Aural Fixation Wrote:
In his defense, he did pretty much spell it out that it was a bootleg.
No he didn't. Hinting at something doesn't mean he's spelled it out. I would not have picked up that the item was a copy. And, besides, Ebay's rules very clearly state that it is illegal to sell infringing items. Whenever I've sold music on Ebay, there's actually a thing I have to click that says that I acknowledge and agree with, and that my item does not violate, their stance on copyright-infringing items. This seller has clearly ignored that.
I bought something off a guy a long time ago whose description said "silver CD." When it arrived, it was a CDR and some crappy printouts of the artwork. I complained and the guy left me bad feedback where he stated that he said in his description "not a press." What the hell does that mean? It was deliberately worded like that to be vague, and saying "silver CD" totally negates that because any collector knows that when you say "silver CD," you mean "original" - this was very, very common at the time because of all the bootleg live albums on Ebay, and collectors wanted the CDs that were actually manufactured. When you said "silver," it meant it was the real thing. Anyway, after 8 or 10 emails to the guy, where I repeatedly pointed out where he deliberately mislead, and also pointed out that if I'd wanted a burned copy of the CD, why would I have paid $6 for something I could have downloaded off the internet for free? Finally, I just went to Ebay and reported him. After a couple of weeks dealing with them, I got my money back and then found a brand new, sealed copy of that album in my mailbox from the guy, so he made good. It only took him about two months to feel guilty. I checked my feedback a while later and remembered this guy, so I clicked through to read his feedback and found he'd stopped selling on there, at least under that name, almost immediately after that, and there was a rash of other sellers complaining of exactly the same thing I did.
