old_notes, of London, United Kingdom, stole our 1945 Mexican Dos (2) Pesos photograph to use on eBay, and omitted to tell buyers that the image was not of the coin he was selling. Totally dishonest!
After his first listing was removed, he went and did it again. Some people never learn, and most of them are eBay users.
High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 421; with 100% positive according to eBay.
Sample Listing
1945 gold (2) dos pesos
1945 DOS PESOS.
YOU ARE BIDDING ON A 1945 22K GOLD 2 PESOS COIN IN GREAT CONDITION.
IT CONTAINS .0602 oz OF GOLD.
ITS PURITY LEVEL IS .900
THESE SELL FOR BETWEEN $70- $120 USD.
SO GRAB YOUSELF (sic) A BARGAIN AS THERE IS NO RESERVE LOTS OF DEALERS UP SNAPPING UP GOLD AT THE MOMENT AS GOLD PRICES ARE ROCKETING AS THESE ARE SOUND INVESTMENTS WITH THE STOCKMARKET BEING SO POOR GOLD IS THE ONLY MARKET THAT IS STAYING STRONG SO YOU CANT GO WRONG.
A LOW LOW START PRICE.
NO RESERVE.
I WILL ONLY POST TO A CONFIRMED ADDRESS.
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 image of the obverse of a 1945 Mexican Dos (2) Pesos, he used it to sell his own coin on eBay. 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 was asking a starting price of £19.99 for his coin, and on the second listing, attracted a highest bid of £24. We would have paid the seller more than that for it, and he would have saved about £3 in eBay fees, plus possibly PayPal fees.
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.
Double Stupid or Double Stubborn? We did report the above listing, which eBay removed. The stupid idiot decided to repeat his listing, still using one of our photographs. It happens more frequently than one would expect, leading us to believe that eBay are negligent in explaining copyright abuse to their members, and to believe that eBay are implicit co-conspirators in this abuse.
Copyright Notice Please see our "Copyright" page for further information.
Copyright Infringements Remedies Our suggested draft remedies for copyright abusers dependent on category - competitors, bloggers, pseudo-expert & advice sites acting as eBay & Google portals, eBay & other auction site sellers.
Buying Gold Coins & Bars on eBay
Selling Gold Coins & Bars on eBay
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.
Alphabetical Listing of Other Copyright Theft Sites
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 - 1945 Mexican Dos (2) Pesos:
goldsovereigns.co.uk - 18 Carat Gold Jewellery:
www.18carat.co.uk - 9 Carat Gold Jewellery:
www.9carat.co.uk
 dos pesos on eBay (end time 03-Aug-09 141500 BST)400.jpg)
old_notes 5 eBay Listings Using 10 of our Images in 5 eBay Auctions
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E-mail: Contact Us The URL for our main page is: taxfreegold.co.uk