italian0 Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
italian0 of San Jose, CA, United States, stole 1980 Gold Proof Sovereign photographs to use on eBay, and omitted to tell buyers that the images were not of the coins he was selling. Totally dishonest

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 52; with 100% positive according to eBay.

Sample Listing

1980 Gold Sovereign - UNCIRCULATED
You are bidding on a 1980 Gold Sovereign. The picture is not the sovereign itself, however it is uncirculated. The price of Gold is going up, and what better than to have this beautiful Gold Sovereign in your inventory.

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 ten of images of various gold sovereigns, he used them in five different listings for five individual sovereigns. He did not seem to think it was worth mentioning to potential buyers that the high quality photographs of near mint condition coins were not his own photographs, and not the same coins as he was offering for sale. This is almost certainly illegal in the UK under the Trade Description Act, although it appears to happen on a daily basis on eBay.
It's possible he is ignorant of such fine points, or just plain ignorant.

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.

Price
The seller is asking a starting price of $0.99 each for his two coins. He is likely to get complaints, and all the coins returned, if eBay buyers have any brains, so will have wasted time money and postage both ways, for himself an others.
His items "sold" for $235.89 and $236, equivalent to about �284 the pair (�142 each).
If eBay charge 10% commission on their US site as they do in the UK, then the seller would only get about �130 per coin, which is definitely less than we would have paid him. He may also have to pay PayPal fees out of his proceeds. Idiot!

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.

Seller ID	Item Number	Date	Description	Price
italian0	330358107154	7th Sep 2009	1980 Gold Sovereign - UNCIRCULATED	$0.99
italian0	330358106951	7th Sep 2009	1980 Gold Sovereign - UNCIRCULATED	$0.99

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
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