pyjreid Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
pyjreid of "mold (sic), Flintshire, United Kingdom", stole our minty 1874 Victoria Young Head St. George Gold 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 2; with 100% positive according to eBay.

Sample Listing

1874 gold soverign (sic)
1874 queen victoria gold soverign (sic) in excellent condition
happy bidding to all

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.

Seller ID	Item Number	Date	Description	Price
pyjreid	180409636600	23rd Sep 2009	1874 gold soverign	�50

Price
The seller was asking a starting price of �50 for his coin.
Whatever it sold for, after eBay selling fees of 10%, he may have got more by selling it direct to us.
It sold for �159.01, so the vendor would about �143, less any PayPal fees.
If the buyer has any sense, he will complain, quite correctly, that the use of our pictures deceived him as to the quality of the coin, as the vendor's actual coin, if any, is extremely unlikely to be as good as ours.

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.