EBay's Policy on Image and Text Theft

Did this other seller originally have an image of his/her own and
decided they liked yours better and swapped or added yours? Or did
they not have any image at all?

If my memory serves, anything after the first image gets charged, so
they can trace EXACTLY when the other seller included your picture and
the time would be LATER than when you posted yours.

I'm surprised they would be so lax about this. Do they really want
sellers portraying merchandise that may not be in the condition it's
shown to be???

I would keep on this. There is no excuse for someone to get away with
using your image to sell their item, esp. when your item may not be
anything like yours.

Kristine,
What I am going to suggest will not help your current situation but it
might help moving forward.
When taking digital pictures set the camera to document the date/time
the pic was taken as well as in one of the bottom corners of the
subject matter
diplay your business card or some other indentifier specific to you.
One would think this would cover your bases and establish you as the
originator of that image.
BillR.

Let me say, I emailed them a total of 4 times trying to explain in
detail when my auction started giving the exact day and time and when
the other sellers was revised to show that is was definitely a
possibility.

My first email was to report the auction for image theft. At that time
I was so upset, I did not think to even look when the seller started
their auction, it was nota regular auction, but instead a store
listing.

The first email I received was that they did not see the image in the
sellers listing.

I responded to that with more detail about the image giving the actual
image this time.

They responded with a canned response, the sellers listing does not
violate ebay policy because it started before yours so the image
cannot possibly be yours.

I looked again to see what was going on since I knew for a fact it was
my image. I saw that it was revised and looked at the dates and time.
5 hours after my auction started. I replied again with this
information telling them that it was definitely a possibility because
the seller had not had any purchase yet and the auction was revised
and the dates and times.

They replied with, I understand your frustration, but you need to
supply us with the auction that started before the other sellers.

I responded once again with the same info and even went as far as
asking if what they are telling me is that it is perfectly fine if
someone steals your images, revises their listing and places them in
that listing that started earlier? You can change a store listing that
started a year ago as a listing for a camera and as long as no
purchases have been made, you can revise it at any time and change the
entire listing to sell something totally different.

Then the last response I received was another canned response, We've
reveiwed the listings and the seller doesn't violate ebay policy
because their listing started before yours, so the image cannot
possibly be yours.

That's when I had had it with them.

They need to start adhering to their so-called policies because this
could happen to anyone else or at least acknowledge the information
given.

I find it hard to believe they would approve of someone copying your
picture and adding it to either an existing or a new auction. I would
follow Jeffrey's advice exactly (change the wording). Make sure to
include your auction number, which I'm sure you did the first time.
Good luck.

Looks like you were the victim of someone that didn't have enough time
to actually research your complaint.

They checked when the auctions started and made a decision based on
that. Not on when the photo was added.

eBay, like many companies, makes a limited number of CSRs deal with so
many e-mails in a day that the CSR has to rush through them.

I find that writing another message, but rearranging my words, usually
does the trick. For example, make sure the phrase "the
copyright-infringing photo was added to listing XYZ on MM/DD/YYYY, 8
days after I posted the same picture" appears at the top of your
message.

Good luck.

I hope that this wasn't a case where you were actually harmed.

I had this happen to me about a month ago. I had already sold a phone
on ebay and I just happen to be looking thru the listings on that
certain phone model.

Someone had duplicated my entire entry, down to the text and pictures!
When I confronted the person, they acted like they didn't know what I
was talking about and were getting rude in their emails.

I reported their auction with a link to mine and the next day their
auction was deleted.

Good luck on getting this taken care of. I know how you feel when
someone steals your picture and text to use for themselves.

I agree! You could be selling a much better version of something than
the other seller, and they could steal your image in order to mislead
potential buyers.