chess

I bought a NIB copy of Mario Advance 4 on ebay, and it's pretty sophisticated, but I'm pretty sure it's a bootleg. Fortunately the seller already left me feedback, but unfortunately, he doesn't seem terribly interested in his...as he just made it "private". Am I SOL, or do I have some recourse through ebay or paypal?

Reason's I think it's a bootleg:

1. The box is a different design and color than the official one
2. The paper is a different stock than the one Nintendo uses
3. The Nintendo seal does not stand out at all, but is faded into the rest of the background
4. A strange "game boy reader" screen comes on when you first turn the game on.
5. The board inside the cartridge seems to rattle more than the usual Game Boy Advance cartridge.

Otherwise, the game seems to work, but I'm a bit bummed having paid 2/3+ of retail for the game.

Thanks for your help fellas...

-chess

PixyJunket

The Game Boy Player screen is normal.. that screen notes that there are extra effects if played on a Gamecube via a Game Boy Player.

But the box art and etc do seem fishy? Pics?

Superboy

If it says "Product of Hong Kong" or "Asia" as opposed to strictly the US or Japan, then it's a bootleg.

I bought a bootleg Tactics Orge game off ebay. It was obviously so, for the reasons you stated. The box had a glossy paper stock, the manual was obviously a color replication, and the cartridge itself was made out of cheaper plastic that real cartridges.

chess

it says that it's a product of japan, but i'm positive now. the booklet that's included is a barely passable color copy of the instructions for Mario Brothers, but has no instructions at all for SMB3...plus there are no promotional booklets or standard black gameboy booklets inside.

the funny thing is that they seem to have had some fairly sophisticated printing abilities but instead of copying the real box, they designed a new one. strange.

chess

this wasn't from his auction, but i found it on another...his auction had the official artwork...



real artwork:

sniper308

I'm curious, why would you pay more than retail?

chess

that was supposed to be "two-thirds plus"...paid $23 shipped.

ClarkKentKY

Bestbuy: 29.99 -5$gamergiftcard = 24.99 (minus ebay hassle + potential risk + waiting time) ... Not sure why you got it off ebay in the first place. Only seems like a couple of bucks difference.


Sucks though. Not sure what you can do other than notify ebay, and rat him out to nintendo. You probably won't get your money back, but you might be able to get him kicked off ebay so he can't do it to anyone else.


FROM PAYPAL HELP: The following items are not covered under the Money Back Guarantee:
-Media products such as DVDs, CDs, video and audio cassette tapes, video games, and other software

These might help:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...ge=_home&flow=

http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidenc...ams-fraud.html

Nintendo points to the ESA to report instances of piracy:
http://www.theesa.com/piracy.html

sniper308

gotcha ... still seems like less trouble to use the Best Buy coupon, still a little more that way, plus tax, but much better return policy

dancinns

My suspicions were correct about some of the deals on eBay for GBA games. I'll find something I want at a good price and then see that the seller is in Hong Kong and I'll just quickly disregard that auction.

That sucks, chess. Maybe you can contact eBay that the seller is selling knock offs.

cheapskate

In fairness, not everyone has a Best Buy in their area; so it's not always an option. My nearest Best Buy is hours away...so the whole "why didn't you just get it with the gamers gift card" thing doesn't always apply. Sucks to be me!

Too bad about getting a bootleg - but I'm guessing you'll have to end up keeping it. If nothing else, contact the hired thugs at Nintendo...and eBay, if he misrepresented the product with different cover art, etc.

tanman

Can we have the name of the EBayer so we can avoid him?
What was his feedback like?

blackchubby

Yeah Ebay has a lot of Sellers selling Bootleg GBA Games.

Trevor

Do you have a Circuit City nearby? Then just stock up on BB coupons next time you're there or get a friend to get you some, and use them at CC.

chess

He's actually being reasonably responsive to my concerns at this point, so I'll hold off before I dispairage him in a public forum. I waiting to leave feedback as well.

He's offered to refund a portion of my purchase price...and asked me what I thought was fair. I told him I'd gladly send it back at my cost if he'd refund the purchase price. Barring that, I told him that returning $11 of my $23 purchase price would be acceptable.

We'll see what he says.

His feedback was pretty solid for an apparent wholesaler...somewhere in the 96-97% range. I usually stick with top rated sellers, but took a chance in this case considering it was a "new" item. I honestly didn't know that GBA bootlegs even existed.

As far as BB and CC go, I honestly avoid trips to B&Ms at all costs these days. Between the tax, the gas, and the wasted time, the opportunity cost is just too high. If this had been a legitimate copy, $23 shipped to my door would have been a pretty good price.

rfduncan

I got that too. The worst part about it were the instructions. The manual refers to pages 57, etc and my manual only went up to page 16. I have almost no idea how most of the stuff in the game really works (characters, weapon, magic, etc.).

~~ PAL ~~

Well, good luck to you in getting a resolution with the seller. At least, this raised some awareness in the forum about looking out for bootleg GBA carts.

chess

Thanks. It sounds like he's going to let me return it and is being pretty reasonable. Hopefully he won't rip me off at the last minute. I offered to ship it back at my expense and to let him keep $1 of the purchase price to offset his Ebay fees, and he seems amicable.

It really hadn't even occurred to me that anyone was producing pirated gameboy games, so I really wasn't paying that much attention. For those interested, avoid the obvious things like "Hong Kong" or "Malaysia" and look for key words like "English version" "Guaranteed to work in your GBA"...both of which should go without saying and would have tipped me off had I even been on the lookout for bootlegs.

But he is from the U.S., so I'm not a complete dumbass.