Being ripped off

[dragon101]

I have just bought a DVD off ebay as a present for my parents and it turns out to be a copy. I.e purple dye
surface and poor picture quality. However the seller
claims it is genuine. Is there any sure fire way I can
prove it is a copy?

thanks

[communist]

If its a major hollywood title:
a) Contact & complain to ebay (they will probably take their time)
b) Contact the MPAA (quick way to nail that guy and probably get your money back) ;)

[markrb]

Put it in a DVD burner if imgburn says it's a DVD+/-R it's a copy.

Mark

[dragon101]

Thanks guys have checked the DVD with imgburn and it IS a DVD-R and was burned with:

Pioneer ebdl255875wl dvd-rw dvr-109

I'd say thats pretty conclusive :)


Thanks for the tip about the MPAA. After asking for a refund the guy actually responded by saying "Do your worst."
So I feel obliged to do so :) . Hope they can reach accross the Atlantic though as I and he are in the UK.

:thanks:

[Gehenna]

I had a similar experience on ebay (UK)..ie counterfeit DVD.
The pointers being:

Case Sleeve looked edited
DVD Label looked poor,and centered incorrectly
Was a Single Layer Disc
Region FREE (ie ALL)


Best thing you can do is report them through eBay,and warn others.

[markrb]

Don't forget to give negative feedback on ebay.
See if your local police has an internet fraud unit.

Mark

[shevegen]

I have one more suggestions
Dont use ebay ;)

I know this is not realistic but hey ...
:P

[chadamir]

Was it a vhs->dvd transfer or a dvd-copy? What was the movie?

[dragon101]

Was it a vhs->dvd transfer or a dvd-copy? What was the movie?

It is a British film called:

"Bernard and The Genie"

It was sold as a geniune DVD. From the quality it looks like either the worlds worst DVD->DVD-R copy or a still pretty poor VHS->DVD-R copy. I thought a legal copy of this film was available as I saw it on Amazon.com , but second glance shows this is from Amazon sellers not Amazon itself. So not sure anymore whether this has been released on DVD. :(

[foxyshadis]

Any big-bucks areas - anime, game music, other foreign imports, just-released or unreleased dvds, box sets - are absolutely chock full of pirated material on ebay and amazon. As long as the sites get their cut and don't get too many complaints, they seem perfectly happy to perpetuate it. As long as you're willing to risk negative feedback, giving one is your main option. Unless it's an unreleased/just released US title, then you might actually get results out of the MPAA. The only way to get them to change their practices is to complain publically.

If you paid for it via credit card, initiate a chargeback, as well. The card company should tell you whether or not you have to send back obviously pirated material.

[jggimi]

While the MPAA may be amused, their members were not a party to this particular BBC television production. They have no claims on behalf of their members.

According to imdb.com, this was a production of AttaBoy, British Broadcasting Corporation, and TalkBack Productions, all of which are UK corporations. I'd contact all three about your pirate. ;)

[dragon101]

thanks jggimi.

[2Bdecided]

If it doesn't say "genuine shop-bought original, not a copy" or similar, I don't bid.

I don't know how eBay deals with piracy etc, but I had an item with a completely wrong description. The seller couldn't care less. PayPal took my money back from the seller and refunded it to me, including postage.

You have to remember the seller has your address. Maybe the seller is a nutcase. That's why I don't have stuff posted to home!

However, what you have bought is probably more of a "bootleg", i.e. it's not a pirate of something that is legally available, but an illegal copy of something that isn't legally available. Maybe in this instance the seller mislead you, in which case you should have some come back. However, in many cases, such sellers assume you know what you are buying, drop hints about it, and will be annoyed if you complain about it afterwards. They will probably ignore you.

It's worth considering (before you bid!) that any seller regularly selling pirate discs or bootlegs is likely to have taken steps to prevent anything bad happening to them, e.g. multiple eBay accounts, false address, maybe even false/fraudulent details to PayPal.

Cheers,
David.

[dragon101]

Good news I sent the following details to the seller to give them a last chance before reporting them. They claimed they had sold me a geniune DVD so I thought demonstrating otherwise might help:

"The DVD is a 4.7gb and is a DVD-R not a pressed DVD. The real give-away for this is the purple dye on the read surface. A commercial pressed DVD is etched with a laser, while a DVD-R is written by altering the pigment in a dye.

The source of the disc can be traced by reading the meta-data that is stored on a DVD when it is written. It forms a digital fingerprint to identify the type of disc and the device used to write it. This DVD is a DVD-R ( i.e. not a genuine commercial disc), it was written on a Pioneer DVR-109 (serial number ebdl255875wl) which is a standard PC DVD writer drive as opposed to a commercial press machine.

The picture shows all the hallmarks of non-commercial digital video compression. This is necessary when copying a standard pressed DVD-9 to a smaller 4.7gb DVD-R. This is most clearly shown, as the picture is made up of a mosaic pattern of squares, very similar to a digital TV picture where the signal is weak and can not provide full picture information.

I realise that you purchased your DVDs from a shop at www.thaidvd.biz and assumed you would be receiving legal copies. However China, Thailand, Indonesia and south east Asia in general is the worlds centre for pirate DVD's. In these areas there it is extremely likely the DVD you buy is copied. "

They apologised and gave me a refund. Amazingly they had simply set up an ebay shop and got an account importing DVDs from a website in Thailand. They had no idea they were buying copies and after checking the rest of their stock are now most probably shutting up shop.