suspicious ebayer! Need advice ASAP!

I'm a little more than suspicious of this ebayer, she currantly has the high bid on my 'spinach face'. I checked on her and she has 14 reborn Berenguers for sale right now on ebay. In everyone of her descriptions she states she is getting out of reborning and if you want a doll from her nursery, this is your last chance to get one. The prices she has on her dolls is a lot higher than what I have mine listed for. I have a feeling she is one of those 'resellers'. Why would she be bidding on one of my babies if she is getting out of reborning?

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She has bought alot of new dolls off ebay, but all of her doll auctions are private so I can't veiw the dolls she has sold. Do ya'll think I should block her? Or should I contact her and question her motives? I'm afraid if I contact her things could get ugly. I'm liable to go off on her if I suspect that her intentions are to resell one of my creations! I don't want to get a bad rep for my nursery or my name, but I'm certainly not gonna sit back and let someone 'STEAL' my art! I take great pride in what I do and I enjoy the whole 'creation' or my version of the 're-creation'.

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The doll she is bidding on has a$99.00 reserve and a $125.00 buy it now. Her dolls prices average $200.00 +. My baby has been signed on the inside of his limbs. So no one would know it was mine, unless they took it apart.

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I could use some feedback, please. My auction ends at 11:00 pm EST (Sunday)

Kelli, it is a tough situation. You can't control what a buyer will do with the item once they have bought it. You can choose to remove her bid if you are concerned but if you need the sale then maybe the only thing you can do is watch her sales on ebay and if your doll shows up make sure she gives you credit for your work and if not then report her to ebay. You could aslo just drop her a note and tell her that you see she has a number of re-sales on dolls and that if she ever decides to resell this baby to please make sure to give you credit for your work. Keep all your pictures, the number of the auction for your baby that she is bidding on, etc so you can prove it if she try's to claim your work as her own. I wish you luck!! If you have a couple of bidders for your baby you can choose to remove her bids and block her and hope the other bidder meets your reserve at the least. It's a tough call, let us know what happens.

All's well that ends well! The reserve wasn't met, but I did go ahead and block her from bidding anymore, just incase she wanted to 'buy it now'. My husband said 'once someone buys something like that, they can do whatever they want with it.' Which to an extent they can. There are rules and regulations about using someone elses photographs, but how do we 'copyright' or protect the dolls we create? I've always given credit to the original sculptor, be it a Berenguer, Aleina Peterson, Secrist, .... but anything I've put my hand to I've signed 'K~Jo' and the year. I've done that for years with the exception of anything I've crocheted. I have never crocheted anything that hasn't ended up with a piece of my hair getting caught up in it. Purely accidental!( What better proof of ownership than DNA?) Then again I don't sell what I crochet. I am seriously going to check into a tool engraver. And/or maybe I shouldn't list my work so cheap. I just don't feel I have established myself well enough to get $300 or $400 for one of my babies. Maybe I'm selling myself short. But when it comes to the Berenguers, I'm doing them for all the little girls I seen this summer at our local craft show. The ones whose jaws hit the ground and were in awe of my reborns. They deserve a quality reborn their parents can afford and they can actually play with. I would rather give one of my babies to a little girl that will 'love it to pieces' than make a little profit and run the risk of that someone reselling my work. Don't tell my husband that.

We can't copyright our work but that doesn't mean someone else can come along and claim it's their work. I have seen many ladies who had this done to them on one of their dolls and in all the cases they brought it to ebays attention and ebay shut the auction down. People can't use your pics either, just as you said and if they do and you bring it to ebays attention then ebay often closes auctions down for doing that! I think it's wonderful that you try to make your dolls affordable for parents with little girls who would treasure such a doll! As for selling yourself short...you probably are...I do too. I think it's because we love the art and are artists vs some who do it strictly for the money. With that said though, I do make my babies to sell them as we all do but what I am referring to is our motivation for doing it...which is a love for the art itself. Glad you blocked the lady...now you won't have to deal with the stress of dealing with her! Hope you have a great week!

Liz