Bayer targets Amazon sellers over fake products
Healthcare company accuses online sellers of selling unauthorised over-the-counter products | Consumers leave bad reviews after receiving damaged, expired and poor quality goods, says the complaint | Vory, Sater, Seymour and Pease.
Bayer Healthcare is suing e-retailers over their alleged infringement in connection with the advertisement and online sales of fraudulent products on Amazon that bear the pharma firm’s trademarks.
Bayer asserted claims against online stores FBSquared and Path to Savings alongside some unnamed defendants on September 4 at the US District Court for the District of New Jersey.
The complaint outlines how Bayer develops, designs, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells mainly nonprescription over-the-counter healthcare and medicinal products under numerous marks owned or licensed by Bayer including: Claritin; Alka Seltzer Plus; Afrin; Coricidin; Berocca; Lotrimin; Tinactin; MiraLax and Alka Seltzerthe.
These products include many products that consumers ingest or apply to their bodies.
A ‘coordinated scheme’
Bayer accuses FBSquared and Path to Savings of acting in concert as part of a coordinated scheme to sell such products bearing Bayer’s trademarks without authorisation through multiple storefronts, marketplaces, and websites.
“It is unfortunately common for unauthorised sellers to sell diverted products on online marketplaces that are of lesser quality than products sold through brand owners’ authorised channels,” says Bayer.
The complaint adds that: “Consumers who purchase from unauthorised sellers on online marketplaces frequently receive poor quality products or customer service and leave negative reviews on product listings.
“These negative reviews injure consumer perceptions of a brand’s quality and reputation, ultimately causing the brand to suffer damage to its goodwill and lost sales.”
Bad reviews
According to Bayer, numerous consumers have written negative reviews of Bayer products being offered for sale on online marketplaces.
“In these reviews, many of which appear on listings of products that have been offered for sale by the defendants, consumers have given misappropriated Bayer products low ‘ratings’ and complained of receiving products that were damaged, expired, not as ordered, of the incorrect quantity, and of otherwise poor quality,” says the complaint.
Consequently, consumers had left negative reviews of this product complaining of receiving products that were damaged, expired, fake, of the incorrect quantity, and not as ordered.
This problem, argues Bayer, is further exacerbated because Amazon does not allow product reviews to identify the seller who sold the product that is the subject of the product review.
“Given that defendants have sold a high volume of products bearing the Bayer trademarks on Amazon and are not subject to Bayer’s quality controls...It is exceedingly likely that some of the foregoing negative reviews—and the other similar negative reviews of Bayer products that defendants have sold on Amazon—were written by customers who purchased products bearing the Bayer trademarks from defendants.”
Test purchases
Bayer says that it also conducted test purchases of Bayer products from the allegedly infringing storefronts.
For more than half of these test purchases, Bayer claims to have received products that suffered from the same deficiencies that other customers have complained of.
The pharma company is seeking a jury trial as well as a permanent injunction and damages.
Martha Brewer Motley, partner at Vory, Sater, Seymour and Pease, filed the action on behalf of Bayer.
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