Ebay Vendor Stealing Images

[Wyntery]

I noticed this listing today on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Huge-African-Natural-Round-Brilliant-Cut-Dblock-Blue-Tanzanite-1-CT-AAA-VVS-6mm-/130960115273 and the image looks very much like the style of one the recommended precision cutters. I have sent an email to the cutter to let them know.
Does this happen often?

 

[chrono]

The stone isn't well cut so I don't think this picture was stolen.

 

[pregcurious]

I see a big window.

 

[Rockdiamond]

I can't speak to this particular case – but I can tell you that our photos or stolen routinely on eBay. My suggestion is to contact the vendor if you think it is a stolen photo – they will probably appreciate it very much

 

[deskjockey]

I don't know about gems specifically, but there are hordes of scammers on ebay who steal photos for their listings. It was a huge problem for a while with horse stuff, especially high end stuff. They would steal pics from other auctions, and sometimes directly from very recognizable websites. I always report it to ebay, but you have to have good proof, like a link to the source of the original image.

 

[blackprophet]

If you suspect image stealing, you could do an Google image search. Just save the picture then go to gogle image search, click on the little camera on the side and upload the picture and see what comes up. If you find it somewhere else, you can contact that person.

 

[deskjockey]

If you suspect image stealing, you could do an Google image search. Just save the picture then go to gogle image search, click on the little camera on the side and upload the picture and see what comes up. If you find it somewhere else, you can contact that person.

Out of curiousity, I just did that, and got several results. Notably, the google search turned up this page about Peter Torraca:
http://www.celtarts.com/PT.html

 

[chrono]

Urgh....that's just low. I am not as familiar with Peter but that surely looks like a picture of his stone.

 

[blackprophet]

Google does it again.

I suspected something would come up, even though I'm not as familiar with these pictures as others.

Buyer Beware...

 

[gsellis]

not sure what you guys are looking at, but the photo is a well cut, non-windowed stone. That does look like Peter's setup for pics. I will send him a PM via FB.

 

[pregcurious]

I guess I'm still not good at interpreting images. Thanks for catching this!

 

[ChrisA222]

A pretty big clue that the stone IS well-cut...is to look at the mirror reflection. It has a good shot of the pavillion, crown, etc. Obviously this is not a great image face-up, but the pavillion reflection leads me to believe there would not be a window, and the gem would look good in the hand.

 

[ChristineRose]

Always check toolhaus before you buy an e-bay gem.

http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=anton-us&Dirn=Received+by&ref=home

It appears that you not only won't get that tanzanite, you won't even get a tanzanite at all.

 

[ptorraca]

Yep, that's one of my old images, swiped straight from my Flickr photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ptorraca/4350628970/

I'll be complaining to eBay tonight & searching the seller's listings for more. No window in that one BTW, just a bad camera angle. My pictures are far from perfect, but I've gotten a little better since 2010.

Thanks to George for the head's up!

peter

 

[jbkhere]

Nice catch Wyntery, thanks!!!

 

[orbaya]

Was it an eBay vendor that was stealing people's personal photos posted in SMTB forum a few years ago?

 

[chrono]

It is more common that one might think and isn't limited to just stones by other vendors but Pricescopers too.
[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/beware-of-image-theft.80308/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/beware-of-image-theft.80308/[/URL]

 

[Niel]

I can't speak to this particular case – but I can tell you that our photos or stolen routinely on eBay. My suggestion is to contact the vendor if you think it is a stolen photo – they will probably appreciate it very much

oh my gosh yours are all the time! your pics are so distinct that its easy to tell if they crop it, but some dont even do that! says your name right at the bottom!

 

[ptorraca]

In poking through eBay's reporting system, I found that they recommend watermarking images to make this kind of thing more difficult for the shady sellers. It might be a good idea for anyone concerned about image theft on PS too.

My current image software (Adobe Lightroom) allows for automatic watermarking on export, so I use that pretty much all the time. But I've placed my watermark is off to the side so I suppose it could be cropped out if someone really wanted the image. I couldn't stand to put a watermark across the face of my stones... it takes A LOT of effort to make an accurate image just to deface it.

Sadly, it looks like it's a bit of a hassle to have a single image removed from a listing. I'll do it on principle. Here's a link to eBay's how-to on reporting "Reporting intellectual property infringements (VeRO)" for anyone else who needs it:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/vero-rights-owner.html

 

[ChristineRose]

It is easy to reverse a watermark, actually. However placing one might discourage someone like this who isn't even selling Tanzanite, let alone precision cut Tanzanite. E-bay is pretty sleazy about this though. It would take them ten minutes to see where the image comes from, perma-ban the loser and flag them as crooks for future reference. But they'll never do it.