More e-bay advice needeed: Pirated movies sold as new

In My Humble Opinion
1

I first posted this thread a couple of days ago, and I got some good advive. I am reposting the OP here for clarity’s sake:

Now, I sent an email to the seller, stating that I had not paid for a pirated copy, I expected a refund or I would notify several agencies (RCMP, some of the links from that other thread, etc…) The seller was quite nice when he responded, he apologised, told me to return the movie and he would gladly refund my money. We’ve exchanged 2 or 3 more emails reguarding where to send it, etc…, and he’s been as nice as pie, seemingly eager to get his movie back and refund my money. I have 3 thoughts, however:

#1, If I send it back, I have no guarantee that he’ll actually refund the money. Given his attitude, I kinda think he will, but no guarantees, and I’ll have nothing to show for it.

#2 I wonder if I myself will be breaking any laws shipping the pirated movie back to Canada. Lord knows I don’t want to get arrested. I suppose I could get around this by simply resealing it in the envelope it cam in and marking it “Return to Sender”.

#3 As much as I don’t condone video piracy, it’s not a crusade issue with me either. I think that if I get my money back I’ll be happy to lt the whole thing drop, which makes me feel a little guilty, but not a lot. I don’t really have the time to persue this vigorously.

Does anyone out there have any thoughts on any or all of the above? Input is apreciated, it will help me make up my mind what to do.

2

Unless he has some good evidence he didn’t know it was a copy, then he send the refund first, then you send the merch back. Yes, it is Ok to send it back. But unless you want to be out the item, the price and the S&H, then you wait for a refund first. After all- didn’t he ask for payment before he sent the item to you? :dubious: Oh, and you should also get back the shipping to him, but don’t press that- but DO demand a full refund of every penny you paid him.

After all, there is a tiny chance you’re wrong and it’s some weird type of original made later. :dubious:

3

Send it back to him, and write on the customs declaration “Bootleg DVD being returned to seller”? :smiley: I definately wouldn’t send it international, for any reason.

I suspect he would refund the money - he’d be stupid to draw further attention to himself. On the other hand, the guy seems pretty stupid to start with…

4

Does the Canadian postal service really spend a lot of time, or for that matter any time, checking personal mail for bootleg DVDs? Not like they checked it coming into the country. I have no idea if returning a bootleg DVD to the person who allegedly pirated it is illegal; somehow in the heirarchy of crime my feeling is it ranks somewhere around spitting on the sidewalk.

5

He ALREADY has your money and no one, I’ll say it again, NO ONE cares that this one guy is selling a few dupes. Hell I can walk down the street in NYC and grab DVDs of the same movies playing first run in the movie house on the next corner.

The Canadian Postal service isn’t gonna open your package, load it into a DVD player watch the movie and go…ohhh a pirate let’s go get him. It’s not their problem, they’re more worried about people sending merchandise as ‘gifts’.

eBay doesn’t care and will not get involved, UNLESS the auction clearly states he’s selling copies and then all they will do is end his auction.

The ONLY person that can make a claim against this seller is the copyrights holder. As you say you only want your money back, I don’t see the point in contacting them, as they will most likely do nothing and you STILL won’t have your money.

Look let’s a real here…forget about any legalities, 'cause they aren’t any that’s gonna bite YOU on the arse. He has your money, but clearly doesn’t want any trouble. Send back the DVD, tell him he can easily refund your money, INCLUDING the return shipping via paypal. Tell him that you’ve already acted in good faith, he’s the one who didn’t honor the agreement, it’s only fair that he returns ALL your money first.

If he doesn’t, you’ll pursue the matter to it’s conclusion…he’s not very bright and may well fall for it…you don’t have a leg to stand on.

Prove THAT was the dvd he send you. Good Luck, even if you decided to press the issue, in 90 days eBay wipes the system clean and any record of what he sold will be gone.

You said you paid via paypal, was that with a credit card or checking account? A credit card gives you chargeback power, checking account is a bit more problematic…however you can attempt it. If he doesn’t return your funds, contact paypal and they’ll contact him…that’ll be enough to let him know you’re serious.

DO NOT mention feedback, that is YOUR LAST HOLE CARD. Once you mention feedback, then he has nothing left to lose…all he needs is a neg concerning pirated DVDs and his empire crumbles. He doesn’t want that and is pissing his pants that you’re gonna rat him out…he needs that DVD back.

So you can push…a little.

6

I’m voting with DrDeth on this one. By all means, send him his DVD back, but make him refund your money first!

As for this thing of “not feeling as guilty as you should”, well, when you get into that, then you’ve got guilt about your lack of guilt; that kinda crap can mess up your head! I would assume you’ve got better things to crusade about than pirated movies, no? Of course you do. Don’t lose any sleep over it.

7

I’m just wondering, are you gonna make a copy before you send it back?

8

There’s a good chance you’re right on this point, and I hope that’s the case.

There’s also the chance that this seller is willing to walk away from his e-bay account and open a new one as soon as he gets a few negatives. I’m inclined to suspect this from the seller’s low number of previous transactions.

Then there’s the whole issue of retaliatory feedback. Ebay still refuses to police for this, even though it practically cripples the feedback system. Even when a transaction goes drastically wrong, the buyers are usually unwilling to leave negative for fear of receiving one in turn.

I remember when ebay was new, and feedback was its main advantage. Pity to see where it’s at today.

9

Why does he need it back? It’s only a copy. I think the most elegant solution would just be for him to refund the money and you destroy the disk.

10

That was gonna be my slightly-less-than-ethical suggestion…

Make a copy of the movie - send it back to him requesting the refund. If you don’t get the refund, you still got the movie…

But… Well… Yeah, it’s up to you I guess. How many sleepless nights would THAT give you? :slight_smile:

11

Had a lesser example of this with a book on CD. The guy’s only indicator on the auction site was to use “CDr” instead of CD in describing the item. The rest of the site showed a picture of the original cover, described the item (E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web) etc. That little “r,” which looked mightily like a typo, was his out. When I opened the item, it was a plain home-burned CD, without a label of any kind, off-center or no. I emailed him, I got back a snotty reply, saying that I had to know full well what I was bidding on. Then I unloaded in a second email (probably unwise) pointing out his illegal action. He posted negative feedbay. I posted negative feedback, pointing out his fraud.

Then I got mad.

The money wasn’t huge (less than $8 for purchase and shipping) but it pissed me off. So I went on Amazon, found the publisher, went to the publisher’s website, found a contact e-mail address, explained the whole situation (including copies of our e-mail exchange) and asked that the recipient forward the e-mail to the legal department of the giant media conglomerate, figuring it a waste of time.

But, within a couple of days, a lawyer for the company emailed wanting more details. I obliged, and a couple of days later, he returned another email saying that they’d complained to eBay and written a cease and desist letter to the perp.

Then, a couple of weeks later, a package arrived from the lawyer with a new, legal copy of Charlotte’s Web and an extra book on CD. He said the company wanted to replace the bootleg copy I’d destroyed an extra one in for free becaue they were appreciative of my efforts to help them hang on to their copyright.

A nice, unexpected bonus. So, even huge media conglomerate lawyers can be classy.
I suspect your results would vary. In any case, let us know what you do znd what happens as a result.