Well said Julia.

Great advice from Julia, who has a great collection

Okay, I just talked to ebay on the phone. Here is where you email your complaint over stolen photos.
[email protected]

Be prepared to give them information on the seller, screen shots are great to show which photos they are using, and give links to the original photo in the database showing the watermark on your photo.

Mine was already removed although he asked me to send my copyright info. I told him it's my photo therefore that is my copyright. I said that I have given him the courtesy of removing them himself rather than contacting eBay first.

Asked him to please read eBay's policy again, if I have to report it to them to get him to comply, this may be their option, and I quoted:

"Activity that doesn't follow eBay policy could result in a range of actions including for example: administratively ending or canceling listings, hiding or demoting all listings from search results, lowering seller rating, buying or selling restrictions, and account suspension. All fees paid or payable in relation to listings or accounts on which we take any action will not be refunded or otherwise credited to your account."

His reply:
It's already removed but again can you show me your copyrights and btw your pic is all over the Internet.
Do you have other pics you'd like not used?

He thinks it's like applying for a patent. I told him the moment I took the photo, it was copyrighted. I do not have to file anything or apply for anything and I sent him this link:
https://www.photosecrets.com/h...
And that photo he used is not all over the internet, only in his listing.
Told him all my photos are not to be used, I have sold to professional websites and printed media.

Way to go Sue.

I just emailed [email protected]
Our old friend edshostagarden99 is at it again. I do not want to deal with that person again. Evidently this person thinks it is no big deal to steal photos.
rareplantsstore removed one of the photos because the sale was over. Hasn't removed the others. I did tell him if they weren't removed within 24 hours I would turn it in. He/she must not think I was serious.

Turned them both in.

Oh wow these people are persistent. Brazen.

Honestly I would start playing hardball. Tell them they will be hearing from your attorney if they fail to remove them.

If you all want to post the links to the photos that are currently up, maybe we can all click on the "report" button to see if that speeds things up? May be worth a shot?

Heidi, unfortunately there is no report button on eBay.

valleylynn said:Way to go Sue.

I just emailed [email protected]
Our old friend edshostagarden99 is at it again. I do not want to deal with that person again. Evidently this person thinks it is no big deal to steal photos.
rareplantsstore removed one of the photos because the sale was over. Hasn't removed the others. I did tell him if they weren't removed within 24 hours I would turn it in. He/she must not think I was serious.

Turned them both in.

That .... garden99 person is also on amazon.

They claim thy have tested all their plants and they are disease free, seems like a lot of time and money to test all plants for various diseases.

Back on April 16, 2016, Dave posted above the best advice so I will copy it again.

Contacting a seller is almost always a complete waste of time. Like most thieves, they usually don't care about the feelings of the victims of what they are doing.

The proper response to your image being used is to go directly to ebay themselves and report the seller. This does two things: it gets your image promptly removed, and puts massive pressure on the seller to never do it again.

Only the owner of the image can submit an infringement to ebay. In other words, nobody can do the report on your behalf. You have to do it yourself. You do that from this page:

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-...

It is a simple process, and ebay is VERY responsive to these kinds of reports.

Paleo, I took a quick look on Amazon.
Yes, more than one of them is on Amazon. Now I have to try to figure out how to contact Amazon.

Lynne, try this link:

https://www.amazon.com/report/...

Heidi thank you. I just got home and found your link to Amazon. I added that link to the beginning of this thread so it would be easy to find. I will add a link for Etsy when I find it. Again, thank you.

Well things are happening now. Many of the photos have been taken down, meaning that the sale was removed.
Still have some that should be gone in the next 48 hours.
Here are some of the offenders if you want to check to see if your photos are being used. I find it interesting that they are selling these plants and can't take photos of what they are selling. And they are giving random names to some semps, not sure about other types of plants. These sellers are the ones I have been dealing with for semp photos, but they sell many other kinds of plants.
hirtsgardens: https://www.ebay.com/sch/hirts...
edshostagarden99: https://www.ebay.com/sch/edsho...
rareplantsstore: https://www.ebay.com/sch/rarep...

So I don't grow temps ( situation not bias) but I can't imagine someone would want to use aka steal any of my pictures. My eyesight is getting worse (now have separate 'issues' per eye); have an uncanny ability to take pictures when it's either windy or the light is wrong; often too lazy rushed to move things spoiling the background; little ability to edit; hands shake and so on. I mostly take pictures because my iPhone records the date/time and is my way of journaling what happened when. I suppose I have a few decent pictures prior to my 2nd or 3rd eye surgeries. Understand, I am not being modest. And not trying to start a pity party unless someone will contribute pizza, cake, gelato and wine.

Maybe when I have time to kill am especially curious, I might have a look see, especially since y'all have conveniently added links.

In the meantime, a pox on all who steal.

TFC, wish I lived closer, I love your sense of humor. That cake and gelato sure sounds good right now.

valleylynn said:They are not all Ukrainian. And not all Ukrainians are stealing photos.
I find it interesting that he even states that the first photo is not of the plants that will be sent.
This is another one of my photos, the one that shows first, then look at how he is actually growing them in the other photos. Looks like they are grown in his house/apartment?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sempe...
Oh no, I found more.

Looks like he took it down - unless you reported him and eBay did? I don't mind if others use my photos, but if you labeled yous as copyrighted, others should not use them.

Some of you may already know this trick, but here's an easy way to find sites using your images:

While looking at your photo online, right click on it. From the dropdown menu, select "Search Google for image". It will pull up a new tab. The first results are usually "Visually Similar Images", but below that you'll find "Pages that include matching images". Any site that's copied your image will appear here. Hope that helps!

Thank you Annie. I will add this information to the beginning of this thread. Hope to see you in April.

The trick I use is to take a screen shot of Annie's post. I just have to remember I did it if I ever feel I need the information! I do that with a lot of things, for example, electronic receipts received in email.

Good idea Connie. If you don't remember your screen shot, remember that the info is in the first post of this thread.