johnnymac433.6160 Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
eBay seller johnnymac433.6160 of walkden Greater Manchester, GB, United Kingdom, not only stole our 1915 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 2; with 100% positive according to eBay.

Sample Listing

Gold Sovereigns
Item Specifics
Era: George V (1910-1936)
Denomination: Sovereign
Year of Issue: 1912
Condition: Extra Fine
1912 GEORGE V FULL GOLD SOVEREIGN COIN
A 1912 GOLD FULL SOVEREIGN COIN. 22CT GOLD, WEIGHT IS APPROXIMATELY 8 GRAMS.
This coin is described as extre fine, and is in excellent condition.
Delivery is by Royal Mail Special Next Day Delivery

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 both sides of a 1915 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
johnnymac433.6160	170590489515	22nd Jan 2010	Gold Sovereigns	�175.00

Price
The seller was asking a starting price of �175.00 for his item.
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.

Auctiva, eBay & Copyright Theft
This guy uses Auctiva. We know from experience, that when eBay removes the directly infringing item, the Auctiva Gallery thumbnail persists, and is repeated and included in many, sometimes all, of the sellers eBay listings. eBay either do not know or do not care about this, although we have told them, so eBay never advise their member about this (poor customer service, we think). Auctiva also don't appear to know, although we have told them as well. 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.