annteakz in eBay Copyright Theft
annteakz of North West of England, United Kingdom, stole our 1901 Victoria Old Head Half Sovereign obverse & reverse photographs, but edited them to 1900, to sell his own coin on eBay, without our permission, and failed to mention the coin in the photograph was not the one he owned, if any. Totally dishonest.
Image theft is endemic on eBay, and most sellers appear not to care whether their buyers are deceived.

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 5344, 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

GOLD HALF SOVEREIGN QUEEN VICTORIA - 1900
You are bidding on a GENUINE Half Gold Sovereign that is dated 1900. From the reign of Queen Victoria it weighs approximately 4 gms.
In good condition it will certainly enhance your collection
Please note that we take UK Cheques/Postal Orders; International Money Orders (GBP) and PayPal (GBP).
Please don’t hesitate in Emailing us with any questions.
Thank you for looking
You can pay us securely with any major credit card through PayPal!

Seller ID	Item Number	Date	Description	Price
annteakz	380273142334	26th Sep 2010	GOLD HALF SOVEREIGN QUEEN VICTORIA - 1900	£99.99

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 bar, 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.
The payment terms annteakz states in the item listing contravene eBay's listing policies, so she is trying to cheat eBay also.
Will he cheat buyers, too?
He is obviously a devious bastard!

Price
The seller was asking a starting price of £99.99. for this item.
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.
The starting price might be fair enough for the coin shown in our photographs, but the reality is probably that it's a pile of knackered crap taken from a ring, and annteakz is trying to con innocent buyers into thinking it's the same coin as the picture.

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.

Interesting Negative

Inaccurate description. Full refund obtained. Buyer: 08-Jun-10 15:45
Reply by annteakz (25-Jun-10 23:55): Relisted and resold to Buyer who was extremely pleased, Need I say more !!
Follow up by (buyer) (26-Jun-10 06:26): Hair lines included in description this time. Need I say more !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CROWN DEVON FIELDINGS ART NOUVEAU ETNA VASE (#380233363531)

Whinging William
We received the following complaint from "Annteakz":

Dear Mr Chard
I am writing to complain that, according to eBay I have breached your intellectual property rights and accordingly, eBay have removed one of my items.
I take this very seriously, as the item concerned – A Gold Half Sovereign dated 1900 was (is) my own property and the photograph supplied to eBay was taken at home on a Casio Camera and then ‘touched-up’ using Adobe Photo Elements. The supporting text was my own with information provided from Wikapedia (sic)
I am at a loss as to how I could have possibly breached your intellectual property rights and look forward to your answer – in order that I can try and recover my (lost) sale etc.
Regards,
Bill
(Trading (as a hobby on eBay) as Annteakz)
annteakz@saintannes.freeserve.co.uk

Dear Bill or Ann Teakz
You have already received our auto-responder message, so we do not intend to reply further unless it is to issue legal proceedings.
We do not believe you, you are lying.
We are not so stupid that we do not recognise our own photographs, even when the have been disguised, as you have.
Your e-mail fails, as usual with eBay copyright thieves, to state your actual real name, address, or other contact details. We are never sure whether this is through ignorance, cowardice, or both.
If you respond properly, we may provide a personal response.
If as you claim, you took your own photograph, please provide us with a copy of it as proof, although we do not expect this to happen for obvious reasons as stated above.
You also state you trade on eBay as a hobby, but your "About Me" seems to infer that there are more than one of you, and that you are operating as a business:

Annteakz
Welcome
Thanks for taking the time to find out more about us.
We Pride Ourselves In What We Sell
Having had a keen eye for the unusual and/or rare items for many years we are now using OUR EXPERTISE to provide YOU with the chance of getting something special at the right price.
Most of what we offer for sale has been collected either from Auction Houses or occasionally, from our own Private Collection. Be assured that nothing is knowingly sold under any false description. If anything is sold that has been described incorrectly we will offer you a refund.
Please note however that Postage Costs are not refundable sorry.
We strive to offer the personal and friendly service that used to be found in our local shops and are always available to respond to questions from any prospective buyers.
You will find us selling a range of objects but mainly Porcelain & Pottery, Glassware, Jewellery & Collectables.
Please look at our Feedback previous buyers have been generous with praise.
Whatever, thanks for looking and Happy Bidding.

Legal Notice Issued - Notification of Infringement of Copyright
On 14th October, we sent William Simpson our standard notice before legal action letter.
We were pleasantly surprised to receive a reply, most eBay simply ignore them, perhaps hoping we will forget about them.
His accompanying letter claims that he "do not really fully understand how I ended up using one of your photographs". (It was two actually!).
It's an interesting turn-around from his earlier claims, which also appeared to seek compensation for our interference.

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

Annteakz = William D. Simpson, 6 All Saints Road, Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire, FY8 1PL

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