coins.sovereigns Selling Replica Sovereigns on eBay as Restrikes eBay member coins.sovereigns was offering an imitation sovereign misleadingly described as a restrike. He is not the only one, eBay tends to be stuffed full of misdescribed, miscategorised, and overhyped items offered by a myriad of dodgy dealers, some of whom should know better.

Rip-Off Prices Most eBay sellers ask what we consider to be ridiculously high prices for these replicas. Perhaps they genuinely believe that the low mintage figures actually make them rare or valuable. Whenever we acquire similar items, we try to describe them accurately, and also ask what we believe are sensible and realistic prices for them. Even then, this sort of stuff hardly ever flies off our shelves!

Misleading Descriptions
Real, bricks and mortar, old style businesses would probably go bust if they tried to run their businesses in the same way that most eBay dealerrs do. Apart from acquiring an early reputation for misleading and overcharging people, they would fall fall of consumer legislation in most countries.
Althought the internet, and sites like eBay have made things better in many ways, they have opened up untold opportunities for small-thinkg, small-time dealers to not only make a quick buck or two, but to keep getting away with it for a few years. If they get chucked off eBay, they can rejoin under a different name; some user maintain multiple IDs. Many of these dealers do not maintain the high ethical standards that other old-fashioned dealers do. Eventually most of them will fade away, but unforntunately will almost certainly be replaced by other similar chancers.

Conwoman
Thsi is one of the most blatantly misleading descriptions we have seen anywhere. She refers, explicitly or implicitly, to her item 8 times as a sovereign or a coin, as though it was a genuine original sovereign.
The only clues that it may not be so are the mention that it was issued by Pobjoy, and the scan of the certificate which itself is misleading, but does say "re-strike". Most inexperienced people would not realise from either of these cluse that the coin was only a replica coin.

Semi-Literates What many of these small dealers appear to have in common is a disregard for the English language. Most of them write in text speak, and often use either all capital or no capitals. A cockroach could have higher aspirations! Their attitude towards education, grammar, spelling, and other human beings seems to be "who cares?".

Style Offender Although it is not of prime important, some people appear to have no sense of style whatsoever. Audrey Alves' mixture of colours, upper and lower case sections, different fonts, including the childish 2comic sans", could induce vertigo, motion sickness, and other unpleasant symptoms in those pre-disposed to such maladies.

Pattern Sovereigns on eBay - Fools Gold
Every month another eBay crook (member) seems to have the bright idea of conning mugs and punters into buying these silver medallions as "Pattern Gold Sovereigns".

More Aliases than Carlos the Jackal This particular eBay member has a long history of deceptive or suspicious activities. She has used our copyright images without permission numerous times, and there are also many blogs and forums detailing some of her activities. She does not show any intention to stop, and eBay seem quite happy for her to continue her deceptions.

Amazing Feedback!
How crooks like this manage to retain such high feedback figures, we will never quite understand. Sure, we can see that she makes quite a point of offering refunds if buyers are not satisfied, obviously she is expecting a fair number of these.
As we wrote this page her hedback was 1551 with 99.5% positive. This is one of the most damning indictments of the eBay feedback system we have seen.

Revealing Negatives We noticed the following negatives:

• Item was not received No satisfaction from seller. Resolution centre refunded
  unfair feedback specially when provided tracking info recorded
• Tiny like an earring. Returned for refund. Says hasn't had. Ebay investigating.
  item not recd back nor can she provide a tracking no, so whose the crookhere??
• THEY DIDNT LOOK NEW AND THERE WAS ANIMAL HAIRS IN THE PACKAGING
• les boucles d'oreilles sont vraiment très très fine et sont arrivées aplatties. (neutral)
• very small item
• lot smaller then in picture.
  IF THERE IS A RULER NEXT TO THE EARRING , HOW CAN THE SIZE CHANGE ,STRANGE BUYER
• smaller than they looked on screen & not as red
• item looks nothing like picture as is so thin and tiny. really not happy.
• not yet received
• the earings didnt come with tags and the earings themselves were rusty
  sad how she has damaged my 100% fb, lacks comm sense , very unreasonable lady
• Nice item , only fault it wasn't packed well, card was damaged.
• AVOID THIS SELLER! Received pendant after 1mth and its gold plated, rubbing off!
  hard to reason with people who cant read ,but we get rotton (sic) apples now and again
  read item description it clearly ses SOLID GOLD not GOLD PLATED be aware!
• looks cheap & tinny p&p apalling won't waste time sending back - give to charity
  selling these for 4 years with no problem, how is 10mm tiny ,needs glasses
• HEAVILY OVERCHARGED ON POSTAGE AND ITEM VERY POORLY PACKED. ITEM SENT UNINSURED
• Bad reaction to "gold plate" - refunded
  refunded in full, her reaction to gold plated items is not my fault
• far smaller than it looked
  offered a full recd , but he chose to leave negative when i was away
• Payed a lot - got nothing. Lost in post. PayPal to decide....
  u signed,i have proof of your signature,all other 300 buyers got their coins
• charges for special delivery, but sent underinsured by recorded mail
  
• paid for recorded mail but sent 1st class + lost in post
  STRANGE FB , GAVE A FULL REFUND AND REPLACED THE ITEM
• didn't get item although seller did offer a replacement and communicated fully

Other Copyright Abuse

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 Scams

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