These infringing sales are already over so we can’t report them to eBay; besides, I know from past experience that eBay is almost useless. The best thing we can do is keep a sharp eye out.
Edit: Here’s another one of her accounts, with active auctions: here. If you see your art or recognize someone else’s art, please let them know!
A print of one of Diane Hoeptner’s paintings is listed with 2 current bids in the last listing. This person will only continue if the artist who’s work is being infringed doesn’t confront them and eBay. You could give the person a bad review to alert bidders. I do appreciate your putting this notice in the art talk, thank you.
I just got off the phone with eBay after reporting a copyright infringement. Even though yours was sold in the past you should still call and report it by the same seller under a slightly altered name. You can give them the DPW information as well as your name and artwork info. The only way you can really get ahold of eBay is to call, but they will take your number and call you back. They called me back in less than a minute. Perhaps the more people that call the swifter the action. I simply put Diane’s painting on my eBay page, that way I could give them the item number that is listed in parentheses. Then I gave them the name of Daily Paint Works and Diane’s name. -----They just took her off eBay-----
Yay! I see it a lot, and always alert the owners of the artwork, at least the scammers have good taste. diane’s work! I know her art anywhere but I wasn’t sure which was yours. The scammers have multiple ebay IDs unfortuantely. They just open again under another id.
Yes, the same person is also under missanaheimhills2 with 3 items for sale. I do not recognize any of the art, but it is something to check in on every once in awhile.
I also found that missanaheimhills has a deviantart account, and she links to her website;
The appearance of the eBay seller and the person on dA are similar. Plus the subject matter of the art is similar. It looks like she started posting her own art and then added other people’s stuff. You can tell by the difference in style (and skill level) which ones are her art and which probably aren’t.
Thanks so much Bobbie and everyone else for the reporting and getting things done! I’m going to report my stolen art today (if I get a chance before her account is taken down).
And, just to show the INTENT of this person, here’s a comparison of my art and her auction photo. She cropped out my watermarked URL, but also had to try to erase over my signature: http://i67.tinypic.com/35k7pnc.jpg You can see that the whiskers of the cat don’t quite line up (circled area). That’s where she was covering up my signature.
Sometimes people will claim that they “didn’t know” that it wasn’t okay, but when they have to erase the signature of the real artist, they KNOW.
Here is one for the record books. If this is real and there is no fake bidding or fake sales, this appears to have been sold on ebay as an aceo for $455., it iwas stolen from Jacqueline Gnott:
Jillian Crider shared this info on FB but I couldn’t figure out how to share the link from FB.
This seller appears to do this on a regular basis. I see lots of different artist’s work being sold by him/her.
I checked that out, that is shameful! So much money spent on a rip-off!
I neglected to see before that our current bootlegger has an “original” account as well. (Same username, no numbers after it.) She has 520 feedbacks, so she’s been at this for a while. I see a few of my paintings in her sales history. Some auctions had multiple bidders. I think most people think these are SIGNED prints or originals. If you look at the feedback, some people assumed the ACEOs should be signed at least. So she’s passing them off as her own.
I suspect she’s laying low. Maybe she got so many complaints on this original account that she decided to make new accounts (same username, with numbers after it). Maybe she’s trying to preserve the original account with all its feedbacks? She’s had that account for over ten years.
The people giving bad feedbacks said the art was counterfeit or a print. The fraud eBay seller yells back that they are a competitor, implying that they’re lying.
I think they’re probably a power seller? They get special protection, I believe.
I had a power seller ripping me off about 10 years ago and all eBay would do is remove the individual auction, but they NEVER did anything to the rip-off. I tried so hard. Made phone calls, sent faxes, filed official complaints. All eBay did was send me canned messages, implying that maybe the person “didn’t know” that they weren’t supposed to steal my art.
Back then you could contact other buyers (their IDs were not hidden) so I wrote to a few who had given the thief feedback and gave them PROOF that this person was stealing and plagiarizing. Only one, I recall, believed me. All the others claimed that the fraud seller was in the right and I was the one with “problems.”
I finally fixed it by putting up competing auctions, “selling” the same artwork that she was using. I explained in the auction (in veiled terms, I didn’t know if I could call her out directly) that I was the original artist and that anyone showing the same art was a fraud. Finally, FINALLY she stopped stealing my art. Up until that time she just kept on putting up new auctions with my art, like she had not a care in the world. (And she didn’t. eBay was apparently on her side!)
But she couldn’t compete with me showing my OWN art alongside her ripped-off copies of my art. What could she do? Claim copyright infringement? I guess she could try… (she was so shameless!). But she just went on to rip someone else off, didn’t even miss a beat.
That is so disheartening to know that. I was doing pretty good year b4 last selling on ebay but some change they made in their update put me somewhere idk, at the bottom of the stack of art? The pieces that top first 100 (don’t know a real number, but a lot!), are all rip off bad copies of someone else’s art.
It really is. What bothers me also is that the eBay feedback for these thieves. The buyers apparently believe they’re getting art from the artist and thus praise the seller for their “talent.” And the auction that Sunny linked to—the $455 print that was obviously being passed off as an original—oh yes, the buyers thought the seller was so talented too, I’m sure!
J Dunster-
Thanks for finding this and alerting everyone. UGH. What a thief! AND-- she is on Etsy!
She goes by Jennifer Vargas.
She has had 65 sales, I can’t tell if they are all hers or if any are prints of others’ work. If any are, it can be reported to Etsy.
Same profile picture as DeviantArt.
I think those are hers. They all have a distinct style. They don’t have any of the diversity of techniques as she has on her eBay or DeviantArt pages.
What I don’t understand is that she’s selling okay on Etsy. She should keep on doing that, instead of doing this side business of ripping people off. The money is nice with the rip-off auctions, but it looks like it isn’t that much. A few bucks an auction? Maybe 10 bucks if people fight over something?
I don’t understand how someone who does their own art (granted, at a different skill level) can do this to other artists. How would she feel if it was done to her?
I just joined yesterday and I can say after I read this post is that maybe you should find out the facts first and contact the person first before you publicly bash an artist or person online.
I found this website that provides a template for a DMCA Take Down letter. Some website actually have this for you right on their website (Facebook, Google, WordPress, and Pinterest all have forms).
diane’s work! I know her art anywhere but I wasn’t sure which was yours. The scammers have multiple ebay IDs unfortuantely. They just open again under another id.
