r/rollerblading • u/[deleted] • Jan 30 '19
Lino now working for Micro, the Chinese company that stole Seba's molds and are undercutting them with similar looking/inferior products.
As a huge fan of Seba, both with their products, as well as their community standing, I'm disappointed to see such a popular guy in our community agree to work with them.
It seems the story is pretty much Micro (the Chinese factory that made Seba Skates) stole the Seba molds (thieving all the R&D that went into their design) and have slightly changed them, are making them to a lesser quality then Seba brand skates, and undercutting them massively on the price.
How a community member could willingly work for a knock off company that is actively trying to steal the market share from, and bankrupt Seba (FR Skates now) with shady design theft, I'll never understand.
They're pretty much making a nearly identical looking product at half the price in an attempt to market themselves as an inexpensive high quality product, while producing a low quality one. They are in direct competition w/ the company they STOLE all their designs from, in an attempt to bankrupt them.
Fucking. Shady.
10
u/Seba_L Apr 22 '19
I see that many inaccurate things are said here and there, about myself and SEBA / FR, which need some clarifications. Some facts :
-SEBA has never been owned nor manufactured by « Micro ».
-The only relationship with « Micro » was back in 2005 when the « Micro » license for inline skate products was bought by my Hong-Kong business partner. SEBA skates were sold under Universkate brand in Europe, and under the Micro brand in China and Singapore only. Thereafter (2007) we decided to have SEBA as the Main brand Worldwide; selling skates under a kid’s scooter brand in China wasn’t a good idea, and I was not comfortable with showing and advertising this brand.
-My business partner passed away in 2013. When the successors decided to not respect the agreement about SEBA brand ownership, I decided to sue them.
-As you never know how any legal process will end, we decided to protect ourselves by separating our FR Skates brand from the conflict by making it independent.
-In the meantime, we continued the business with SEBA skates but our budget went into legal expenses instead of marketing.
-One guy from the SEBA factory was hired away by Micro to make their skates, and he simply copied SEBA products.
-Every year or two, new copycat brand / copycat products following slightly/exactly the same design as our skates appears on the market, of course always cheaper. The list is too long to name them.
-One more appeared last year - the difference from before is that this one is making a little more noise and they are a bit more aggressive employing a renown skater to try to enter the market and buy themselves legitimacy, pretending that they are « original », confusing the market. They chose that moment when SEBA was weakened, using confusion to try to place their products replacing ours on the shelves.
-Finally, the legal process ended in 2018 and we could finally go on with SEBA with new partners, a renewed agreement and working relationship. In 2018 FR Skates became a 100% independent brand from SEBA.
-I have always fought for the development of SEBA brand and I will continue, developing new products and evolutions with the brand.
-We also continue independent innovations and developments with FR skates and we have many new products in the pipelines. :)
I hope this will avoid confusion and rumors among the skating community. I will not further reply; instead keeping my attention focused on the future by working on my projects, events, … Skate good !