price, the legitimate ones do not like it and we fully understand that. We can not - and we do not - tell our distributors what price they can or cannot charge. We do, however, have the common practice of not allowing them to advertise at a price different from list price. Again, this is a very common industry practice. But I will repeat, our distributors can sell at whatever price they wish.

I thought this was associated with your concerns over counterfeit units? (er, a single counterfeit unit...)

Now it's explicitly about trying to stomp out unauthorized dealers?  (FYI, unauthorized dealers are entirely legal).

You guys abused the system. You knew full well that the item in question was not counterfeit, yet represented to eBay that it was counterfeit in an attempt to prevent an "unauthorized dealer trying to sell against our authorized dealers". That alone is ridiculous, dishonest, and unprofessional.

 

[xrunner]

You guys abused the system. You knew full well that the item in question was not counterfeit, yet represented to eBay that it was counterfeit in an attempt to prevent an "unauthorized dealer trying to sell against our authorized dealers". That alone is ridiculous, dishonest, and unprofessional.

 

-1 karma to Siglent! 

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

After getting some air outside figure clear things up a bit. I am not a competitor to Siglent and didn't just randomly decide to pick on them, overblown the situation. I spend while on the phone with eBay legal team, not customer service on the matter to find out exactly what happen before assuming. At first before calling eBay customer service then legal team directly. I took it as 3rd party just messing around trying to get rid of my listing, so the 3rd party seller could sell for a higher price, or eBay software screw up that false flagged it. When I got off the phone with eBay legal team was pretty shock what I just heard that DMCA takedown order for alleged trademark infringement for a counterfeit item and directly from "Siglent technologies co. ltd". I pretty much knew exactly what the deal was and reasoning at that point, as doesn't take much time to do the math, all you have to do is look up eBay search results for sold used items and you will see lack of used Siglent items that show up as sold and the fact when listing the generator I based the price off one that sold 2-3 weeks ago that now magically disappear. I seen one other company name I won't mention here do this before for same reason. It's more common then you think. Then have you ever seen a fake Siglent item? Over the years I haven't known, or seen even one listed at all anywhere and costs would be to prohibitive to the counterfeiter on a low volume item and the fact people only buy test gear when they need it, not a cell phone mass market item. Then the fact I used my own pictures and wording and was clearly listed as used and MINT in big letter, so no reason to even suspect it a fake, or never pretended to be a authorized dealer. So zero reason to have my listing pulled and now have unnessacry violations and restrictions on my account due to this mess. As eBay don't screw around with claims of a counterfeit item, due to lawsuit's and backlash they received of them allowing it for so many years in the past. 

Before the false illegal DMCA takedown order for alleged trademark infringement for a non counterfeit item. I actually bought a new Siglent sdg2122x function generator, as seem to be good price for performance and have a Siglent SDM3055A meter that with the firmware update works well and is now quick. I saw Siglent as getting better over the years and seeing quality of components on the new Siglent sdg2122x function generator in Dave's teardown, despite the oversampling, figure would be a great addition to the bench and improvement over the old model I had. Even despite the dispute currently, took it out of the box and can say built extremely well and quality gone up. Haven't tested it fully. So if it wasn't for the false DMCA takedown order, I more likely would have been a big supported of Siglent, as I saw them improving over the years, at least what I use to believe. This shady tactics they use showed their true colors unfortunately.

That all being said I do know more then one person was involve and a women did sent the notice. The reason why I know it more then person and more likely common practice is the PM's from a different person then the one that sent the notice. Plus the search eBay results paints the picture. Do I think the GM was involve, more likely no? He seem to not know the details which tell me he wasn't informed till after the fact. It could be very well that one part of Siglent, or HQ as I know they have more then one. Then that raise more questions then it answers and is a much larger problem within the organization itself. Do mistakes happen? Yes all the time, I made some, as well as anyone else will, but this was done deliberately for price fixing and to monopolize the marketplace for your distributor's and quite illegal and also perjury due to notice was sent falsely causing irreversible damage to that account and not a small account and pull large numbers, I did over 2100 transaction. Lucky didn't get suspending and banned as a result, as that usually what happen when you sent a DMCA takedown order, especially for alleged trademark infringement for a counterfeit item, as it breaks eBay TOC, then they take legal notices very serious at that point and yes they do give you a violation and lower account standard level and they put restrictions, so it not a simple takedown. So definitely a apology not going to be enough to correct what you guys consider a mistake.

[tautech]

I seen one other company name I won't mention here do this before for same reason.

Name and shame them too.

[OldSchoolTechCorner]

I seen one other company name I won't mention here do this before for same reason.

Name and shame them too.

Auneaudio they make DAC's

[crispy_tofu]

I seen one other company name I won't mention here do this before for same reason.

Name and shame them too.

+1
Companies that do this deserve the shame.

EDIT: whoops, too late

[bson]

Wow, searching eBay shows absolutely no used Siglent gear...

[Bassman59]

So, it might appear that we were trying to prevent an individual from selling their Siglent generator on eBay but that was not our intention. The Siglent employee apparently thought it was a new unit being sold by a dealer that she did not know.

We made a serious mistake and we are paying the consequences of our mistake. I know that this is how the free market works and I accept this fact.

The best thing we can do now is to:
1) Acknowledge our mistake and apologize for it. (Ongoing process!)
2) Change our policies / procedures to prevent this from happening again (In progress).
3) Contact the customer to apologize to them (PM has already been sent by me several hours ago. I am waiting for a reply).
4) Regain the trust of our customers (This is in the hands of our customers. We will never knowingly or purposely make a mistake like this again).

Face it: your company stepped on its dick while wearing golf shoes. And then it exchanged the golf shoes for hockey skates.

You fucked up, and  anyone who comes across this thread while looking for opinions about test equipment will blackball Siglent. That is the whole of the truth. The rest is commentary.

[Bud]

I don't think Siglent America user deserved the bashing , since he was trying to help.

Anyhow, if Siglent is so jealous about people selling used stuff (which is totally normal), then as someone posted before, Siglent products have NO resell value and as such should be avoided. When I buy equipment I always consider my "exit strategy", i.e. what the item may be priced at x years from now. I hate throwing away gear , so it should retain value to remain sellable.

[EEVblog]

Another problem is that Ebay is way too quick with taking listings down. What if I register a company called 'Keysight Instrumentation' and have all HP/Agilent/Keysight listings removed? I think anyone can pull this off.

Yep, welcome to the world of the DMCA. Anyone can take down anything on a US based server. Guilty until proven innocent.

[kwass]

This is a fascinating story and a relevant one.  I was in fact thinking about selling my SDG1025 soon and wonder why I hadn't seen any other used ones on ebay.  Here's my 2 cents on the situation:

.....
2) Change our policies / procedures to prevent this from happening again (In progress).

Siglent, I would suggest that you simply stop policing your products on ebay.  No good will come of it no matter what your policy is changed to be.

...
4) Regain the trust of our customers (This is in the hands of our customers. We will never knowingly or purposely make a mistake like this again).

Wrong, it's in your hands, do something to regain that trust.   Some suggestions: (a) offer something for free -- option upgrades to existing customers, for example;  (b)  publish more internal details of your equipment so that new customers will know the value of what they're getting and existing customers will know more about it as well -- maybe even go back to the good old days when test equipment manufacturers published schematics (OMG!); (c) sponsor a forum where users can communicate with your technical staff and other users to discuss problems with current equipment and offer Siglent suggestions for new equipment.

You have a chance now to fix this situation and move ahead of your competitors because none of them do these things [although Rigol implicitly does (a) to some extent].