eBay Copyright Thieves & Crooks Named and Shamed
It's dishonest to copy photographs, and misleading to buyers.

mlongfield88 Selling 'Duel 1974 Gold Sovereigns' on eBay
eBay seller mlongfield88 of London, United Kingdom, offered Duel (sic) 1974 Gold Sovereigns for sale on eBay using our photo of a mint condition coin.
Copyright abuse is dishonest.

Seller ID	Item Number	Date	Description	Price
mlongfield88	50639526620	23rd May 2010	Duel 1974 Elizabeth II Gold Sovereigns	�400

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 16; with 100% positive according to eBay.
We think this clearly shows that high eBay feedback is not a reliable indication of honesty or intelligence.

Sample Listing

Duel 1974 Elizabeth II Gold Sovereigns
I am selling TWO 1974 Elizabeth II Gold Sovereigns. These were inherited and since I have no need for them I hope they go to a coin collector or someone who will have use for them.
Will post special delivery and only accept payment via PayPal.

What's Wrong?
Copyright theft is dishonest, and against eBay rules, although they do not police it unless pushed.
Anybody buying this coin is likely to be annoyed at disappointed at not receiving mint condition coins as shown in our photograph.
We have heard of having a pair of duelling pistols, but never duelling sovereigns.
Sovereigns at dawn anybody?

Price
The seller was originally asking a starting price of �400.
It is likely that he would have got more by selling to us even especially when eBay's 10% selling fees are taken into account. PayPal fees cost extra, and this particular idiot will only accept PayPal!

Persistence
Another eBay member advised mlongfield88 that not only was he using our images illegally, but that we always reported infringers. Following this, we note he removed our high quality photographs, and replace them with his own. Unfortunately, he probably does not realise, and eBay do not publish this sort of information and advice to their members properly, that because of lots of "clever" eBay marketing techniques, our images would persist on other parts of the eBay system. We show an example of this in the second of our eBay screenshots. The best solution would have been for him to remove his listing completely, but even then, our images would persist in his "completed listings". He could have asked eBay to purge it from their system and advised them why. This is probably not easy to do, and anything out of the ordinary can be very difficult to do on eBay, and it is difficult to communicate with them because the design of their systems deters any non-automated process.
We have accordingly reported the continued copyright violation to eBay, and we expect them to remove the listing. Despite the fact that we have included a link to this page, together with a concise explanation in our notice to them, so that their staff can understand the problem, we half expect them to query it and ask for an explanation.
We also half expect mlongfield88 to complain to us after his listing is cancelled, despite the fact he will get his listing fees refunded. Many eBayers are self-righteous and get quite indignant when they get caught out.
Watch this space!

eBay Guilty of Negligence or Complicity
We will report this example of copyright abuse using our standard Statutory Declaration via the eBay VeRO programme.
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.