Amazon Was Tricked By a Fake Law Firm Into Removing a Popular Product, Costing the Seller $200,000 (cnbc.com)

Eugene Kim, reporting for CNBC: Shortly before Amazon Prime Day in July, the owner of the Brushes4Less store on Amazon's marketplace received a suspension notice for his best-selling product, a toothbrush head replacement. The email that landed in his inbox said the product was being delisted from the site because of an intellectual property violation. In order to resolve the matter and get the product reinstated, the owner would have to contact the law firm that filed the complaint. But there was one problem: the firm didn't exist. Brushes4Less was given the contact information for an entity named Wesley & McCain in Pittsburgh. The website wesleymccain.com has profiles for five lawyers. A Google image search shows that all five actually work for the law firm Brydon, Swearengen & England in Jefferson City, Missouri. The phone number for Wesley & McCain doesn't work while the address belongs to a firm in Pittsburgh called Robb Leonard Mulvihill. The person who supposedly filed the complaint is not registered to practice law in Pennsylvania. One section on Wesley & McCain's site stole language from the website of the Colby Law Office. The owner of Brushes4Less agreed to tell his story to CNBC but asked that we not use his name out of concern for his privacy. As far as he can tell, and based on what CNBC could confirm, Amazon was duped into shutting down the seller's key product days before the site's busiest shopping event ever.

Comments

And whose fault is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Five bucks says Amazon won't compensate the seller for the loss of revenue. But you better believe that if one of Amazon's suppliers did this to Amazon, there'd be lawsuits galore.

Re:And whose fault is that?

[UsuallyReasonable]

I'm not quite sure how stupid you are from your post, so let me pitch this pretty low. If this is one of the busiest times of the year, and the guy didn't make his sales, then he lost a significant percentage of his expected annual revenue and profit, even if you don't happen to be impressed by the numbers. Maybe for you being out $10,000 is something you just worry about after you get done with your manicure, but maybe for this guy it's 25% of what he expected to make in 2017. You might consider commenting on things where you actually know what's going on, instead of ones where you obviously don't.

There needs to be an DMCA review with fines payed

[Joe_Dragon]

There needs to be an ip / DMCA / trade marks / etc review with fines payed out for BS link this or just can only be taken down by court order.

Re:sue for fraud 800K + legal fees seems about rig

[HornWumpus]

You've obviously never tried to get any cop to help you with any property crime.

They will give you a police report, for your insurance. That's all. You can have 'them' on video, the cops won't care. With the narrow exceptions of perps that have already pissed the cops off or perps who are cops (the second is 'danger Will Robinson' for you). If the video is good enough perhaps the local news will use it to get some ratings. You're on your own.