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Question

Thinking of buying from eBay?

Forum|Forum|18 years ago
February 15, 2008
221 replies
324377 views

Edited October 23, 2008

The original article that this post referred to has expired but there's still quite a bit of good information in this thread.

The point is that eBay software is a risky purchase with much of it illegally pirated.

Bob

This topic has been closed for replies.

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Michael D Sullivan

Inspiring

David, I don't know what country you live in, but in the U.S., the credit card companies can reverse a charge, which means they get the money back from the vendor, within some specified period, for good reason. The procedures and standards will vary by card company. American Express allows you to contest a charge as incorrect, fraudulent, etc., and they will give you a temporary credit automatically; this becomes permanent if the vendor doesn't justify the charge, so it shifts the burden of proof to the vendor. I haven't contested a charge for fraud or pirated software, but I have challenged charges for "discount cards" that I never ordered or received, for some unknown alleged purchase from TimesofIndia.com (which I have never visited), for an unordered software subscription from RealNetworks, etc. In each case, I was immediately credited, and I am a very satisfied AmEx customer as a result. Check with your credit card company to see what its policies are.

A

Anonymous

ah. missed his first post.

A

Anonymous

He has it!

A

Anonymous

you should try using photoshop elements david. that sounds like what you need. check it out at amazon. i believe elements 6 is the latest version...

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_david_baston_

Participant

Thankyou Michael

For your reply it was good of you to do so
Sorry i have not been in touch with you sooner
i have been ill but i'm better now i will do
as you say and see what transpires from it
but i have written 2 emails to the person who sold me the
software and have not had a reply as yet although i do not think i
will get one and i will be supirsed if i do
So tomorrow i'm going to ring up adobe and ask them about my copy
also i will gert in touch with my credit card people
but i do not know what they can do as it has been paid already into the persons account but will keep you posted.
But i'm in a quandery realy as i'm a pensioner and the price of the software is out of my price range to but normally that is why i turned to ebay just in case there was a bargain
Sometimes you can be lucky.
The quandry part is if i tell adobe they may want the software and therefore i will loose the use of the software or adobe may say you can have a reduced priced version say at £250 which is still cheap if you bought it elswhere but even that price is out of my league £150 is my max.
The software i have is working perfectly it has even updated the software so i'm a bit loathed to part with it now so you see the problem i have
I do have the adobe elements 6 but i now have moved on from that software that is why i bought photoshop cs3
and that is where i'm at, at this moment in time.

Michael D Sullivan

Inspiring

It sounds like you might have been scammed. Contact Adobe customer service and ask if the serial number is legitimate. If it's not, contact the seller, Ebay, and your credit card company.

Some pirated versions have a hacked activation and registration system that doesn't actually contact Adobe; it just says that you are activated and/or registered. As to not getting the email from Adobe, that's not a very good indicator. Adobe tends to take many months to send the email with link for the registration bonus.

P

philipjdavies

Participating Frequently

Hi All yes in Britain you too can buy CS4 of E Bay but yes its a fake USA copy. This has happened to me on 3 occasons and yes sellers have refunded my monies. All of them had bought copies "made in USA" They took the loss.

So yes ask if it states made in USA and then dont bid.

There is another problem here in UK priate KeyGens and accompanied by software to stop CS4 going to Adobe. They work but what you dont know is that they also place a Trojan Horse Virus into your machine that sends back to them all the websites you use. So if they see you using a web site like a bank account or Paypal they then enter your computer by the back door find your paswords if you leave them there and next you know your monies have been pinched.

This scam is also bult into some of the Cds that are circullating they satisfy Adobe but are pirate fakes and have put your finances at risk.

You can go onto adobe register and use thier serial number check to see if its genuine if it is not you get a red warning.

There is so miuch scam about on Adobes CS series that my option was to get a cheap lap top to work my Internet and run CS4 on my main machine along with all my images and other programs. My lap top is belt and braces buffered against viruses.

My main machine if they do get into it there is nothing there for them .

Philip Davies UK

A

Anonymous

A person awhile back, asking for help, posted his CS4 install log that showed it was a fake. It also showed the software trying to write to "F" drive when he had no "F" drive. ET phone home baby!!

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_david_baston_

Participant

Hello All

Has anybody come across this problem before on the 15/06/2008 i won an ebay auction which was the adobe photoshop cs3 extended version
for £150 which i thought was a very good bargain.
The person who sold it to me answered all my questions that i asked
for instance
was it a student version was it new or secondhand had it been registered and activated and also was it a PIRATED version
the answer came back to me as it was a fully good retail version like you see in the shops.
So on that i was happy and i duly won the auction
As this person came from the netherlands the software would be with me in about a weeks time,over a week had passed no software
Then i got an email appologising he had been away and just got back my auction had slipped his mind a few days later i recived a S.M.S.
tracking number for my parcel which was coming from China which i thought was strange eventually it arrived
installed the prog put in the serial number and activated it everything went okay then i went to register it and put my name and address in with the rest of the details and it said okay that you will get an email shortly
This email never arrived.So i went into my account on the adobe website to have a look to see if it was in and in the registration section on my adobe elements was showing
so then i went to the page where you can put in your serial number in
and it came up with an error saying it did nor reconise the number
What i'm puzzled about is why did it activate and also why did it say you will recivee an email shortly if my serial number is bogus one doe anybody know ??
Also on the bottom of my box my pinumber according to google does not reconise it as an adobe photoshop cs3 pinnumber ??
await anybodys answer please

roseenglish

Participant

I was ripped off on ebay.

Paid £350 for CS3 Extended... it came sealed with manual and the bonus CD etc.

It works BUT when I went to register the product i couldnt.

I contacted Adobe with the reg key and was told it was an illegal copy... the sad thing is I was about to upgrade to CS4 extended and theres no way I can afford the full CS4 at £700 so I will have to spend more money to obtain a legal copy of CS3 which will of amounted to £500+ in the end and all I get is the same version of CS3 but legal.

I am livid. There are tons of obvious copies on ebay selling at £20 etc so I "assumed" £350 was a high enough price to pay and as such "assumed" it was legal... of course the seller has long gone by now.

Odd thing is he had a good feedback stretching on for months... not one complaint...

Dont know who I am more angry at myself or the seller.

A

Anonymous

Good reports are just as easy to fake as the fake software that is sold. All part of the scam.

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_minkoo_

Participant

Seems kinda risky buying it off ebay.

Michael D Sullivan

Inspiring

If your registration shows up in your Adobe account online, then all is well. If it doesn't show up, you may have a problem.

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_Heidi_McClure_

Participant

If the program opens, registers, works and I can download updates using my serial number, am I ok? If I am, then I was actually having a software conflict. I did the msconfig thing in #11 here: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=328312&sliceId=2 and I installed directly on my C drive (which I really hate to do), and the program seems to be working now.

Just to clarify, she had different versions of PS (some CS2 and some CS3), and they weren't all for sale at the same time. The positive reviews were over a period of time.

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