Did I just receive a bootleg? Did I receive TWO bootlegs?

[callahan09]

I just recently bought both Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Collections One & Two on ebay. They came from two different sellers, but were both much cheaper than comparable items from other sellers. I didn't know anything about their rarity and value or about bootlegs in general when I bought them. I had actually never seen a bootleg before.

But then when I received them, I noticed that Collection Two had dark blue/black bottoms instead of silver like every other blu-ray I've ever seen.

Look here:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1354594

It looks exactly the same as that. It was shrinkwrapped on the OUTSIDE of the slipcover, and has a dark bottom on the discs.

So then I looked at Collection One to see if it was bootlegged as well, and from what I can tell it was NOT, but now I'm not sure. It has the normal silver bottom, it was shrinkwrapped around the case only, not the slipcover. And it in all ways looks identical to this unboxing:

http://normanicgrav.blogspot.com/201...alchemist.html

So Collection Two is definitely a bootleg, and Collection One is definitely NOT, do I have that right? I was just concerned about Collection One because, even though it looks completely legit, the seller had multiple copies up for sale at a really really low price, so it seems too good to be true, unless Collection One is for some reason a lot less rare & valuable than Collection Two (but why would that be?)?

Now I don't know how to get Collection Two, I'm afraid that everything under the absurdly overpriced 150 dollar range on Ebay is a bootleg. The only other seller who has it for less than that has a bunch of negative feedback about selling bootlegs, so I don't trust that. What is it really worth?

[shinobipopcorn]

Blue bottomed discs are bootlegs, unless you bought them from a MOD program where they burn the disc for you.

If this is a Japanese blu-ray and it was cheap, yeah it's probably a bootleg. Japanese blu-rays are priced very high (for an example, Ghibli blu-rays are in the 5000 yen range, which is about 50 USD for a single disc) and have few episodes, so a legitimate season set would be in the kidney range.

[callahan09]

Originally Posted by shinobipopcorn

Blue bottomed discs are bootlegs, unless you bought them from a MOD program where they burn the disc for you.

If this is a Japanese blu-ray and it was cheap, yeah it's probably a bootleg. Japanese blu-rays are priced very high (for an example, Ghibli blu-rays are in the 5000 yen range, which is about 50 USD for a single disc) and have few episodes, so a legitimate season set would be in the kidney range.

It's a Japanese anime show, but the blu-ray I bought (or thought I was buying) is the USA release from Funimation.

I know for a fact at this point that Collection Two with the blue bottomed discs is a bootleg, unfortunately.

I am pretty sure that Collection One is NOT, but I'm still skeptical. Is it possible for it to look exactly like the unboxing that I linked to, and have the normal looking silver bottomed discs, but still also somehow be a bootleg? Or am I in the clear?

[Shingster]

That first image is clearly a BD-25 BD-R disc, the single small-font code is a dead giveaway, this is what a true retail BD should look like:



Notice how the data surface is a milky grey-blue under a photo flash and you've got barcodes and dark font codes on the inner rim.

This is what a Verbatim BD-25 BD-R disc looks like:

[Michaelpdelaney]

I had a similar situation with the first 2 seasons of Rebels. All the art and slips seem decently high quality, but the bottom is black with a noticeable "data ring."

Everything seems to be there on the disk, but there was no disney rewards insert.

Was $40 for both, probably a bootleg but haven't felt like confronting the seller.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rdodolak]

Season 1 is unlikely to be a bootleg although anything is possible if the bootleggers wish to make the investment with replicated media.

BD-Rs can also be gold in color. If you have a BD drive for your computer and Imgburn installed you can check to see if the disc is a BD-R. Within Imgburn, after inserting the disc, select Mode -> Read from the menu bar. On the right side their is a window of information about the drive and disc. Under the BD Information section it will show if the disc type is BD-R.

[ben6543]

Never buy movies from Ebay 95% of the time its a Bootleg. If the item price is too good to be true than don't get it.

I was suckered by ebay 4 times 2 Doctor Who series Box Sets bootleg

2 Disney movies Bootlegs.

[redrunner97]

I've bought dozens of movies, blu-ray and DVD, from ebay, and to my knowledge I've never once received a bootleg disc of any kind. I guess it's just a combination of bad luck on the part of the buyer and bad intentions on the part of the seller.

[returnofthemack]

Yeah no eBay bootlegs for me either and I've bought (and sold) my fair share from them. 95% is probably a gross exaggeration or maybe it's the types of shows or movies you're looking for are just prone to being bootlegged.

[darkness2918]

Theres a lot of bootlegs of the Fullmetal sets on eBay right now. There are some easy ways to spot them like shrink wrap over the slip & case or a different type of case used for the sets (like the case in the photo of that first link, those aren't the ones Funimation used in the sets). I asked a seller once to send me pics of the bottom of the discs before I bought them & never heard back from them.

[Hatter]

Regular movies and TV shows bootleg rate is fairly low in my opinion. Ive bought plenty of legit movies and TV shows from there. Once you start talking about anime and Disney however then suddenly that 95% doesn't seem too far off. Star trek series used to be a bootleggers dream on eBay several years ago but that's dried up immensely as the retail prices dropped.

[callahan09]

Originally Posted by Shingster

That first image is clearly a BD-25 BD-R disc, the single small-font code is a dead giveaway, this is what a true retail BD should look like:



Notice how the data surface is a milky grey-blue under a photo flash and you've got barcodes and dark font codes on the inner rim.

This is what a Verbatim BD-25 BD-R disc looks like:

I would say that I definitely have a legit copy of Collection One then. The color and appearance of the disc looks exactly like the blu-ray of Logan that I recently bought and know is legit, I just wanted to compare them and see and sure enough it looks exactly the same as a legit blu-ray. I examined the inner ring on the back and it has small funimation codes written along it and some barcodes. The case and packaging are all identical to the unboxing of the set as well. So it appears I got the real deal from Collection One.

Collection Two is definitely a bootleg. The slipcase art is a little faded in color vs the real one, the case is too big to slide easily into the slipcase, it has spindles for discs on the front & back covers w/ one double-sided insert for 2 more discs as opposed to having 2 double-sided inserts for all 4 discs. And then there's the obvious BD-R discs themselves.

Now I'm at a quandary.

If I had known that all those reasonably priced Collection Two's on ebay are fakes, I would have never bought any of this crap, including Collection One.

Instead I'd have bought both sets from the UK, for about the same damn price.

But now I'm pissed off because I have a legit Collection One and a FAKE Collection Two and no way to get a legit Collection Two for a reasonable price, meanwhile the set split is different between the US and the UK: Set 1 has 2 more episodes in the UK and therefore set 2 has 2 fewer, therefore if I keep Set 1 from the US I get episodes 1-33, and then set 2 from the UK is episodes 36-64. I would have a gap where I'm missing 2 episodes!

This is so frustrating.

[callahan09]

Turns out I paid $60 for episodes 1-33 legit and 34-64 fake. I could have paid $72 including shipping to get the whole series legit from Amazon UK. These sellers with their bootlegs screwed me up on this one, I really wish I had known this before wasting my money.

I guess I'm just going to have to pay $72 and import the whole series the Amazon UK someday and then I'll have a useless copy of Collection One from the US release that I can add to my for sale/trade list (that I never bother to sell or trade because I can't get to a post office to mail things out).

Now the seller of the bootleg wants me to send it back to him for a refund, which I'm not saying is unreasonable, but it is a massive inconvenience for me because like I said, I can't get to a post office. I have no idea when I'll be able to mail this thing back to him, or what hoops I'll have to jump through to do it. I'll have to pay for an Uber ride in two directions because I don't live near a post office and I don't have a car, and I don't know if he'll refund me for the return shipping either, and you add all that up and it might cost me as much to send it back as the damn refund (not counting my time, which is worth just as much to me as the money).

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by ben6543

Never buy movies from Ebay 95% of the time its a Bootleg. If the item price is too good to be true than don't get it.

I was suckered by ebay 4 times 2 Doctor Who series Box Sets bootleg

2 Disney movies Bootlegs.

Gimme a break. 99.9% of the time it's not a bootleg except with expensive specialty stuff like this that they could actually make a profit on. Even then you're not going to get anyone bootlegging say, Code Red blu-rays.

Originally Posted by callahan09

Turns out I paid $60 for episodes 1-33 legit and 34-64 fake. I could have paid $72 including shipping to get the whole series legit from Amazon UK. These sellers with their bootlegs screwed me up on this one, I really wish I had known this before wasting my money.

I guess I'm just going to have to pay $72 and import the whole series the Amazon UK someday and then I'll have a useless copy of Collection One from the US release that I can add to my for sale/trade list (that I never bother to sell or trade because I can't get to a post office to mail things out).

Now the seller of the bootleg wants me to send it back to him for a refund, which I'm not saying is unreasonable, but it is a massive inconvenience for me because like I said, I can't get to a post office. I have no idea when I'll be able to mail this thing back to him, or what hoops I'll have to jump through to do it. I'll have to pay for an Uber ride in two directions because I don't live near a post office and I don't have a car, and I don't know if he'll refund me for the return shipping either, and you add all that up and it might cost me as much to send it back as the damn refund (not counting my time, which is worth just as much to me as the money).

Did you contact ebay, or just the seller directly? I thought they had MUCH more buyer-friendly policies if you'd been sent a bootleg, and that the seller would be more cooperative to avoid having that on his record.

[callahan09]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Gimme a break. 99.9% of the time it's not a bootleg except with expensive specialty stuff like this that they could actually make a profit on. Even then you're not going to get anyone bootlegging say, Code Red blu-rays.



Did you contact ebay, or just the seller directly? I thought they had MUCH more buyer-friendly policies if you'd been sent a bootleg, and that the seller would be more cooperative to avoid having that on his record.

I contacted the seller directly. I really don't know what the course of action is that I'm supposed to be taking here to get the best result for myself. I told the seller that I know he sent me a bootleg and I wanted a refund, and he said to send it back to him so he can give me a refund. I then sent him a response indicating that I was extremely frustrated by this situation (for the reasons I have described here) and that it would be a big inconvenience and difficulty for me to actually send it back. Basically I explained to him the same things I explained in this thread. Haven't heard back a second time yet. Should I contact ebay instead? What do I tell ebay and what will they do for me in return?

[Ray_Rogers]

Originally Posted by callahan09

Turns out I paid $60 for episodes 1-33 legit and 34-64 fake. I could have paid $72 including shipping to get the whole series legit from Amazon UK. These sellers with their bootlegs screwed me up on this one, I really wish I had known this before wasting my money.

I guess I'm just going to have to pay $72 and import the whole series the Amazon UK someday and then I'll have a useless copy of Collection One from the US release that I can add to my for sale/trade list (that I never bother to sell or trade because I can't get to a post office to mail things out).

Now the seller of the bootleg wants me to send it back to him for a refund, which I'm not saying is unreasonable, but it is a massive inconvenience for me because like I said, I can't get to a post office. I have no idea when I'll be able to mail this thing back to him, or what hoops I'll have to jump through to do it. I'll have to pay for an Uber ride in two directions because I don't live near a post office and I don't have a car, and I don't know if he'll refund me for the return shipping either, and you add all that up and it might cost me as much to send it back as the damn refund (not counting my time, which is worth just as much to me as the money).

No bus?
No wonder anime is so damn overpriced. $60 for 64 episodes? What an outright rip-off.
Only sympathy from me is you got a bootleg instead of the real deal. Take images and use them against the seller by having evidence they're bootlegs as presented. Give the Seller immediate negative feedback. Stop buying way overpriced anime.

[skyofcrack]

I've been a member of eBay since 1998 and in those 19 years I received exactly ONE bootleg. I contacted eBay, got a refund and kept the disc.

Never contact the seller if he sends you a bootleg. He's a criminal.

If you ever have to return a legitimate item, say from Amazon UK and you can't get to a post office, write Return To Sender on the package and hand it to the mailman.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by skyofcrack

I've been a member of eBay since 1998 and in those 19 years I received exactly ONE bootleg. I contacted eBay, got a refund and kept the disc.

Never contact the seller if he sends you a bootleg. He's a criminal.

If you ever have to return a legitimate item, say from Amazon UK and you can't get to a post office, write Return To Sender on the package and hand it to the mailman.

Yeah, I have been a member since 1999 myself and have never gotten a bootleg either. I've just been lucky I suppose.

[callahan09]

Originally Posted by skyofcrack

I've been a member of eBay since 1998 and in those 19 years I received exactly ONE bootleg. I contacted eBay, got a refund and kept the disc.

Never contact the seller if he sends you a bootleg. He's a criminal.

If you ever have to return a legitimate item, say from Amazon UK and you can't get to a post office, write Return To Sender on the package and hand it to the mailman.

I would be very interested in getting a refund without having to send it back, because as I've said, it will cost me time, money, and be quite inconvenient, to be able to send it back, but I really have no interest in keeping it, it's purely a cost factor that prevents me from the desire to send it back. What do I say to ebay to get a refund without having to go through the hassle of sending it back? I was only able to find the "returns center" or whatever where ebay has me fill in my reason for return as "suspected authenticity" or whatever, but it wants me to actually send it back to get the refund.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by skyofcrack

I've been a member of eBay since 1998 and in those 19 years I received exactly ONE bootleg. I contacted eBay, got a refund and kept the disc.

Never contact the seller if he sends you a bootleg. He's a criminal.

If you ever have to return a legitimate item, say from Amazon UK and you can't get to a post office, write Return To Sender on the package and hand it to the mailman.

Same here, the only two bootlegs I ever got were about fifteen years ago and were discs of releases that didn't exist in English in an official capacity (aka, if I'd done ANY research I'd have known they were fan-made), which I'd probably have ordered even if I'd known ahead of time! Bootlegs are RARE unless you're going for risky items (ex, SNES/GBA/NES games that you buy without making sure you find one with pics/descriptions that validate it). Somehow I'm not surprised anime would be a target, same general seller/customer base.