drsarasmiles in eBay Copyright Theft
drsarasmiles of Riverhead, New York, United States, stole our 1974 One Ounce Gold Krugerrand Obverse Photograph without permission, and failed to tell buyers it was not the same bar he was selling.

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 701 with 100% positive, according to eBay.

eBay Copyright Thieves
Many eBay vendors use our coin photographs to sell inferior quality coins on eBay. These eBay members are dishonest and should be avoided.
We believe eBay profits from IP rights infringements (copyright theft), and does so knowingly, only removing infringing items reluctantly, if at all.

Sample Listing

1979 GOLD COIN KRUGERRAND 1 OZ BULLION SOUTH AFRICA 22k
THIS COIN IS IN STOCK AND READY TO SHIP. I WILL PAY FOR SHIPPING AND HANDLING. GET THIS ONE BEFORE GOLD GOES EVEN HIGHER! ALREADY THERE IS A KRUGERRAND SHORTAGE IN EUROPE. BETTER USE YOUR BING DISCOUNTS BEFORE THEY ARE NO LONGER OFFERING IT. I AM A POWERSELLER SO HAVE NO FEAR. THIS COIN WILL SHIP IN AIRTITE HOLDER. This coin has also been authenticated by myself with a Fisch Device, so you know this is a real krugerrand (sic). A few years ago i bought a fake krugerrand online but luckily got my money back for it. Do your homework!

What's Wrong?
We invest a great deal of time, effort, and cost into creating some of the best photographic coin and gold bar 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.
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.

Powerseller? drsarasmiles claims to be a PowerSeller, but these don't seem to exist any more, we think eBay quietly dropped the designation about a year ago. She also seems to think a Fisch tester can guarantee a Krugerrand is genuine, whereas it can only tell whether the weight and dimensions are correct. She also admits to being dumb enough to have bought a fake one (on eBay, where else?), and appears to only know the difference because her Fisch told her so. She gives no other details, so we don't necesarily believe her.

Price
The seller was asking a Buy It Now price of $1395 for this listing.Whatever the item "sells" 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.
Buyers could probably also buy it cheaper from a reputable and honest dealer instead of an eBay crook.

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.
We should probably delay reporting this item until a buyer has sent some money. This may sound cynical of us, but if enough greedy buyers got conned, they might kick up enough fuss, go to the media, and get eBay the publicity it deserves. It is not our job to act as unpaid policemen for eBay.

Copyright Notice Please see our "Copyright" page for further information.

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Copyright Thieves on eBay We already have a page naming and shaming dealers using our images without permission. It's time we did the same for eBay, although if we include them all, this could be a very long page.

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Other Web Sites All comments about copyright also cover content of all our other websites including, but not limited to:-

• Chards
  www.chards.co.uk
• Investment Gold Bars & Coins (This Site)
  taxfreegold.co.uk
• General Coins & Jewellery:
  www.24carat.co.uk
• Gold Sovereigns:
  goldsovereigns.co.uk
• 18 Carat Gold Jewellery:
  www.18carat.co.uk
• 9 Carat Gold Jewellery:
  www.9carat.co.uk