Ebay GBA Bootleg Question

Lowkrow

Lowkrow

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Hey everybody,

I don't really shop on Ebay due to the fear of getting a faulty product but I decided to try it once and of course the first game I win is a bootleg. I know it is because the saved file on the game just deletes itself, the manual is 6 pages long, the label on the game is not straight, the box doesn't feel like it's made of the same material as other games, and the quality of the print is not up to Nintendo quality.

I've contacted the seller about it being a bootleg and asked for a return and they say they will give me a refund if I ship it back to them (England). However, the seller seems shady and I'm afraid he would not refund my money even if I sent it back and more than likely will ask me to pay for the shipping which I think is unfair. Is there any way I can guarantee I get my money back or do I have to pray that the seller actually refunds me?

If you have any other helpful info I would grealty appreciate it since I have little expertise with ebay and paypal and their policies.

Thanks.

Heres the auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160083535336
 
If you payed with paypal, raise a complaint with them and they should hold the funds. If you didn't, raise a complaint with ebay ASAP. The sooner they catch it the sooner you can get your money back before this guy disspears. Of course only do these things if the seller is being unreasonable and won't negociate a fair policy.
 
If he said he will refund it, then I would send it back. The worse that would happen is your out a game that was junk anyway.

I recently was burned with one of these bootlegs on ebay, but I didn't realize it was a bootleg until about a week after I bought it, and that was with the help of cag.

The only thing is this. Even though I think he is legit about giving you back your money, I doubt he will refund the shipping, and more than likely he will require you to pay return shipping. That along with the fact that he will end up resaling that game to another unsuspecting buyer almost makes it not worth sending back.

Personally I still have my bootlesg Sonic Advance, and I keep it since it's not a totaly unplayable game, and as a reminder to be careful when buying GBA games off of ebay.
 
I recently won a bootleg copy of Wario Ware: Twisted. There was no gyro sensor, so motion was remapped to the D-Pad. This was a pretty obvious bootleg, so I contacted the seller and called him out on this and some other bootleg games he had sold ('Pokemon: Chaos Black'?). The seller still tried to get me to pay return shipping. I refused, and he eventually agreed to refund me the amount. However, by the time I was ready to go to the post office, the seller was no longer a registered user. I raised a dispute with Paypal, reported it to eBay, and to [email protected]. In the end, I was refunded all but the original shipping cost, and I kept the bootleg, so it's not going to end up in some other unsuspecting buyer's hands.

The moral of the story: make eBay and Paypal aware of the situation before you go sending it back.
 
[quote name='puternerd']Check out his auction and the feedback left:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160048944163

not impressed ipod fake even less impressed with the system support not good

Reply by shapa_30: your accusations of this item been fake are unfounded listing didn't say apple

Yeah this dude's a winner.[/QUOTE]

And yet, he gave him a positive feedback ranking.

That OP's game is being re-auctioned... it seems. Same picture/info. For a NEW game, you'd expect it to be in the box, huh?
 
man i feel so stupid falling for this guy's trick... arggg its people like this guy who make me hesistant to use ebay. And I still can't believe people give him positive feedback for fake/bootleg products.
 
Most people probably don't realize their bootleg. They probably never THINK of that. They say "okay. The games here in the box, it must be real" so they leave good feedback.
 
Is this even *close* to being any form of retail box for Super Mario Advance 4?

61d8_1.JPG


Nearly every feedback he has is for a "new" GBA game that is pictured sitting alongside its box (like in the picture above). That in and of itself is very suspicious. The only thing that would be worse is if he pictured the boxes still flattened (which is apparently a way many bootleggers ship them - they don't even bother to "build' the box).

Anyway, I'm guessing these are all bootlegs.
 
my first ebay auction ever was a bootleg GBC game. after that i stopped buying from ebay for a while and then got back to it. learned a lot about ebay since then. my question is, how do they even create bootlegs of gameboy games? i could understand doing it with cds, but cartridges?
 
[quote name='cabbage8921']my first ebay auction ever was a bootleg GBC game. after that i stopped buying from ebay for a while and then got back to it. learned a lot about ebay since then. my question is, how do they even create bootlegs of gameboy games? i could understand doing it with cds, but cartridges?[/QUOTE]

I could be wrong, but it seems WAY more prevalent with GBA carts than with any CD or DVD-based games. I think they can get cheap blank carts and crank them out. Maybe the lack of copy protection/etc on them makes them easier to copy, I dunno...

On the rare occasions I sell GBA games on ebay I make sure to say I bought them at retail in the U.S. and guarantee them to be authentic. Hopefully this both reassures people who are aware of bootleg GBA games (unlike many of the buyers who gave this guy positive feedback) and lets others know that there are such things out there.
 
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