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This is very disturbing......www.sportscollectibles.com

I just had a really weird and unsettling experience.

I currently have a signed item that I am selling on eBay to (hopefully) raise some funds for another piece I have had my eye on. The piece I have listed is signed by a person that I have great interest in. Periodically, I do a Google search of their name adding "autograph" to see if anything pops up of them fresh to the market.

Tonight I was floored to see my item on eBay come up on Google....except it's not my listing and it's not on eBay. Instead, it's being offered on a website by a business who is not me, that I don't know and have never done business with. The website is www.sportscollectibles.com. Also, the price on their website is almost three times the amount that I have set as a Buy It Now on eBay but they have a "markdown" on it which is still twice what I am asking for it on eBay. On top of all of that, they have used the scan of the piece that I provided on eBay on their site....as well as taking information that I provided in my description to use

As I say, I do not have this piece on commission with www.sportscollectibles.com and actually have never heard of them until this evening.

What's going on here? Anyone have any experience with this company? Are they scammers? Also, what would be your advice on what I might do?

Thanks!

Here is their website...it's pretty slick.

Sports Memorabilia & Autographed Sports Collectibles

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Permalink Reply by Rich on January 5, 2021 at 11:45am

Ah, I get ya. It seems like if you're putting your photos on the internet anywhere, it's kind of fair game or difficult to make an argument and reposting/sharing. But someone re-characterizing your photos/post might be.

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Permalink Reply by Eddy on January 5, 2021 at 11:53am

Hey folks-

I've been on a chat with the COO of the sportscollectibles.com.

Here's what they are replying with:

We market and sell sports memorabilia from all over the world with a variety of vendors as well as our own inventory. During our download feeds from eBay, we sometimes get listings from others that are not on our list but fit certain criteria. We post those items and market those items and buy those items at full price from people like you. We develop relationships with people who are looking to us to help market their items where they may not be able to spend the money to market themselves. Any eBay vendor who wishes not be be apart of our feeds may at any time request us to block them and we do and it takes up to 72 hours for them to come down. We are not doing this from a malicious stand point but rather a business standpoint to make everyone money. We pay you full price and we are the middle man between you and a customer.

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Permalink Reply by Eddy on January 5, 2021 at 11:56am

continuing:

We do understand that this may erode both of our reputations regarding authenticity however, we stand behind all of our items (including yours) and if there are any issues we refund the customer and we work with eBay vendors, JSA as well as others to obtain proper certification.

I would rather work with you directly than have us all blocked but we are happy to take all your items down as well as those in the group if you provide me with the eBay names. The last thing we want is to hurt anyone, in fact, we hope this will promote your items and have them sell.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on January 5, 2021 at 11:57am

I wish that wording from them was a real person so I could hit them in the groin with a whiffle bat.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 5, 2021 at 12:01pm

I think I'd use aluminum...

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 5, 2021 at 11:58am

They did not pay for the use of your copyrighted property/image to make themselves money. That is not covered by Fair Use - it is the very criterion that will stop them.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 5, 2021 at 11:53am

Not Fair game, Fair Use - and the crux of that law is someone using your property/image to make money - once they do that the usually gray area of Fair Use becomes much more black and white. It is theft. Using an image for discussion etc., as we do here, is different.

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Permalink Reply by Rich on January 5, 2021 at 11:55am

You'd think someone would have taken them down by this point though given the scope of the operation. On the other hand, maybe most people don't really care as long as their item is selling.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on January 5, 2021 at 12:24pm

When someone uses one of my images as a book cover, illustration or frontispiece (like the N.B.M. did) w/o written permission, they wind up caring. And paying too.

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Permalink Reply by Eddy on January 5, 2021 at 12:06pm

I discussed with the COO that it would seem to be helpful to share their responses about copyright as there are concerns:

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be and cannot answer about copyright law, in the end as I stated above, we are happy to work with you or take down your items, we are not trying to hurt anyone

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Permalink Reply by Todd Johnson on January 5, 2021 at 12:17pm

They will wait on the high sell of an item from their site and only then purchase it from the ebay seller. Buy my items from me now, then they can list and resell for more when they own it, and create their own photos for it too, but they will never do it that way to save time and money.