eBay Copyright Thieves & Crooks Named and Shamed
It's dishonest to copy photographs, and misleading to buyers.
fred_rabbit Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
eBay seller fred_rabbit of COVENTRY, Warwickshire, United Kingdom, not only stole several of our Sovereign Photographs without permission to sell 6 sovereigns, 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 84; with 100% positive according to eBay.
It also demonstrates that high eBay feedback is no indicator of intelligence, reading ability or honesty.
Sample Listing
1893 GOLD SOVERIEGN
Hello I have a very old and Nice Soverign (sic) for sale, One of my favourites
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 numerous gold sovereigns, he used them in 6 eBay auctions to try to sell his own sovereigns without saying they were not the same coins. Anyone viewing the photographs would expect them to be the same, near perfect condition coin, "airbrushed" to make them look like supermodels.
In addition, this stupid ignorant crook used two different spellings of the word "sovereign" in his listing, and got it wrong both times, doh!
He also used an 1891 obverse photograph, although there is little difference, and in some of his other listings showed a our photograph of a proof sovereign when offering an ordinary non-proof bullion version.
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
|
fred_rabbit | 140370090818 | 26th Dec 2009 | 1893 GOLD SOVERIEGN | �147.89
|
fred_rabbit | 140370091624 | 26th Dec 2009 | 1902 GOLD SOVERIEGN | �153.89
|
fred_rabbit | 140370092282 | 26th Dec 2009 | 1907 GOLD SOVERIEGN | �145.56
|
fred_rabbit | 140370092871 | 26th Dec 2009 | 1910 GOLD SOVERIEGN | �160.90
|
fred_rabbit | 140370096077 | 26th Dec 2009 | 2007 GOLD BULLION SOVERIEGN | �163
|
fred_rabbit | 140370096463 | 26th Dec 2009 | 2007 GOLD BULLION HALF SOVERIEGN | �58
|
Price
The seller was asking a buy it now price of €239.
10 available.
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.
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