Beware Coin Auctions Cheats

brody1944 5 eBay Listings Using 10 of our Images in 5 eBay Auctions You Can Tell Which 3 Are Not Ours!

High eBay Feedback is No Guarantee of Integrity or Honesty
When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 1; with 100% positive according to eBay, although he did state that he or they "were with Ebay from the late 90's until 2004. Then we had accumulated 1385 positive feedbacks with only a handful of neutrals and negatives". Oh, yes, pull the other one!

Sample Listing

1000 GRAM GOLD BARS
Up for auction are three 1000 gram gold bars from three different manufacturers. Condition is very good. Flexible payment arrangment (sic) available. 25% deposit required. Balance of payment due 15 work days after receipt of item. We will personally deliver anywhere in the world except war zones within ten working days of receipt of deposit. Items are completely guaranteed. Immediate full refund if you do not like the item. No local pick-ups. No escrow arrangements. We show one positive feedback but we were with Ebay from the late 90's until 2004. Then we had accumulated 1385 positive feedbacks with only a handful of neutrals and negatives. We will consider a bid for only one of the three.

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 3 x One Kilo Gold Bars, he used it to offer his own bars on eBay. He did not seem to think it was worth mentioning to potential buyers that the high quality photographs of bars were not his own photographs, and not the same bars 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. In thsi case, we suspect he is suimply a crook hoping people are stupid enough to send him money for non-existent bars.
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.

Positive Feedback From One Happy Customer
It makes sense, if you are going to con people out of large amounts of money, to get your neighbour to "buy" one item, give you glowing feedback. On eBay there is nothing to stop you doing this for yourself. Hey, I think I will vote for myself to be the next US President!

Price
The seller was asking a starting price of $72000 US for this lot.
The intrinsic value of 3 kilos of gold is about $92,000 at present.
Either this seller is totally stupid, or he is totally dishonest. We strongly suspect the latter. In the past, we would have alerted eBay to this, but we don't think eBay really care. It's a shame for any of their punters (buyers) who get scammed by people like this, but it really is not our job to alert eBay or the stupid and greedy buyers who get caught by con-men like this.

Three or Four Lots
The same vendor listed two previous similar lots, one apparently unsold, two apparently sold, one with feedback, with a fourth lot still on sale.
The third lot were titled "(3) One Kilogram Gold Bars Last Lot!", but we see he has now found a fourth lot. We wonder then he will remember the fifth lot he put down on his desk?

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.

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• Chards
  www.chards.co.uk
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  taxfreegold.co.uk
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  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