costa_vicentina Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
eBay seller costa_vicentina of Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal, not only stole our 1896 Victoria Old Head Gold Sovereign Photographs without permission to sell his own sovereign, but failed to state that the photos were not of his actual coins, thereby deceiving all potential buyers.

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 105 with 100% Positive Feedback according to eBay.

Sample Listing

1896 Victoria Gold Coin

1896 Victoria - Full Sovereign 22ct Solid Gold - VGC
Read-------Read------
International shiping : 10.00�
Shiping to Portugal: 4.00�
I do not ship to the following Coutries
This item will not shipped to South America, Nigeria, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Estonia, Russia,Africa,India, China, Thailand, Ukraine. NO EXCEPTIONS
Payment only with paypal
Instant Payment

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 not only stole our high quality images of a 1896 Victoria Old Head Gold sovereign, he used them in his eBay auctions to try to sell his own sovereign without saying it was not the same coin. Anyone viewing the photographs would expect them to be the same, near perfect condition coin, "airbrushed" to make them look like supermodels.

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.

Seller ID	Item Number	Date	Description	Price
costa_vicentina	170615595672	14th March 2011	1896 Victoria Gold Coin	�200.00

Price
The seller was asking for a Starting Price of �200.00.
Whatever the item "sold" for, after eBay's greedy 10% selling fees, and possible PayPal charges, the crook may have been much better off selling the coins to us, instead of stealing our photographs.

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.