Pathetic is right... I definitely don't buy his story -- if he was unaware of the origin, he certainly seems to be going out of his way to avoid showing an actual photo of the item. And I don't know how someone could be buying so many bootlegs and not be aware that they weren't getting the same discs that you could find at Wal-Mart or whereever. Something smells fishy. ;)

Again, when you get your $$$ back, make sure to leave the guy a comment (I would suggest Neutral) indicating that you got a bootlegged copy and a refund. Potential buyers need to see this sort of stuff in someone's feedback.

will do, thanks for the advice bboisvert :)

What sucks is I've tried reporting guys like this to ebay and they don't seem to care or do anything at all. These are people who are mass selling hundreds of bootleg copies of the same movies - blatantly illegal practices ripping off unsuspecting consumers with inferior junk products. I suppose if they have a decent feedback rating that's all that seems to matter with ebay. The only other thing to do is to possibly contact the creators or studios about the sellers and get them to contact ebay (which may do a little more good). Personally, all the times I've contacted ebay they've done absolutely nothing.

I dont think Im gonna buy anymore DVD's on ebay, Used, or New, have had too many problems just getting started into it, who knows what could happen later with a lot purchase (o boy, lol) anywho, I might just buy from sales like B & M stores, and DDD has always been good to me. What would be nice, is if I could buy a big chunk of my dvd wants with the 2 time a year ddd 20% off sale, but thats hard, when I have $ to spend, lol.

Why is that pathetic? The guy could've been hardnosed about it and said "tough cookies".

Did the auction provide a picture of the case or disc? Did you ask about the authenticity before bidding? If authenticity is an issue for you, then you should make sure of what you are bidding on. But I'm strange like that.

it said region 1 in the white box that tells the description of the dvd..

See, I more of the mind that -- as a buyer -- I should be able to assume that a seller with 99% positive feedback and over 4 years of selling isn't going to sell me an illegal copy.

The auction DID provide a picture, but then down in the text, the seller basically said "Ignore that picture at the top and bottom of the auction... that ain't what I'm selling you." Buyers shouldn't have to read every last word on the page to avoid being 'tricked' like that. The seller knew better (being careful to avoid listing the UPC code and mentioning that the picture didn't match), and sold the copy anyway. That's what's pathetic/sad/whatever.

There's now yet another person who will not be using eBay to buy DVDs. He's been scared off by some loser who would rather make $4 off an illegal copy than remain an honest seller. I think that's the textbook definition of "pathetic".


EDIT: Sorry, I can't let this go... so I'm adding to the post. :) It's sellers like this that also make my life a living hell... as an honest seller, with great feedback, I still have to answer about 10 questions a day about "Is this a copy?" "Can you prove this DVD is legit?" I get asked to take photos of $5 DVDs (front/back/side) and e-mail them to people to prove that I have an original R1 edition of the title. It's incredibly frustrating, when I should be able to simply say that this is the original R1 edition and be done with it.

give his address to the mpaa or something. lol

You can add me to the club of people who will never buy another DVD ever again from Ebay. I recently bought the unrated version of a movie, but got the R-rated version in the unrated case. I complained to the seller (who had 99.9% feedback out of about 2,000 and a guaranteed refund policy no less) and she responded that she could handle my negative feedback - but would I be able to handle her's?

So after losing $60 on that deal, I won another auction for the same DVD from another seller (another power seller with thousands of positive feedback) - and I'm pretty sure the one I got was a bootleg. So now I was out another $50 or so.

As far as I'm concerned, a good feedback score doesn't mean crap to me, and a lot of these power sellers are suspicious at best (exactly how does one guy have so many CDs/DVDs to sell?) and at worse are no better than thieves. Paypal's protection guarantee of up to $1,000 turned out to be a lie as well - all I received was a standard form response telling me the seller accurately described the item. (So remember that if you want to sell a bare bones DVD on Ebay, you can advertise it as the special edition. They're all interchangeable according to Paypal!)

If you still have her email...and she did indeed threaten to give you a retaliatory negative feedback...contact eBay's Safe Harbor (or whatever they are calling it this week) about the situation. Even power sellers can be suspended from eBay for such actions.

Actually, going to the copyright holder can work. A power seller sold me some bootleg DVDs of "The Dean Martin Show." When I complained, he claimed that he only sold discs which were "authentic and legitimate." I then contacted the copyright holder (Guthy-Renker), who asked me to send them scans of the DVDs. Later, they emailed me back, confirming that the discs were indeed bootlegs. I then told the seller what Guthy-Renker had said, adding that I would be happy to give them his name and address, so they could "discuss the matter with him directly." I got a refund two days later and the guy pulled his remaining stock of the DVDs off eBay!

closing as the answer to the original question has been answered..and bootleg threads get into shouting matches..