Thinking of buying from eBay?

[BobLevine]

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

[the_wine_snob]

Premiere Elements is installed by some vendors. I would assume, but do not specifically recall, that PS Elements is too. Still, having a lot of copies of either would seem that someone pilfered them from Dell, or similar, or that they were not legit. Now, I guess that a smaller shop could have an arrangement with Adobe to do OEM, but that seems a bit unlikely. Guess that it could happen though.

Hunt

[Vibrant_coder15D5]

Mel

You are a little over the top with E bay. I have bought and sold many items on

E  bay including software.

All you need to do is be a liitle sceptical. If in doubt ask seller

If your software legitimate

If it wont register and I send you a screen shot of the rejection will you

refund me.

Make your payment through PayPal

Then if anything goes wrong you can claim of payplal refer them to your two E

mails and the sellers answers. If it has gone wrong then you get your money back

from Paypal.

I agree with you that 90% is suspect but dont tar all sellers with same brush.

within 10% are those that are no longer using the software and selling it on.

those that have been given it or won it as prize etc and dont want it. Those

that have legit and have been able to obtain multiple copies.

There will always be ways to get pirate working copies versions of software if

one is so inlcined

Philip Davies

[Noel Carboni]

What you say sounds nice, but just keep in mind that PayPal will sometimes consider the transaction complete and legitimate if something was delivered.  It doesn't have to activate or meet expectation for them to refuse to refund your money.

-Noel

[Vibrant_coder15D5]

Sorry if you read thier rules and rules of  Ebay they have no option but o

refund. In early days of CS4 I used this approach on 3 occasions and got instant

rebate each time.  One was for 250 pounds.

Philip Davies 

[Noel Carboni]

Just keep in mind I'm making my statement based on personal experience as well.

And keep in mind that illegitimate software may appear to work initially, and not "expire" right away, so you may well be finding yourself seeking relief after 30 or more days have passed.  With those kinds of time frames you find that refund windows have passed, feedback links no longer work...

Do you really think eBay / PayPal are reimbursing everyone for all the illegiitimate software being sold?  And make no mistake, there IS a lot of it out there.

The phrase "Buyer Beware" was invented for a reason.

-Noel

[Vibrant_coder15D5]

If you have gone thrrough the questions and answers first and still hit problem

then most sellers of repute will refund you anyway.

Even Adobe allow you to unregister a copy so that you can sel it on and buyer

can re register it.They also allow you to try any serial number given you to

make sure its genuine before you purchase.

Philip D

Philip D

[SkipRunge]

At last.. the voice of REASON.

Thanks Philip.  I agree with you one hundred percent.

[emlouis]

I bought PS CS5 on ebay, knowing that there was a risk.

Got the item and installed ok. The problem was when I opened it after the install,

the pop up window appeared, says trial. I gave the serial number again and this time

was invalid. Looks like I have less that 30 days to use as it has started to count the days remaining.

I found out  this is a pirate when it was posted from China, even though the seller was from the US.

I do not know too much about the computer but all I want is just to be able to use the thing!

Can anyone tell me what I can do, please?

[BobLevine]

You knew there was a risk and you got suckered. All you can do now is request a refund from the seller. If he/she refuses report it to your credit card company.

Bob

[Noel Carboni]

Try to get your money back from the seller, eBay, and PayPal.  Please report back here how successful you are.

-Noel

[NaughtyNeo]

I wonder why is eBay allowing people to sell Adobe software, when people can actually go to Adobe website and get a genuine copy.

My guess is that eBay clearly knows that most of them are pirated copies and few genuine sellers. But they just like the money they get as commission.

[the_wine_snob]

Yes, that would certainly have to figure into the business model, and the decision to allow such.

Hunt

[John T Smith]

>why is eBay allowing people to sell Adobe software

Considering the number of items on eBay (over a million a day?) there is simply no way for eBay to "police" each and every item

Post a negative rating for the seller, with the comment they are selling pirate software

[Vibrant_coder15D5]

Before you accuse anybody of selling pirate software you need to be carefull it

is pirate. Ifv you have been caught tell Adobe about it and be prepared to back

it up.

hoever I can remember some years ago Adobe saying that those who obtained pirate

vesions over 60% eventually bough genuine one and that proceeding aganst single

pirate wasnt cost efective.

How do you shut down asian world pirates they just vanish and open up again

elseware. Beter to work out a system where they cant be copied.

Just like epson have done with thier 3880. Look alike catradges are prone to

failure due to advanced chips in thier pro catridges.

In other words if those companies like Adobe want to stamp it out they could.

Philip Davies

[Zeno Bokor]

No, they cannot as this is software, not hardware. As long as the whole program is installed on our computers it's possible to break the DRM. The only way to make software unbreakable is to have it all online which won't happen anytime soon.

Think of it this way, copy protection is like a lock on a box. As long as we get to store the box in our homes and do anything we want to it we'll be able to break the lock, no matter how big or sophisticated it is. And because this is software, once anybody has broken the lock the floodgates will be opened.

[Vibrant_coder15D5]

Good point

[acresofgreen]

The only way to make software unbreakable is to have it all online which won't happen anytime soon.

Cloud computing will become mainstream more quickly than we think.

[the_wine_snob]

About 15 years ago, Bill Gates proposed this. His concept was that no one would own a copy of the MS OS, and that each morning, they would connect with Redmond, and basically download the OS.

Unfortunately for that concept, many asked, "what happens if Bill Gates wishes to take over the world?" Think about it - just shut down the OS servers in Redmond, and much of the world would shut down. We are talking stock markets (at least to on-line traders), their Quicken accounts, their e-mails, everything. Think about it - Bill gets mad, and the world shuts down. Think about how it would work, if George Soros had the "switch" to the Cloud. Hey, he collapsed the BPS, to make some $.

Not sure that we are THAT ready for this, but I have been very wrong before. Some things might work out, but I question how pervasive it will be.

Still, buying (or "renting") pirated software, whether delivered on a Cloud network, or otherwise, will be a problem.

Hunt

[acresofgreen]

This is not the way things will work - there are many players, not just Microsoft, who are migrating to the Cloud model, and the servers will be distributed around the world, also hosted by Partners, not only the manufacturers themselves.  People are using software in the Cloud already when they subscribe to services of companies like Google.

[Noel Carboni]

Crackers are more sophisticated than you can possibly imagine.

If only there was a way to get them to bend their brain power to good, legitimate things.

-Noel

[Nannypro]

Wow, I was just about to buy design premium from a seller on ebay.It looks so legit! I guess the price is too good to be true.

Thanks for the info!

Denise Overseed

[ipod163]

Prices in Australian dollars, from a reputable retailer:

PS CS3 full version AU$899
PS CS3 Extended full version AU$1489
PS CS3 upgrade AU$275
PS CS3 Extended education AU$399.

[remotepcaccess]

$600 dollars is a lot of money to lose.  Sorry to hear that.

Glad I read this, because other people i know say to buy software from ebay.  I didn't know it had problems like this!

Thx

[tmboyz]

what about Amazon?

[Valathome67]

I didn't contact them don't realy know what to do or how.