Can you believe you can SHOPLIFT online?! Yes you can, and, really, it's just as bad as being a shoplifter in the real world. In this case, however, it's not the customers that steal, it's OTHER STORES. Stealing is stealing, whether you slide an expensive scarf or bottle of perfume into your purse or you download or copy another store's copyrighted images or descriptions.
At 7 KIDS, I take pride in my website. Many of the images and descriptions come directly from the manufacturer's website, however, I do write many of my own descriptions, photoshop manufacturer supplied images or take my own photographs.
Unfortunately, there is a specific retailer out there who thinks that my work is for their benefit. During a recent google search on some of my products, I noticed that my EXACT description for a Sarah Kay stamp appeared in this other retailer's listing. I went to their site and saw that they had simply copied and pasted my self-written descriptions into many of their Sarah Kay listings. So, I took a look around and saw that they also had downloaded all the Robin's Nest boxed dew drops pictures that I had custom cropped and color corrected, which took an enormous amount of my time.
Of course, and unfortunately, this isn't the first time this company has stolen from me. These are not the first images of products they have stolen AND they have even stolen card images created by my design team and customers that I had posted in the store. So, not only do they steal from me, they are also stealing from my customers and individual designers. It is despicable, chronic and seemingly never ending.
The owner of the store also placed a very large bogus order in my store taking a number of stamps completely out of the store so real customers could not purchase them. As my customers know, I accept paypal. If you choose paypal as your method of payment, the order is placed in my system, but payment is made through a separate website. This person placed a huge order, indicated they would pay with paypal and didn't pay. This took the stamps out of inventory, but left them unpaid. Fortunately, as with most shopping carts, the IP address the order was placed from is recorded in the transaction (even though she provided a fake name and address). When I searched the IP address, this competitor's business name came up as the owner of the IP address.
This person is simply the most unethical and immoral person I have ever had the displeasure of having to deal with.
I am not going to publish the store site or the person's name here. However, if you, like me, do not like to support unethical businesses, you are welcome to e-mail me for information on a store you might want to avoid. In addition to my account of theft and lack of ethics, you will also find a lot of information on popular bulletin boards about this company's incredibly poor customer service and dishonest business practices. I am not alone in having been abused by this company's lack of ethics. It is fairly widespread.
I have not spoken out publicly before. However, because I believe good people keeping quiet about bad things does not benefit our community. The internet is a great place to share ideas, connect, do business and explore
and celebrate your craft. But it's only great when honesty and mutual respect
for other people's work and contributions is supported and maintained. The craft
world has blossomed through the internet, and many friendships and great ideas have
occurred because of the power of the web. Let's continue to grow a great and
satisfying online crafting community by upholding the standard of respect and fighting against copyright infringement and theft.
UPDATE ADDED 9/7/09. A few days ago, one of the design team members from the store I am speaking of contributed to this blog with some very crude posts, as well as one with profanity that I, obviously, had to remove. The commenter said I would certainly remove the posts because I didn't "agree" with them. However, I would never remove her posts because they so poignantly illustrate the character of the individuals who would steal from and interfere with another person's business, as well as the independent crafters who post their work to their own blogs for the inspiration and enjoyment of others, not for the benefit of thieves.
Here is what Lorraine had to say (these posts are still in the comments section):
"I think this is extremely mean and underhanded ,,, you are maliciously slandering another company without actually naming them so they can't sue you !! This is unethical if anything is ,,, you are mean and manipulative and I for one will never shop here again and will spread the word about just how nasty and vile you are, you absolutely disgust me,,,
bet you don't publish this comment eh !!
you are sooo nasty and no doubt extremely jealous,,,"
Then Lorraine submitted a comment with profanity that had to be removed.
Then she posted this set of threats:
"I am going to email everone in this post and tell them how nasty YOU are,,, and tell them that you remove comments that don t agree with you ,,,, you deserve to be sued ,,, i am going to spread the word around blogland and the scs,,, will not stop till you remove this posting ,,,, i will let EVERYONE know what mean toads you are"
Then she posted this admonition telling me that if I can't say anything nice...well, you can read it for yourself:
"Ok Tab,,,maybe I should have used different language ,, Did you ever see Bambi, if you don t have anything nice to say don't say anything at all ,,,, I think mose sensible people will see this for what it is,,,,,,"
I did respond to these comments and they are included in the comments section, as well. I hope you will read them. I feel very sorry for these people. They are truly misguided. Rather than taking a look at their own behavior, they lash out at the people they are violating and blame them. Sad...