VeRO check tool: how brand matching works, what to do with a hit and how to keep the list current

What does a VeRO check tool actually do?

A VeRO check tool screens your eBay listings for brands and names whose rights owners report listings to eBay. VeRO, the Verified Rights Owner programme, lets intellectual property rights owners report listings that infringe their rights. If eBay agrees, it may remove the listing, issue a warning, restrict your account or suspend it. A VeRO check tool compares your title, item specifics and sometimes description against a list of such brands and names, and flags matches before you publish, or on listings that are already live.

That makes it a useful first filter. It is not a legal check, and it cannot tell you whether a particular item is genuine or whether you may sell it. This guide explains how the matching works, why it gets things wrong in both directions, and what to do with each hit.

Where does a VeRO check tool's brand list come from?

The list is the heart of any VeRO check tool, and its quality decides how useful the tool is. Lists are usually built from some mix of:

• Known reporting rights owners: brands that are widely known to report eBay listings.
• Takedowns: when a listing is removed, the brand and the rights owner named in eBay's removal email can be added, so the same mistake is not repeated.
• Your own additions: brands you decide never to list, whatever anyone else does.
• Related names: sub-brands, product lines, character names and common misspellings that belong to the same rights owner.

Ask any vendor how the list is built, how often it is updated, and whether you can add and remove entries for your own account. A list that never changes falls behind quickly.

How does brand matching work, and where does it go wrong?

Most tools search for each listed name in the listing's text. The details of that search decide how many real problems are caught and how many harmless listings are flagged.

Where it looks

• Brand item specific: the most reliable place. If the brand field says a listed brand, the match is real.
• Title: catches brand names used as keywords or comparisons.
• Description: catches "compatible with" and "like" lines, but also produces more false hits.

False hits: harmless listings flagged

A brand that is also an ordinary word, such as a fruit, a colour or a place, matches many listings that have nothing to do with it. Good tools match whole words, treat a brand in the brand field differently from the same word in a description, and let you mark a match as reviewed so it does not come back.

Misses: real problems not flagged

• Misspellings and spacing. A brand written with a space, a hyphen or one letter changed slips past exact matching.
• Characters and franchises. A listing for a toy or a costume may never name the company that owns the character.
• Logos and designs. A print of a famous logo on a mug or a T-shirt is a rights issue, but there is no brand word in the text to match.
• Photos and descriptions copied from others. Copyright in images and text belongs to whoever created them, and no brand list detects it.

So a clean screen means no listed name was found in the text. It does not mean the listing is safe.

What should you do when the tool flags a listing?

Treat every hit as a question for a person, not a decision for the tool.

1. Is the item that brand? If yes, confirm it is genuine and that you have a source you can show. If you cannot, do not list it.
2. Is the brand only in the wording? Remove brand names used as keywords or comparisons. eBay notes that if only the way an item is listed infringes, the seller may be able to edit the listing.
3. Is it a true compatibility statement? "Fits model X" for a genuine spare part is a fact; keep it short and accurate.
4. Is it a false hit? Mark it reviewed so the tool stops flagging it.
5. Record the decision. A note of why you listed or did not list helps you be consistent and helps if you are ever asked.

For a full pre-listing routine, see our guide to doing an eBay VeRO brand check.

Which product types need the closest screening?

Some kinds of products draw rights reports far more often than others, because they trade on a brand, a character or a design. For these, set your tool to its strictest matching and add your own manual check.

• Phone and tablet accessories. Cases, chargers and cables are often listed with device brands in the title. Keep compatibility lines factual, and never imply the accessory is made by the device maker.
• Toys, costumes and party goods. Characters from films, games and television are protected even when the company is never named.
• Fashion, bags and accessories. Brand names, logos and distinctive patterns are all protected, and "inspired by" wording does not help.
• Printer consumables and spare parts. "Compatible" is a fact claim; the original maker's name should appear only to state what it fits.
• Sports and team merchandise. Club names, crests and kits belong to their owners.
• Prints, posters and anything with artwork. The image itself may be someone else's copyright.

If a product in one of these groups is cheap from an unknown supplier and carries a famous name, treat that as a warning sign that it may not be genuine. Our guide to eBay's counterfeit policy explains how eBay treats fakes, replicas and brand names in listings.

What if a listing is removed anyway?

No screen catches everything. If eBay removes a listing after a rights owner's report, eBay says you can appeal through its internal appeals process, and you can contact the rights owner at the email address given in eBay's removal email to ask for a retraction. Read the details on eBay's VeRO programme page, and see our guide to responding to an intellectual property takedown.

Then feed the removal back into your screening. Add the brand and any related names to your list, and search your live listings for the same brand so the next report does not hit another one. Several removals in a short time can lead to restrictions, so one removal is a warning to act on straight away.

How often should you screen live listings?

Screening at the draft stage is not enough. Brands are added to your list over time, and a listing that passed six months ago may match today. Run a full screen of your live listings whenever your list changes and at least once a month.

Example, with hypothetical numbers: suppose you have 3,000 live listings and add 12 brands to your list after a takedown. A screen of live listings flags 40 matches. Thirty are false hits on common words, which take a few seconds each to mark reviewed. Eight have the brand only in the title as a keyword, so you remove the word. Two are items of that brand you cannot show are genuine, so you end them. Forty minutes of work, and 10 listings that could have drawn the next report are fixed.

Dropizon checks brands against a VeRO list before drafts are published and flags live listings whose brand matches, so the screen runs at both points without a separate step.

A checklist for using a VeRO check tool

• Know where the tool's list comes from and how often it changes.
• Add your own brands and every brand from any removal you receive.
• Include sub-brands, character names and common misspellings.
• Screen drafts before publishing, and live listings monthly and after every list change.
• Act on every hit: confirm, edit, end, or mark as a false hit.
• Check characters, logos, photos and copied text yourself, since no list catches them.
• Keep a note of each decision.