Tabberone's Hall of Shame - Creative Memories.

Home | Site Index | Disclaimer | Email Me!

Creative Memories
Hall Of Shame Member

Their web site is http://www.creativememories.com/. they list their address as Creative Memories, P.O. Box 1839, 3001 Clearwater Road, St Cloud, MN 56302-1839, (800) 468-9335. They claim they are different. They only sell through "consultants", or sales representatives, sort of like AMWAY, but scrapbooks.
Our problem with Creative Memories is that they don't understand the basic conceots of the law. They shut down eBay auctions where the title. or description, uses the two words creative and memories in any manner. They claim they own those two words as trademarks and you can't use them to describe your product.
Creative Memories as a trademark is that name, not the two words. In our opinion, they are trying to control the marketplace by falsely alleging infringement over the use of the two words. hey, CM, can you say lawsuit waiting to happen? One that you will lose?
The pea-brains you have giving you trademark advice need more schooling.
Speaking of pea-brains, a posting on TwoPeasInABucket.com, by Cassiandme, shows we're not kidding. CM's nitwit paralegal told Cassiandme by using the two words she was trying to get the search engines to her auctions. While courts have held that using meta tags to deceive search engines and redirect tarffic are illegal, an auction listing doesn't use meta tags and the issue doesn't apply to auction listings. One of the responses referred to CM as being "scrapbook bullies". We like that term. It's a warm fuzzy when it comes to jerks like CM.
Cassiandme also posted the letter she received from Creative Moments. It's full of the usual self-rightous crap that companies send out in an effort to clous and confuse the issues. In the letter, CM lays claim to the rights to the two words used together in the title of the auction listing.
What the dim-wit at CM doesn't say is that the likelihood of confusion is something they, CM, must prove in court if there is a contested issue. We have seen letter after letter citing the same tripe about their rights and how they have spent so much money and the public perception is so and so. These legal twits must all attend the same Infringement 202 Seminars where they learn to elevate their jargon, use smoke and mirrors, and distract the subject from the actual truth. Notice how they didn't cite a single federal case where a company has the right to do what they claim? Becasue there isn't one.
CM's creating a lot of sour memories for a lot of legitimate eBay sellers.

Rebuttals
In an effort to provide a balanced view, we make the following offer to anyone who feels they have been wrongly accused on this web site.
If you, or your company, have been referenced on these pages, and you would like the chance to post a rebuttal, we will post your rebuttal (provided it is in good taste) so others can read it. The rebuttal must be submitted in a format that can easily be converted into HTML. We reserve the right to alter the rebuttal to make it more readable. However, we will not alter the content (unless there is offensive material to be removed). We also reserve the right to comment on any rebuttal received. Emails protesting the content of this web site may be treated as rebuttals by us at our discretion.
We made this offer a very long time ago and as of September 2008, only AnimieHot.com, in our Hall Of Shame, and Charlotte Perman (Sevenarts in our Hall Of Shame) have chosen to submit a formal rebuttal.