eBay Warning: There's Some Really High Quality Counterfeit Products Out There (1 Viewer)

[MattAlbie60]

In regards to TV on DVD, I mean.
I think I just got hit twice in one week. Definitely once, but probably twice. Be careful.
I bought MST3K XXIV and COMMUNITY: Season 3 on eBay this week. Trying to be financially conscious and save a little money. My mistake.
COMMUNITY came first. I thought the interior disc cases felt a little low quality, but I didn't actually think anything of it.
MST3K arrived today. Of the four mini posters its supposed to have, I only have 3 and they were folded in half. I was annoyed, but Shout Factory is great so I figured I'd probably be able to replace them. I've been e-mailing with them a little this afternoon and they confirmed that the set is counterfeit.
Thing is, if it hadn't been for the mini posters I'd never have known. This thing is PRESTINE. It looks perfect. Even Shout admitted that it was really high quality, and the only way you could tell is if you had a real one to compare it to.
What makes me suspect COMMUNITY is that the MST3K set has the same, cheap-feeling interior disc cases.
I'm trying to get my money back now from eBay, but I just wanted to warn people. Bootlegs aren't as easy to identify as broken English and hilariously misspelled words anymore. This is, like, Skrull Invastion-level stuff we're talking about here.
I think this was definitely enough to get me to swear off eBay for anything that I seriously collect.

 

[schan1269]

Counterfeit merchandise is a "Paypal return" condition...
So, yes, demand your money back and Paypal/Ebay won't even require you to send the item back.
One of the pratfalls of attempting to sell counterfeits on Ebay. You have ZERO seller protection/rights...which is the way it should be.
I've bought those "white van scam" speaker systems before and bid them up to the thousands of dollars, then...even before they showed up..complained to Ebay/Paypal and they refunded the purchase price.
Nothing like some idiot trying to pawn off crap...getting stuck with a couple hundred dollar Ebay fee...and having to return the cash to the buyer.

 

[MattAlbie60]

Well, that's good to hear. The first thought in my head was "I am so unbelievably mad right now." The second was "The only way I will get more angry is if they try to make me pay for return shipping."
I've filed claims through eBay. Do I have to do one for PayPal, too? Or is it together?

 

[The Obsolete Man]

I think we had a discussion about this on one of the MoD threads a little while ago.
It's not just e-bay. I got hit the same way through Amazon third party sellers. The majority of my modern Doctor Who season sets were counterfeit, and I just figured WB did a really bad job on authoring the discs until I put two and two together.
Same thing happened with a copy of NCIS season 8 I bought.
With the counterfeit stuff, though, as you said... the cases feel off. They're too waxy, made of a different, inferior material to a season set that's legitimate. But just looking at them, they seem legit. And the picture quality is usually horrible.
Of course, with MST3K, your picture quality might not be as bad since the show comfortably fits on a single layer disc. But when the contents of a dual layer disc are bounced down to a single layer disc, the picture is horrible, and makes it easy to tell you got shafted.

 

[schan1269]

Your "firepower" is...
"Item received does not match description"
Did they say it was a counterfeit?
Nope...you get your money back.

 

[MattAlbie60]

Of course, with MST3K, your picture quality might not be as bad since the show comfortably fits on a single layer disc. But when the contents of a dual layer disc are bounced down to a single layer disc, the picture is horrible, and makes it easy to tell you got shafted.

Well, that is what eventually became warning sign #2 with COMMUNITY. I was watching those episodes and going "Damn... standard def SUCKS" because I had only ever seen them in HD broadcasts.
After the MST3K revelation I was like "Oooooh. I'm an idiot."
EDIT: One of the two sellers responded with "You pay return shipping, you can have a full refund on everything but the shipping you just paid." So methinks this is about to get escalated, I guess.

 

[Stan]

I was a huge e-bay buyer in the late 90s early 2000s, but more and more discovered a lot of things aren't as "rare" as you might think they are.
Bought a few OOP DVDs and a lot of what I thought was somewhat rare art glass from the 50s, which were legit, only to discover years later when I tried to sell them the market was flooded. Oh well, still ended up enjoying and filling in the gaps of things I inherited from my grandparents.
Now when I buy, I don't even look at the used items on Amazon. Just feel safer and spend the extra few dollars on new, sealed factory product.
Wasn't worried about bootlegs until now, just didn't want to deal with the possible problems of used and possibly questionable items. Would hope that Amazon and e-bay block sellers like this in the future.
Good luck in getting it cleared up.

 

[Tory]

I was a huge e-bay buyer in the late 90s early 2000s, but more and more discovered a lot of things aren't as "rare" as you might think they are.
Bought a few OOP DVDs and a lot of what I thought was somewhat rare art glass from the 50s, which were legit, only to discover years later when I tried to sell them the market was flooded. Oh well, still ended up enjoying and filling in the gaps of things I inherited from my grandparents.
Now when I buy, I don't even look at the used items on Amazon. Just feel safer and spend the extra few dollars on new, sealed factory product.
Wasn't worried about bootlegs until now, just didn't want to deal with the possible problems of used and possibly questionable items. Would hope that Amazon and e-bay block sellers like this in the future.
Good luck in getting it cleared up.

I try to look for bargains at amazon but there is no way to exclude used items from sellers from the search nor seller items shipped from amazon.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Here you go...
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/323039/whats-up-with-cbss-dvd-r-releases
That's the thread we had a discussion similar to this one in, starting with post #4 or 5.

 

[Rick Thompson]

I was a huge e-bay buyer in the late 90s early 2000s, but more and more discovered a lot of things aren't as "rare" as you might think they are.
Bought a few OOP DVDs and a lot of what I thought was somewhat rare art glass from the 50s, which were legit, only to discover years later when I tried to sell them the market was flooded. Oh well, still ended up enjoying and filling in the gaps of things I inherited from my grandparents.
Now when I buy, I don't even look at the used items on Amazon. Just feel safer and spend the extra few dollars on new, sealed factory product.
Wasn't worried about bootlegs until now, just didn't want to deal with the possible problems of used and possibly questionable items. Would hope that Amazon and e-bay block sellers like this in the future.
Good luck in getting it cleared up.

Agreed about getting the counterfeit cleared up. On the question of eBay, though, I only judge on how important the item is to me, not how much it may bring on resale. I never believe those "rare" claims unless I personally know the item is indeed rare. I make my bids, or "buy it now" decisions based solely on how much or how little I personally want the item. Outside of necessities, that's the only reason to buy anything: Is it worth that much to me no matter what anyone else thinks it's worth.

 

[Stan]

Agreed about getting the counterfeit cleared up. On the question of eBay, though, I only judge on how important the item is to me, not how much it may bring on resale. I never believe those "rare" claims unless I personally know the item is indeed rare. I make my bids, or "buy it now" decisions based solely on how much or how little I personally want the item. Outside of necessities, that's the only reason to buy anything: Is it worth that much to me no matter what anyone else thinks it's worth.

I haven't bought an item from eBay in at least ten years and have never sold anything via eBay or other sites. It was great at first and thankfully bought only things I wanted and enjoyed, never intended to resell.
The only time I ever planned on selling was back in late VHS/early DVD years. I had several of the silver Star Wars widescreen letterboxed trilogies I had found at local stores for about $50, but going for over $200 on eBay. The exact day I decided to sell them, set up the web page, take photos, etc. somebody dumped a semi-truck load of the same set on eBay, all of them being bought up at about the $50 I paid for mine. Mine became essentially worthless, as they are to this day.
Never looked back, just a bad memory, but I've never bought, let alone sold anything on eBay since. If there are good counterfeits out there on eBay, I'll never be exposed to them, just not worth the risk.

 

[schan1269]

The last few things I've bought on Fleabay...
Parts for a Farmall M. Austin-Healey parts.
What I frequently browse for are SACD/DVD-A. Although DVD-A is a PITA because of the dearth of morons posting music video discs. Although in a few cases the seller posted something I did want...and their listing was lousy. A few times I "complained" to get the price I paid lowered cause, well you know...they posted it in the wrong category and I was expecting a DVD-A, not what showed up...
Our washer/dryer died a couple weeks ago. One of the bearings in the dryer started making an awful noise...right when the parts showed up, the trans died in the washer. New set...
Anyway, sold all the good parts from the W/D. Made close to $400 back from the parts.

 

[DaveM4964]

I recently bought a Monkees season set on e-bay. When it arrived the first thing i noticed was a typo on the front of the box. The set was sealed but my first thought was that it was flimsy and cheap looking. Sure enough when i opened it there was one disc that kept freezing up. I did get a full refund but now i have to buy the set again.

 

[Neil Brock]

Moral of this thread is you get what you pay for. Buy legitimate products from legitimate sellers and there's no problem. Is it really worth the aggravation to save a couple of dollars?

 

[MattAlbie60]

Is it really worth the aggravation to save a couple of dollars?

Obviously, no its not.
To be fair, though:

Buy legitimate products from legitimate sellers and there's no problem.

I thought I was doing that.

 

[Tory]

Hm, the only boot I purchased that looked pro and real that I now know is a boot was the complete Cowboy Bebop and I bought it in a video game store at the mall. The person selling it gave me this whole speech about how they didn't take returns on these dvds because people would copy them and return bootlegs. This was many years ago but the complete Cowboy Bebop set was not three discs.
I do have a question, if anyone knows anything about the complete Sabrina the Teenage Witch cartoon, I bought it from amazon and it was one of those situations where a seller sells things from amazon. Well the cover is different in regards to the Sabrina logo provided in the amazon pic. Honestly I thought they sent me the dvd without the slipcase but the upc was on the back. Instead fo the Sabrina Logo, it just says Sabina the teenage witch on a black bar in regular type.

 

[Blimpoy06]

Using this old thread since I didn't want to start a new one. I purchased the Complete Series Remastered As Time Goes By from Amazon Marketplace. Item was described as Used, Like New. Still in shrink wrap. I think I have a counterfeit product. Reviews on Amazon were negative based on the packaging. A single hub with all the discs stacked on top of each other. Similar to what Sony did with their budget complete series releases.

What I received is in a clear, but murky and bad smelling flip case with two discs per side. A very nice fellow took an unboxing video of a set he bought on eBay which is exactly like mine. I will use his nice work to illustrate my set. He acknowledges his set is different than the other, but likes it better and probably doesn't think it's a fake. BTW, he paid less than half what I did for mine!

 

[bmasters9]

I was a huge e-bay buyer in the late 90s early 2000s, but more and more discovered a lot of things aren't as "rare" as you might think they are.

Off-topic: I've been bitten by an EBay purchase that I had my nephew make that wasn't what I thought it would be-- a 1984 Rocky Mountain News paper (the Rocky was the other paper of Denver from 1859-2009, besides the Post [the Post still exists]) that was published at the 125th Anniversary of that paper on Sunday, April 22, 1984.

Here's what happened: the original listing for it showed that this paper would have all of its sections (main news, magazine, special section, etc.), so I went in for it (had my nephew to get it); I relished the thought of it, because I've been collecting older papers lately.

When it arrived, the package it came in was kind of thin. I expected a somewhat thicker package, because I thought I was getting what was pictured. Turns out, all that was really being sold was the 144-page special section about the history of the paper, and how it related to the history of Denver.

Problem is, I tried to have my nephew contact the seller to ask if I would be getting everything of what was pictured, but the seller never responded; as such, I foolishly went along with it.

Here are some pictures of what I thought I was getting, compared to what I actually got (captured from original listing; the first picture is what I actually got):

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Of all these bootleg sets everyone is talking about, did any of them not have a blue/purple recording surface? That has always been the telltale sign of a burnt (DVD-R) disc in the past. I'm pretty sure most (if not all) bootlegs would be tellable that way.

About the As Time Goes By and Doctor Who stuff, I will say that some US-marketed BBC product has been replicated poorly in the past. I bought a genuine Keeping Up Appearances boxset and the Season One disc wouldn't play all the way through one of the epiosdes (the one guest-starring Norman Lovett of Red Dwarf). I contacted BBC/Warner's customer service line to ask for a replacement disc. They sent me the entire boxset again, and the Season One disc in that one worked!

At first, I thought it was a clever fake (replicated and all, as it had a metallic recording surface rather than blue) because the photographic printing on the front of the discs was quite poor compared to my earlier Are You Being Served? set. It was, in fact, a genuine set, but one made after they switched replication facilities to Mexico. Both the original I bought (and the BBC-sent replacement) were from the Mexico-made batch.

Later on, I got hold of an older, non-Mexico set of Keeping Up which had immaculate reproduction on the picture side.

I'm pretty sure I've heard others (perhaps on this very forum) talking about getting bad Mexican-manufactured WB and/or BBC discs.

 

[Charles Ellis]

This nothing new: there's been a flood of cheap knock-offs of the MPI deluxe set of Dark Shadows: The Complete Series (the coffin-shaped box) on Ebay, and among DS fans there's been Facebook messages on how to tell a real MPI set from a fake. I never bought the box set since I had already bought all of the individual volumes on DVD, updating some sets which had been upgraded by MPI to correct some scenes which had been edited in error in prior releases.