eBay Copyright Thieves & Crooks Named and Shamed
It's dishonest to copy photographs, and misleading to buyers.
bobzsingh Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
eBay seller bobzsingh of birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom, not only stole our 1980 Proof Sovereign images without permission, but failed to tell buyers his coin was not the one shown in our excellent photograph.
High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 194; with 100% positive according to eBay.
It also demonstrates that high eBay feedback is no indicator of intelligence or reading ability.
Sample Listing
full sovereign
1980 full sovereign
1980 full sovereign payment by paypall (sic) only
What's Wrong?
We invest a great deal of time, effort, and cost into creating some of the best photographic coin images on the internet. We strongly object when lazy and dishonest people decide to use them without a by your leave or thanks, doing so in competition with us.
Copyright theft is dishonest. We recommend you avoid doing business with dishonest dealers.
This particular eBay seller only our very high quality images of a 1980 Proof Sovereign, he used them to try to sell his own sovereign without saying it was not the same coin. Anyone viewing the photographs would expect it to be the same, near perfect condition coin, "airbrushed" it to make it look like a supermodel.
It is always possible, even likely, that sellers who steal photographs do not own a similar coin, and have the intention to totally defraud potential buyers.
The vendor is not only cheating us by stealing our copyright images, he is fraudulently or ignorantly misleading and deceiving all potential buyers. Gaining pecuniary advantage by deception is the definition of fraud.
Doubly Dishonest
bobzsingh also listed a 1980 Proof Half Sovereign on eBay using pictures solen from us.
Seller ID | Item Number | Date | Description | Price
|
bobzsingh | 310174765785 | 19th Oct 2009 | full sovereign | �142
|
bobzsingh | 310176051925 | 21st Oct 2009 | full sovereign | �10
|
Price
The seller was asking a starting price of �10 for his second listing for his coin, after the first one failed to meet his reserve at �142.
Whatever the item "sells" for, after eBay's greedy 10% selling fees, and possible PayPal charges, the crook may have been much better off selling the coin to us, instead of stealing our photographs.
He will have already paid out 2 lots of listing fees, and 1 reserve fee without selling his coin.
eBay Guilty of Negligence or Complicity
We will be reporting this example of copyright abuse using our standard Statutory Declaration via the eBay VeRO programme, and wait to see if they chose to action or ignore our report. We look forward to taking legal action against eBay for their negligence and / or complicity if they fail to take down the offending material promptly.
Selling Gold Sovereigns & Other Coins on eBay
We point out that sellers may often get more money, for less effort, by selling to a specialised dealer, such as us, rather than via eBay.
Copyright Notice
Please see our "Copyright" page for further information.
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