You may have seen the InStyler advertised on on television: it’s a hair straightener with a rotating heated tube between two brushes. Michelle bought one at Target last year, and decided that she didn’t want it anymore. She listed it on Craigslist, and she tells Consumerist that’s when the cease and desist e-mails started from the product’s manufacturer.

The InStyler is a hot item for counterfeiters, and like fellow counterfeiter favorites Coach and Louis Vuitton, the company is going on the offensive against all sellers of their products online.

I posted an ad on Craigslist.com to sell an Instyler hair straightner that I bought at target. In response to this ad, I received this email from the company who manufactures the Instyler. I purchased the product a year ago with full documentation, and am annoyed that I am receiving cease and desist letters when the product was obtained legally from a authorized dealer.

Dear Sir/Madam:

I am contacting you on behalf of Tre Milano, LLC, which holds all
distribution rights in and to the InStyler® product line. It has come to
the company¹s attention that you appear to be engaged in the sale of
counterfeit copies of the InStyler® rotating hot iron on Craigslist.

We hereby demand that you IMMEDIATELY cease and desist from this activity.

Tre Milano expressly reserves the right to pursue any and all appropriate
legal action in connection with your apparent infringement of its
intellectual property rights.

Please note that Tre Milano monitors Craigslist, eBay and other
marketplaces, on an ongoing basis, and routinely makes undercover purchases.
As part of this enforcement program, the company does not hesitate to bring
legal action when it determines that a party has repeatedly infringed its
intellectual property rights. (The nearly two dozen federal lawsuits
brought by Tre Milano against infringers in the past year are accessible at
the federal court PACER site for the Central District of California at:
https://ecf.cacd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.) The company also works
with law enforcement, throughout the United States and around the world, to
help prosecute criminal actions against counterfeiters. Consider yourself
warned.

Of course, if you can demonstrate that you have not infringed Tre Milano¹s
intellectual property rights, we would welcome such a showing by you and we
would be delighted to resolve this matter with our best wishes.

My contact information is as follows: [redacted]

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Sincerely,
/s/
[redacted]
Tre Milano, LLC

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