stephen3139 in eBay Copyright Theft
stephen3139 of ryton (sic), Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom, stole our 1995 Cook Islands Gold Proof 1/25th Ounce Gold Coins to sell his own coins on eBay, without our permission, and failed to mention the coin in the photograph was not one of the coins he owned, if any. Totally dishonest.
Image theft is endemic on eBay, and most sellers appear not to care whether their buyers are deceived.
Actually, the photograph he stole is of a 1995 Cook Islands Gold Proof 50 Dollars Queen Mother coin, which has a 25 mms diameter, whereas his coin is a 1/25th ounce coin similar to our 1995 Cook Islands Twenty Dollars 500 Years of America First Man on the Moon Gold Coin, which has only 14 mms diameter, and consequently is engraved with much less detail.

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 5, with 0% 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

1995 Cook Islands 1/25oz George Washington Gold Coin
Cook Islands 1/25oz George
Washington 20 Dollar Coin
SPECIFICATIONS
Denomination: $20
Metal: Gold
Purity: 24 Carat
Quality: Proof
Diameter: 14mm
Weight: 1/25 oz
Obverse: George Washington
Reverse: Queen Elizabeth II

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.

Price
The seller was asking a starting price of £39.95 for each of his two coins.
Even without after eBay's greedy 10% selling fees, and possible PayPal charges, the seller would almost certainly have been much better off selling the coins to us, instead of stealing our photographs.

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.

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.

Other Copyright Abuse

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