leefrere1970 Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
eBay seller leefrere1970 of sudbury, Suffolk, United Kingdom, not only stole our 1932 South African Mint sovereign images without permission, but tried to tell buyers his coins were in absolute mint condition.

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 142; with 100% positive according to eBay.
It also demonstrates that high eBay feedback is no indicator of intelligence, reading ability or honesty.

Sample Listing

1891 Gold Soveriegn (sic) Excellent Condition
This coin is a genuine 1891 gold soveriegn (sic) in excellent condition. My Dad bought this over 40 years ago and it has been kept in a small coin purse ever since. It has therefore been very well looked after.
I am also selling a gold gold half soveriegn (sic).

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 1891 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.

Seller ID	Item Number	Date	Description	Price
leefrere1970	200407166184	17th Nov 2009	1891 Gold Soveriegn Excellent Condition	�125
leefrere1970	200407168825	17th Nov 2009	Gold Half Sovereign 1915 Excellent Condition	�50

Price
The seller was asking a starting price of �125 for this listing.
Whatever the items "sell" 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.
It "sold" for �192 so he will receive about �173 after eBay selling fees, and even less if the buyer pays by PayPal.

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.