Copycats Who Steal My Designs And Lie

sabrinahchan

sabrinahchan

Member
Nov 21, 2006
320
0
#1
I know this is supposed to be a forum to talk about purses, but I just wanted to share and vent...

I design and sell personalized invites on ebay. And today I noticed that my new designs were being watched. Which is usually weird because they were for different events. So I did a search to see if my competition were watching my listings and sure enough I catch another seller trying to rip off or knock off my design. I emailed her and told her that it was pathetic that she couldnt come up with her own stuff and that she shouldn't knock off my items beacuse I could just as easily do the same to her and steal her business.

Her response was as follows:
Hello, the design you are inquiring about was a custom design for an existing customer who described in detail what she wanted, and I passed this information on to one of the artists that I work with. While your email took me aback at first, I went and looked at your store, and I do see some similarity between it and your chic bride design. I, do, however, wish to assure you that it was not a copy of yours but a creation of what a customer asked for. You must admit that there are many, many bride in white gown with bouquet designs out there. I am sorry you are upset. I will modify the background if you'd like, as I assume that is what your beef is with, as the rest of the design I could find several of out there.

I'm really annoyed because she was inventing someone else to blame and the design in question cannot be knocked off by a description alone.

Does anyone else buy her BS?
 
#3
You can't find out who is watching, but I figured out it wasn't a buyer. The listings were for diff. things (lingerie shower invites, bridal shower invites, and sweet sixteen). Normally I don't get watchers within 1 day for invites. Esp. since this is my down-time season.
 
#4
UGHHHH!!! She i such a liar. She just emailed me again. There is no co-incidence in the similarity of the designs. She tried to rip me off. At least fess up to it.:

I get a lot of my design ideas from customers. My client asked for an elegant bride
in a long white gown looking down at her bouquet with a gold shimmering background
haloing her and stars around the border of the card. You might want to look at
my bride with gifts card and note that the bride I used on the design in question
is the same, only wearing a white gown and looking down. You can see this design
I have been offering for quite some time at the following url:

xxxxx(she just kept the head and copied eveything else of mine)
xxxxx
Perhaps my customer saw your card, but I don't know why she didn't buy it
from you unless she just wanted to keep her business with someone she'd worked
with before. The brides do not look enough alike to cause you concern, but I agree
the backgrounds do, although I think yours looks like snowflakes, not stars, but
I can't really tell... It's the gold (but I see you call yours mocha) and
the placement of it in relation to the bride that I can understand your being upset
about. As I have assured you, I will modify the design as soon as I hear back from
the artist and she gets me the bride sans golden glittery stuff. Also, again, I
apologize for the unintentional similarity of backgrounds for the bride cards.
I wish you continued success with your business.
 
#5
OK see for yourselves...
This is my listing:


*we don't allow anyone to post their listing, nor post their eBay ID. And since you're complaining about another eBayer, we can't allow you to post her auction ot ID either as it's slanderous.
 
#6
Since she didn't steal your image, there's nothing you can really say. They're not the same. They're similar, but not the same. I personally like yours better, though. You do a good job. I saved you as a favorite seller so if I ever need invites.
 
#7
Hmmmmmm.....they are similar in style but honestly, yours are much prettier and more elegant looking than hers.

Looks as if she could have seen yours, liked the style but tweaked the design a little to make it her own. Almost like a knock-off of a great bag if you will! LOL!

Anyway. Don't let it get to you. You do better work!
 
#10
It's just frustrating that she did that and lied about it when i confronted her. I put in all the hard work and someone else tries to profit from it. BTW she changed the design yesterday so it wouldn't look so much like mine.

I hate knock offs.
Thanks for letting me vent...
 
#11
My guess is that she is telling the truth, but not all of it, and that what really happened was her customer liked your design, but wanted to see if she could get it cheaper, so she asked the other vendor if she could do the same design for a lower price, and the vendor said "sure!"

This happens all the time in the web page world.

It is an everyday occurrence for someone to say, I want a website like suchandso.

What I do is ask them what specific elements they like most about the suchandso site, and suggest that we use those elements to make a site that is not only unique to them, but better than the suchandso site.

But some people will just say OK and essentially copy the suchandso site and just plug their client's logo etc in, and unless there is stuff like really uniquely worded code, etc (which some people will do on purpose, to "catch" anybody who copies and is too stupid to tweak) and the person has a lot of spare money to pay lawyers, and a lot of spare time and energy to spend on it, or, in other words, unless the stuff is copied from a huge company, it is usually just written off as one of the annoyances of doing business.
 
#12
Sure it happens, but if she doesn't want me to start knocking off her designs (and I'd do a much better job at it) then she won't copy me again.
I just think she's stupid for assuming that I'd believe her when she said that the design was done based on a description. And I'm positive her business isn't so lucrative that she can hire outside designers to work for her.
 
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