Imitation a form of flattery or laziness?

[Sharpnshinyknives]

Recently I was alerted to a Facebook seller using my photos. Now this morning I saw on eBay my written description of a Henckels knife I have listed, only it doesn’t match the knife. Here is the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/175408353324?h ... R_ic083jYA.
His knife is yellow and mine is burnt white bone. My description says: “free shipping within the USA”, but he is charging shipping.
If you are going to copy someone else’s work, at least apply it correctly, sheesh.

[rea1eye]

I agree SSK!

Bob

[Steamboat Willie]

Looks like laziness to me, Mark. Hopefully whoever ends up with that knife gives him negative feedback when he charges them shipping.

[jerryd6818]

I vote for laziness and/or ignorance.

[1967redrider]

Mark, you should tell him you deserve a commission on the sale.

[cody6268]

I'm a member of the forum that hosts the SAK Wiki, and I see people copying stuff off of the Wiki to use on eBay regularly.

Technically, it's plagiarism when you don't quote the source--which is academic fraud--taking it one further than just laziness.

[Mumbleypeg]

There have been instances where someone has joined AAPK, first post is a request like “can someone tell me about this knife?” Then copied and pasted verbatim the reply here to their subsequent ebay listing of the knife.

Not sure whether to cry “foul”, or be glad they used that rather than some of the bloviated listings commonly seen on ebay.

Ken

[Sharpnshinyknives]

I did email him to let him know about the discrepancies but got no reply.
Ken, I didn’t realize people were taking responses here and using it as descriptions for listings. Interesting. I know AAPK is THE place to go for information about knives, but even people here make mistakes. Pretty bold using what some stranger says about a knife and taking for granted that it’s correct.
I guess some folks just want all the gain without all the work.
Thank you all for the responses.

[knifeaholic]

I have seen other Ebay sellers copy and use my descriptions for Case pocket knives many times. Sometimes humorous when they use my description for a knife that is much newer and their description ends up being totally wrong for the knife that they are listing.

[Madmarco]

With the tanking economy and people scratching and grinding just to get by I won't be surprised to see more and more folks using underhanded tactics to make the almighty buck. I think this stress is causing folks to undermine their own principles all the while telling themselves if it's a necessary evil to stick it to the next guy so they can get what they want then it's O.K. Just one more step we're talking toward the destruction of this fragile world and life as we know it. I saw the "World Time Clock" on the tube yesterday and it's stopped at 100 seconds to Doomsday. That's a very short minute and a bit to be treating with disregard. Sorry to go off the rails from your topic Mark, this is what your post stirred-up in me!

[Sharpnshinyknives]

Two full days and the seller still hasn’t responded or changed his description. It makes me mistrust everything he has listed, I guess this will be another seller that I avoid.

[Madmarco]

I just sent him a message scolding him for his plagiarism Mark, and suggested he do his own research in the future. I mentioned that what he is doing is circulating around our forum and that his blatant plagiarism has lost many potential buyers for his products and that his actions are paramount to stealing. Perhaps because I'm not the victim he will feel more comfortable replying to me, I'll keep you posted so to speak via this thread.

[Madmarco]

Well, I must have struck a nerve with this guy cuz I sent my message to him at around 4:15 P.M. today and he replied 3X in half an hour, actually while I was typing out my earlier post. This info is verbatim including all misspellings and punctuation! *jeremoar*(79 feedback points)---1st reply, "how is it dishonest if it's the exact same ninth(knife perhaps?)and why is the option to do that available? How am I being dishonest?" 2nd reply, "I just got off the phone with ebay and I'm not doing anything wrong. These are my photos guy. And the description is off the henckels website I apologize but you're coming at me With false allegations But you're trying to do the right thing it's all good a loyal friend is a good friend.(I had told him the genuine poster is a good friend of mine). Don't message me again please I've done nothing wrong." 3rd reply, "Disregard voice to text my phone sucks with that but You get the drift" I have no idea what this was about. Take note of the broken English as it might be an indication that where he came from finds behaviour like this acceptable. And his attempts to be friendly with me in his 2nd and 3rd replies indicate he thinks his explanation solves everything and we can now put this behind us and be friends. He is also very likely embarrassed that he got caught, and rather than doing the right thing and owning up with an apology that it was a compliment not a theft, he chose to "take the stand" and thus got convicted. So, it seems to me that this clown is sticking to his guns, and it comes down to either our longtime loyal friend and fellow member Mark, or, short time and very low 79 feedback points suspect ebay seller jeremoar is a liar, and I know where my money is going!

[Sharpnshinyknives]

Thanks Mark. He doesn’t seem to understand the differences in his knife and my knife, which I explained. He either is ignorant of what he is doing or dishonest and sometimes it’s hard to figure out which is which with some people. I find it interesting that he thinks he got this description off of Henckels website, maybe he doesn’t understand how a search function works? I know that when I Google a knife name for information that many times I see my photos pop up in the “images” section and many times I see my listings pop up in the top of the search field. It’s possible he doesn’t understand the difference. Either way whoever wins his auction will either be upset about how far off his description is or maybe they have figured it out in advance? It’s all on him either way. Not someone I intend to do business with.

[Madmarco]

No problem Mark. The deeper this goes the more I'm leaning towards ignorance on the seller's part. The broken English, lack of knowledge, and resistance to correction after being made aware of his blunder, all adds up to ignorance of the way things work and put him in a defensive position and someone to steer clear of. JMHO!