Hello, I joined this forum to buy a script very recently and have started a new venture for the first time on the internet. It's a micro jobbing site for members to buy and sell small services and PayPal is the payment gateway. Last Friday (19/11) I recieved a message from PayPal informing me that I have a limitation on my account for 180 days (which I've copied and pasted below), So I immediately contacted PayPal by phone and they said that I'm selling goods on my site that violates the user agreement and they can't deal with it on the telephone and I would need to contact them by email, so I emailed and they replied every case is unique and they would prefer to deal with the case on the phone. So I phoned and the telephone rep said that I'm selling counterfeit goods on my site and this case can't be dealt with over the phone and I need to email them, it kept up like that for a few days getting messed about by PayPal. Until I recieved an email from PayPal that I have cloned another website (Fiverr.com) and I thought s*%t. I then emailed the programmer that written the script and he informed me that he had written it himself, it's 100% his property. I then took further steps and contacted my friend who is a programmer and he said there's no similarity with the code, I've designed all images myself and can't see how I've cloned another website. I've contacted PayPal with my concerns and they reply with extremely vague messages, not answering any of my messages and state 'appeal denied'. I don't know where to go from here to get my account reinstated, I've put in a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman because there is no clue as to why or how I have cloned a website, I've also contacted the US copyrights office to see if I've infringed on anything that I'm not aware of, which I'm still waiting for a reply. Is there anyone here that could give me any advice, it will be very much appreciated! With Kind Regards Steve my site is makeafiver.co.uk PayPal email We are hereby notifying you that, after a recent review of your account activity, it has been determined that you are in violation of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy regarding your website http://www.makeafiver.co.uk . Therefore, your account has been permanently limited. You will need to remove all references to PayPal from your website(s) and/or auction(s). This includes not only removing PayPal as a payment option, but also the PayPal logo and/or shopping cart. The PayPal User Agreement states that PayPal, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to limit an account for any violation of the User Agreement, including the Acceptable Use Policy. Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy, or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction. This includes transactions for counterfeit items or unauthorized replicas or copies of items. The complete Acceptable Use Policy can be found at the following URL: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside To learn more about the Acceptable Use Policy, please refer to our Help Center page here: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/helpweb?cmd=_help Per the User Agreement, when PayPal permanently limits an account due to an Acceptable Use Policy violation, we may hold your funds up to 180 days. Once the 180-day timeframe has elapsed, PayPal will release any remaining balance either via bank transfer or issuance of a check. The relevant section of the User Agreement (10.4) can be found at the following URL: https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?&cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/UserAgreement_full&locale.x=en_US We thank you in advance for your cooperation. If you have any questions, please contact the PayPal Brand Risk Management Department at euaup@paypal.co.uk. Sincerely, PayPal, Brand Risk Management PayPal, an eBay Company _______________________________________________________________________
The sites are indeed very similar but I don't see why paypal should care about this. Probably they received a complaint. Maybe the other site has some kind of franchise for their business?
If you ask a novice whether there are any similarities, then i must admit that there are huge similarities and i assume paypal too have only that much capabilities of checking, they dont go into much details and one more thing is that paypal generally dont act much on these things except when they have a specific complaints from the original copyright holder or when they see heavy transactions and check out your website, you can get rid of these, u dont need to change the coding or anything, may be a design change can do the trick.
"FIVERR, $5 GIG, GIGS, I Will ... For, The Things People Do For $5, DamnQuickPay, Fiverr graphics, logos, scripts, terms of use, instructions, designs and other service names are the trademarks and copyright of Fiverr International Limited" The thing PayPal pinged you for is the similarity of your site to original site, plus you have Fiver in your domain name. The best thing for you to do is to change the entire GUI of your site and think of an entirely different domain name which doesn't have a similarity of original site's domain name in it. Then sign back up for a different PayPal account or choose a different payment processor.
Thanks for all your comments! Surely I can't be scrutinized for similarity, wouldn't that mean every supermarket that's set out the same be violating each others T&C's? The name fiverr and fiver are to different words, if fiverr had a trademark on that word, no judge in the court of law would touch it unless I was using fiverr.co.uk or I had fiverr in the domain, I would agree but not with the proper text. It all seems a bit bizarre and unethical whats going on and I'm not willing to walk away from the situation! Me personally thinks either eBay are thinking of buying Fiverr and are doing monopoly to get rid of the competition, which is illegal or commercial bullying to scare competitors to get rid of them because they feel threatened! Has anyone had the same or similar situation that they resolved? Regards Steve
What are you talking about?! You can't compare the layout of several supermarkets to layout of website or T&C. Your website is exact copycat of Fiverr in design that's why PayPal has limited your account and demanded that you remove their shopping cart from your site! It doesn't matter that your site domain name has one less r compare to original site, you're still violating Fiverr's trademark with the design of your website & domain name. If you look at the other supposed clone sites of original site none of them have word Fiverr or a resemblance of word "Fiverr" in they're domain name thats why they're still able to utilize PayPal services. Even I have a Fiverr clone site or script whatever you want to call it. But I don't use any resemblance of the original sites domain name in my own site plus I've completely reconfigured the layout of the site so that it wouldn't be in violation of Fiverr's trademark. Learn Trademark law before comparing apples to lemons!
Hi Muffet. Have you done a trademark search for Fiverr? they're not a registered trademark according to the US trademark & Patents office they may have applied for one after my site was set up which I'm unaware of, so in your opinion does that give them the right to close down companies which were already active? Of course it matter's that it has one less r in the domain!
Are you using Agriya's clone? Just wondering because many of the Agriya clone sites had similar problems.
No I'm not using Agriya's it's another company in the UK. Two site's that own Agriya have had their PayPal account's reinstated, which I've contacted them for advice on how to solve my issue.