Ebay Question on plagerism

[cxcelica]

I never have copied a listing but I do look at them for help some times.

What I do is if I am having trouble finding the right words to put in my title I will look at completed listings and see what worked for others. What words or numbers they used. It is interesting to see how adding a word or replacing a word greatly increases the activity. I dont consider that "stealing"

Secondly, I usually sell mostly used items and describe them accurately in my description. I do this mainly for full disclosure about the quality the item is in, but now that I am thinking of it, if someone were to copy my listing it is not likely that their item is in the exact same condition as mine is. So if it sells the buyer will not be happy which could end in negative feedback.

Either way, maybe I don't sell enough on ebay to get really worked up about this.

 

[DisneyGerry]

Doesnt happen that much but for a while someone was copying a bunch of my items. Other sellers using someone else's photos are more common but not allowed as well.

It is usually a hot item and seemingly someone from out of the country trying to pull a fast one on someone else

Gerry

 

[belle&beast]

This happened to me today! Someone copied my picture and most of my description. The only reason I even knew was because someone emailed me and made me an offer for both of my items- I only have one thing listed!!! So I looked it up and there was another picture of my item on my living room floor! I reported it and hopefully it will be taken care of soon!

 

[babiesX2]

I think an easy way to "mark" your eBay pictures would be to write your eBay ID on a piece of paper and put it by your item when you take the pic. It might look a little simple, but it would take care of that problem. I can see how this would be annoying to some people (the copying problem).

 

[Franne]

Wow, this thread has taken off. So here's the update: the person who copied my listing, emailed me and said it's no big deal..yea ok, to her maybe.
The other seller she copied from emailed me that he will look into it and if she did copy word for word he would also report her and thanked me. And the best part.....the woman who won the other 2 sets emailed me back and said that she indeed does want 3 sets, for her and her 2 sisters. She was very nice about it and thanked me for emailing her. So now all that's left is to see if she pays if she wins.
What gets me about the other person coping ALL of my post is that they put it up for a buy it now at the same price I did, and the high bidder on my item was the one who bought it. It wasn't even up a day! The only reason the high bidder didn't see mine, was someone already put a bid on it so the buy it now disappears.
It's clearly against ebay rules to copy pictures and words. Granted this listing didn't take a long time to do, but it's not right that the other person copied and then took away MY sale from it. She even took my shipping policies and prices,she had to put that in manually.
Ebay hasn't done anything about this yet, the one auction is active and the other one that ended, she still has other items up. How long does it usually take?
Franne

 

[summerrluvv]

Wow, this thread has taken off. So here's the update: the person who copied my listing, emailed me and said it's no big deal..yea ok, to her maybe.
The other seller she copied from emailed me that he will look into it and if she did copy word for word he would also report her and thanked me. And the best part.....the woman who won the other 2 sets emailed me back and said that she indeed does want 3 sets, for her and her 2 sisters. She was very nice about it and thanked me for emailing her. So now all that's left is to see if she pays if she wins.
What gets me about the other person coping ALL of my post is that they put it up for a buy it now at the same price I did, and the high bidder on my item was the one who bought it. It wasn't even up a day! The only reason the high bidder didn't see mine, was someone already put a bid on it so the buy it now disappears.
It's clearly against ebay rules to copy pictures and words. Granted this listing didn't take a long time to do, but it's not right that the other person copied and then took away MY sale from it. She even took my shipping policies and prices,she had to put that in manually.
Ebay hasn't done anything about this yet, the one auction is active and the other one that ended, she still has other items up. How long does it usually take?
Franne

How did she take your sale? You two are selling the same item and you have a bidder on yours. If you wanted it to go for the buy it now price, make it a fixed price auction. Regardless if she copied your listing or not, you are still selling the same exact item no? Whomever bought her item probably would have bought it anyway had the wording been changed in her listing.

 

[rmom50]

I didn't know it was against the rules to copy someone's picture.

 

[summerrluvv]

I found the completed auction of the person that "copied" your listing and the listing is so generic telling what each piece is that everyone could have the same listing LOL. Yes the fonts, colors are the same, but it's not like you described the dimensions of each stamp in extraordinary detail. You just wrote what the stamp was. Now the picture thing...that was a little dumb because her set wasn't complete and the pic shows it's complete, although she did make a notation that one stamp wasn't included.

I honestly expected to see a very detailed time consuming listing, but seriously, I would get over it. Also, if I were you, I would stop interfering with her auctions because YOU will get in trouble for that, like another person said.

 

[JustInLouisville]

People can be so lazy. If they are going to plagerize you would think they would change it up - but I can't tell you how many times I had my entire ad copied...down to my aboutme page link to my username!

I report all auctions - no excuses - no getting over it.

For the particually bad plagerizers I send them a $50 invoice for exclusive rights to reproduce my ad - no one seems to ever pay though!

 

[disneychrista]

I am on the side of not a big deal, in fact you could even take it as flattery. I'll admit I have used someone else's "ideas" for a listing, terms etc. But I have always put it in my own format, words. I have also a time or two "borrowed" a picture, I did state the item may differ slightly from photo.

One thing I can say though, is that could be decieving from a BUYERS point of view. If the listings look identical, they could think that they are buying from the same seller.

 

[GotFids]

There is html code that keeps viewers from right clicking and thereby not able to copy anything on that page. That stops quite a few people...but there are ways around it, but I won't give that away. If you need the code, let me know.

julie

 

[ICF]

I've used other auctions for ideas of how to list the item but have never taken their listing word for word. The auctions I use for ideas, are usually closed auctions and not live ones.

I have had people use my pictures. If it is a common item that there were lots of I didn't consider it that big of an issue. If it were a 'rare' item that only had a couple of similar items for sale, and the person "stole" my picture I reported it. The thing with Ebay closing auctions is that it takes them a day or 2 (or so it appeared the couple of times I have used them) to close the auction....so if you find out with less then 24 hours to go, most likely it won't get closed by ebay in time to make a difference.

 

[belle&beast]

Mine was plagiarized down to the picture taken in my living room. There are only 4 items in the search and two are identical- one right below each other. The only reason I knew about it is the numerous emails I received from buyers who were willing to buy BOTH my items. I only have one listed and mine is first, so they assumed both were mine. The thing is, there are pictures on the company's website that would be more appropriate than my unprofessional one. His item is new, mine is not, so it is out of the package. I reported yesterday and have heard nothing and his listing is still there.

 

[Kayla's Mom]

Mine was plagiarized down to the picture taken in my living room.

That is exactly what happened to me---I thought "Hey! That's my carpet!"

 

[wendyl]

It's so strange how on this board folks get verbally abused for suggesting bringing a past year's refillable mug to a disney resort to reuse, but people think it's perfectly fine for someone to come along and completely steal your personal pictures, auction style, wording etc..., and use them without asking to compete against you. Especially when Ebay is so clear about it being a gross violation of policy.

That would be like a co-worker stealing an entire presentation from you right down to the pictures and turning it is as her own--and your boss ending up choosing that one instead of yours. If someone on the boards posted that situation---there'd be tons of and sympathy responses. I doubt there would be any responses like "what's the big deal".

 

[summerrluvv]

It's so strange how on this board folks get verbally abused for suggesting bringing a past year's refillable mug to a disney resort to reuse, but people think it's perfectly fine for someone to come along and completely steal your personal pictures, auction style, wording etc..., and use them without asking to compete against you. Especially when Ebay is so clear about it being a gross violation of policy.

That would be like a co-worker stealing an entire presentation from you right down to the pictures and turning it is as her own--and your boss ending up choosing that one instead of yours. If someone on the boards posted that situation---there'd be tons of and sympathy responses. I doubt there would be any responses like "what's the big deal".

It looks to me like the seller's auction is doing better than the person's that "stole" her barebones description so your scenario doesn't really hold.

And FTR, I could care less what people do with their mugs

 

[babiesX2]

OK, I went and looked for the auctions but I can't find them. I searched girl scout stamps and I don't see any auctions for $60. There was one for $57. What am I missing? I want to see for myself just what all the fuss is about.

 

[arminnie]

I guess I don't see what the big deal is. It's just words describing an item. I really doubt that person is going to get more bids than you for having the same listing, so really what's the harm? It's not like you wrote a novel and someone copied it

I disagree. Mine would not be worth copying, but my sister has a great wit and her listings are actually fun to read and really catchy. She's having financial problems right now (not getting paid her commissions on her real job because the wholesaler is not paying their bills) so I've been giving her stuff to sell for extra money.

She's getting money, and I'm getting rid of stuff. She would insist on paying me back if I tried to give her money directly, but this way she is earning it.

 

[cxcelica]

It's so strange how on this board folks get verbally abused for suggesting bringing a past year's refillable mug to a disney resort to reuse, but people think it's perfectly fine for someone to come along and completely steal your personal pictures, auction style, wording etc..., and use them without asking to compete against you. Especially when Ebay is so clear about it being a gross violation of policy.

That would be like a co-worker stealing an entire presentation from you right down to the pictures and turning it is as her own--and your boss ending up choosing that one instead of yours. If someone on the boards posted that situation---there'd be tons of and sympathy responses. I doubt there would be any responses like "what's the big deal".

Apples to Oranges...The comparison is off-base

 

[summerrluvv]

OK, I went and looked for the auctions but I can't find them. I searched girl scout stamps and I don't see any auctions for $60. There was one for $57. What am I missing? I want to see for myself just what all the fuss is about.

OP's Auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/STAMPIN-UP-RETI...ryZ41263QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The auction she reported was completed and for $60 and I was able to view it yesterday, however, it's not coming up today. It looked basically the same except some of the words were changed and her set was not new, but used.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Stampin-Up-Reti...oryZ3124QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem