Is the second-hand resale price of Apple products defined by the brand itself on certain platforms? This is what feedback on Leboncoin suggests, but it seems to be a simple error.
“Not expensive enough, son !» This is the argument used by an emir to refuse his son the purchase of a Renault Clio in a 1993 advertisement. It is also the image used by the journalist Romain Heuillard to evoke his current problem: the classified ads site from individual to individual refused his on the pretext that “the resale prices of [son] product are not respected“.
An ad refused on Leboncoin
The ad in question is for a pair of “real Apple AirPods Pro 1 with wireless charging case“. Their price? 60 euros, much less than the 160 to 170 euros requested on the various reconditioned sites. Should we be alerted? Perhaps according to Leboncoin who blocked the publication of the ad with the reason “counterfeit“. However, the product serial number is indicated in black on white in the body of the text.
It’s later that the affair becomes interesting! Romain Heuillard contacts the site’s after-sales service to obtain details. Elena, from customer service, then informs him that “the Apple brand has implemented very strict resale price scales» and that resale prices are not respected here.
The price list in question is not specified, because “this information belongs to the brand […] and are therefore confidential“. However, we learn that Leboncoin “remains in contact with major brands to guarantee efficient management of luxury products for resale on the site“. Apple is therefore possibly not the only brand concerned.
This could remain an isolated case, or even an error or overzealousness, but this is apparently not the case. On Twitter, a message from a person responding to Romain Heuillard indicates having been entitled to “the same one on Facebook market place 4 days ago! I sell [sic] my iPhone 11 for €50 (because it was out of order and broken in several places) and refused and deleted on the grounds of counterfeiting and too low a price“.
An illegal approach
However, a manufacturer cannot in theory impose a resale price on the second-hand market. As stated William Champeau (legal law specialist) on Twitter, article L442-6 of the Commercial Code prevents “any person to impose, directly or indirectly, a minimum nature on the resale price of a product or good“.
The Civil Code also specifies that “property is the right to enjoy and dispose of things in the most absolute manner, provided that one does not make use of them prohibited by laws or regulations“. However, buying an object makes us its owner, which should therefore allow us to enjoy it at leisure and resell it without the original owner having a say.
A simple mistake?
Contacted by us, Apple has not yet given an explanation on this matter, but it seems that it is… an error. The Leboncoin press service explains:
As a content host, leboncoin does not intervene in any way on the content of the advertisements and in particular on the price offered by its users. We therefore have no price list for the products sold on leboncoin, nor any agreement on prices with any brand whatsoever. Users are free to determine a price that suits them, to sell or buy, according to the rule of supply and demand. The screenshot is from a customer service representative, incorrect in that it suggests that a pricing agreement has been reached, which is not the case.
The problem therefore comes, according to Leboncoin, from the ad control algorithms which “are based on a wide selection of indicators [dont le prix] to try to determine whether an ad is fraudulent or not“.
When in doubt, we tried to post a similar ad (same product, same price). This was published after a relatively long waiting period (around an hour, compared to the usual average of 30 minutes).
Crisis communication ?
However, some questions remain unanswered. How can a customer service advisor, generally having a very precise procedure, make such an error and claim, on several occasions, the existence of an imposed price scale if it does not exist? But above all, why is the ad in question still blocked at the time of writing these lines even though a human check was carried out after the algorithm passed?
We are currently awaiting more information from Leboncoin.
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