High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 113 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 - Original

VERY RARE 1980 Half Sovereign (Isle of Man)
(Text not available)

Sample Listing - Relisted

LAST CHANCE - Half Sovereign 1981 (Isle of Man)
Through no fault of my own, this is a repeat listing for a genuine half sovereign 22 ct Gold coin (Isle of Man) 1981 Limited Edition (30,000) Charles & Diana.
This coin is boxed with certificate and in perfect condition.
To the person that bought this off me last time, I am sorry, I have been unable to contact you. The item is as described, I am a totally honest seller.

Seller ID	Item Number	Date	Description	Price
6018liz	230481487899	30th May 2010	VERY RARE 1980 Half Sovereign (Isle of Man)	£50 /
6018liz	230483362228	3rd Jun 2010	LAST CHANCE - Half Sovereign 1981 (Isle of Man)	£50 / £86.82

Blink & Miss
There are so many people, including eBay members, stealing our images, that every time we go to bed, or take a break, there is a danger that we miss a few of them. In this case, we were travelling, and our hotel, in a small Austrian village, reported its modem as being faulty, so we could not easily get an internet connection. On our return, we had received a report from an eBay Coin.Forgery.eBay forum member, with the details of this auction. We did get to view it before it was taken down, but unfortunately did not manage to get a screen capture. Because of this, we have shown her relisting, which is interesting in its own right. Whether 6018liz was deliberately deceiving potential buyers, or negligently through ignorance, we do not know.

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 and individuals.
  The ignoramus in her original listing also described her coin as Very Rare, which it is not. The 1980 mintage was at least 5,000, while the 1981 mintage, by her own admission, was 30,000.
  
• The date changed from 1980 to 1981 between the two listings, as did the designs, which are completely different for the two years. Her second description reflects this fact. Can she not read or copy accurately?
• She still appears to believe the cancellation of her first listing was not her own fault. We detest arrogant "experts" who are so full of their own self belief that they cannot be challenged.
• She still claims to be honest despite the prima facie evidence.

Question & Answer
6018liz gives some interesting, aggressive and incriminating answers when confronted with evidence of her fraudulent and dishonest behaviour.

Dear 6018liz,
You cannot steal others' images for your listings and that goes for all of your coin listings.

Dear *,
I have done nothing dishonest whatsoever. I have used the resources available to me to give the best most accurate images I can alongside full explanation. Maybe you can try to understand that taking a picture of a small object like this on a regular camera is very hard.
Thank you for your interest.
E J Clemens LLB (Lawyer).
- 6018liz

Dear 6018liz,
Nice try but you're not even close to intimidating me!
You have committed copyright theft, as you are not the owner of the images. You have also breached eBay rules.
As a lawyer, you should be ashamed of yourself and I am sorry you feel so insecure, or perhaps so sanctimonious that you feel that you have to wave your LLB around! Well, that cuts no ice here.
I can assure you that all your listings will be removed and any future such infringements of eBay rules or illegal acts on your part will be treated in the same manner and may lead to suspension or closure of your account.
As a seller of coins myself, you can do what the honest sellers do - buy a camera!
I am a member of Coin.Forgery.eBay - I don't feel the need to wave my degrees and professional memberships in your face.

Dear Lawrence
Enjoy!
Only one of her listings appears to use your images but all images have been stolen.
I have dealt with solicitors before and this daft cow is pathetic!
I have reported all these listings because I want to make sure that they are killed - they are only 3-day listings.
Regards *

Price - How Little?
The seller was asking a starting price of £50 which is ridiculously cheap. She may as well have saved a few dollars in listing fees and started his auction at £0.99, or started his item at a realistic price.
If the eBay selling commission fees are similar to the UK, he will also have to pay about 10% in fees, and possibly also another 3% to 5% in PayPal fees.
It is possible he could have sold it to us, and got more, without any fees to pay.
In her second listing, the coin sold for only £86.82; so she would have netted under £78. We would have paid closer to £100 on the day.
If she was telling the truth about being a solicitor, which we doubt, then she is a pretty stupid one.

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.

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