busy_becs Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
busy_becs of Duffield, Derbyshire, United Kingdom, stole 1904 Edward VII 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 282; with 100% positive according to eBay.

Sample Listing

King Edward VII 1904 Gold Sovereign
King Edward VII Gold Sovereign coin
1904
Non mint specific
Fantastic investment opportunity
(Not actual coin shown in picture as, every photo taken was blurry!)
Please feel free to ask any questions, old family piece. I also have some other coins for sale

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 �150 for his sovereign, and �50 for his half sovereign.
Whatever they sold for, after eBay selling fees of 10%, he may have got more by selling direct to us.

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
busy_becs	120469342678	7th Sep 2009	King Edward VII 1904 Gold Sovereign	�150
busy_becs	120469347291	13th Sep 2009	King George V 1911 Gold Half Sovereign	�50

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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