Got my first ebay auction removal today

[beech1948]

Email arrived at 9;27 am.

Auction cancelled because a company had complained I was selling software they owned. That Co was SKY. Software companies have a contract with Ebay to view auctions to see what of theirs is being sold without permission.

Item was a SKY +HD set top box which was going quite well. It included a card to get Freeview and this is what SKY objected to and claimed it was their card and they owned the software.

Card was bought from a guy who has NO connection to SKY and SKY has no intellectual property in this card. All SKY did was to assume it was their usual Sky card.

Ebay upon enquiry don't want to know.

Sky don't want to answer. They even just put the phone down on me.

Sky threat is that if I take out a complaint against them I will end up with a criminal record as they will proscecute and also lose my Ebay account and be blackballed.

I'm tempted to send them an invoice for time and phone calls and when they don't pay take them to the County Court for non-payment.

All this for something they do not own and only worth a max of £30.

Utter rubbish service from both ebay and sky.

 

[finneyb]

Try BBC Radio 4 You and Yours or similar to publicise the matter - should be interesting listening/viewing

Brian

 

[gregmcateer]

Yeah, and maybe Which, Citizens Advice, or Martin Lewis

 

[RogerP]

I had fight with eBay, Snap-on and Bluepoint a while back. I advertised a tool that was stamped with both their names. To give eBay their due it was really nothing to do with them but Snap-on objecting and forcing eBay to close the auction.

After much emailing and argumentation I finally got Snap-on to apologise and back down. I think it was that I kept at them so much that in the end they capitulated through exhaustion.

 

[MikeH]

Why not repost and in the description clearly state it is not a sky supplied card etc etc. Then they cant complain about that. At least then if they do the same you have something to go on when taking them to task.

 

[Woodchips2]

When my Mother-in-Law died I tried donating her Sky box to a charity shop but they declined the offer because they said the box belonged to Sky and not the customer. I ended up binning it!

Regards Keith

 

[DiscoStu]

I'd seek advice first. The Sky box will have Sky software on it. That is likely to be owned by Sky and I suspect that there is something in their T's and C's that says you can only use Sky cards with it. I suspect the card you have can't legally be used with the Sky software. I'm pretty certain that they protect their IP with the cards rather than the hardware.

 

[Gary]

I don't see how complaining will get you a criminal record.

You chose to phone sky so invoicing them for you phone calls, what loss can you evidence? No doubt they could counteract it with the time you spent on the phone against the cost of the wage they pay their staff. They could evidence a loss can you?

Life's too short move on and sell it else where.

 

[DiscoStu]

I'd agree, life is too short. Better to ignore it and go and have some fun!

 

[Gary]

Yeah, and maybe Which, Citizens Advice, or Martin Lewis

Since when did Martin Lewis give out legal advice?

 

[mseries]

I can't see how one can get Freeview through a Sky box anyway, Sky boxes do not decode RF input from an aerial and that is where Freeview comes from. I suspect it's Freesat from Sky that the card gives and I exepct these remain property of Sky like all their viewing cards.

 

[cusimar9]

I've sold sky boxes before without issue.

 

[Benchwayze]

Okay. I was going to sign up with Sky, when the BBC dispose of the licence, and run their own subscription service.
I don't think I'll bother. I'll look around a bit more.

 

[nanscombe]

Auction the Sky box and privately contact the winner to offer them the card as a separate item?

 

[woodfarmer]

When sky upped the rates for satellite they managed to screw up my account details and billed some unknown person who got his/her money back.They then tried to sue me for non payment, claiming my bank had retrieved the money. Even though I had a letter from the bank and that there had been no demand from sky for payment they wouldn't budge from this and threatened to cut off any other service I had from any of their affiliated companies.

My response was to pay the one months subscription (on advice from my bank) that I owed them because they had lost my bank details and could take payment. At the same time I cancelled the sky subscription and I then bought two Humax freesat boxes. They are wonderful, even more so since buying HD tv as the humax boxes upscales everything so all channels look like HD. The boxes paid for themselves in less than a year.

I do not expect in this life to ever do business with any sky or sky affiliated company.