bootleg DVD

[cellio]

The DVD is in fact a bootleg. I sent email to the seller (via Amazon) pointing this out and asking for a refund (and return postage if he wanted the disc back). He wrote back last night (points for promptness) saying he didn't know it was a bootleg, thanks for bringing it to his attention, and he has no use for the disc given that. I received email from Amazon confirming the refund a few minutes later.

I don't know if the seller is being truthful about not knowing; it feels like it could be true, but that could of course be a standard "oops, got caught" response. It has the ring of truth to it. I responded and gave him a subset of how I knew it was a bootleg, saying that if he's buying DVDs from others to resell he might want to look out for stuff like this. (I did not mention all of the problems with the disc, in case he's in the fraud business but just not very good at it.)

I don't know whether I should now notify Amazon; were it obviously fraud I would of course do so, but this seller might just be naive. (Also, if he had asked for the disc back I would have notified them.) I'm also not sure what to do about feedback; I'm leaning toward 3 (neutral) and a terse description of what happened, good and bad (fast delivery, bootleg DVD, very prompt response, seller said he didn't know). I want to be fair to both future customers and the seller, and I don't have much information to bring to bear on the question.

Comments

[kayre]

Have you taken a look at his other listings? If he's selling multiple copies of things, I'd be more suspicious than if he's just selling a few items.

[cellio]

Good idea! No other option listings, and he's picked up one more positive rating since yesterday. This seems to be a very small-scale operator.

[jducoeur]

In that case, I'd lean towards an interpretation of honest naivete. Probably bought the thing "new" from some shady out-of-country seller (of whom there are many), didn't realize that it was bootleg, and sold it on used. If you don't deeply understand the basic Internet rule of, "If it's too cheap to be real, it's a fake", it's an easy enough mistake to make...