Reporting Copied Auction Descriptions to eBay

Many successful sellers spend lots of timing working on their auction descriptions, tweaking how they word things, from how they list each item's details, right down to their auction terms such as payment and shipping details. And unfortunately new or lazy sellers come along, see your fantastic description and decide to take it for their own auctions.

If you find you are often the victim of this kind of description theft, take a unique phrase from your auction, and do a search for it. The returned results may surprise you.

Fortunately, eBay is well aware that this kind of copyright infringement happens, and they have a process set up where you can now report the copied auction description to eBay under their Verified Rights Owner Program, also commonly known as the eBay VeRO program. This program helps intellectual property owners who are the subject of theft, whether it be text, images or trademark infringement.

To file a report that your auction description has been stolen, click here. It can take a few days for eBay to respond, so file your report as soon as you discover the copyright infringement, so the auction can be removed from the eBay database before the auction is over.

It is still worthwhile to submit your theft report to eBay even if the auction is nearly over. Once you submit, the other seller will still be warned that it is illegal to copy someone else's intellectual property, and it will become a part of her eBay record. If a seller is guilty of this offense several times, that seller could lose her registered status on eBay.

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