Wednesday 22 October 2008

eBay fraud

Two days ago we finally received both GBA Harvest Moon games. Oh were we happy :)
But then things atrted to go wrong. At first my game (FoMT) got its save file deleted when I played it in my DS (normal one). Ana's game (MFoMT) worked fine and both games worked fine in her DS Lite. The next thing Ana noticed is that the sticker was different from other games, too shiny and the seal of quali tywas hardly readable. We visited a friend yesterday and did some more comparing with original games. We noticed that original games have a code above the connectors, while our HM games do not. And this morning I did some research and saw on the web that the real difference is inside. So I unscrewed both games and saw it! The battery that distinguishes a bootleg from a proper copy!
After that I filed complaints to ebay and paypal. And also sent emails to users who baught from the same guy.
This all means we need to get our money back and find new deals. And right before a week of vacation when we could've played to our hearts' desire. The good thing is that we now know to be more careful...

3 comments:

Freyashawk said...

Good for you! There are too many fraudulent sellers on Ebay who are not stopped and whose shady deals go unpunished.

There are some very reputable sellers on Ebay though. In general, I recommend that you avoid sellers in Asia as that is where the bootlegs are produced. Furthermore, any seller who is selling a purportedly 'new' game for $6.99 without booklet or box is selling a bootleg.

There are a number of players who sell their old games, however, and THOSE games are genuine. Game shops in the U.S. often sell used games as well. I expect that some of them would be happy to ship internationally (with added shipping cost).

Synth said...

Yes, I learnt this thing about Asia the hard way..
I'm looking for a new seller, but the majority of those who aren't from Asia are from North America and many of them won't ship to Europe.
But I refuse to give up, so eventually I'll get what I want! :D

Synth said...

Thanks, Marion, though as you can see, I haven't been much active with my blog lately.. Hopefully it'll change :)