Fake Fire Red

[acetrainer]

I purchased a Fire Red catridge from ebay a couple weeks ago. It was a fake. It came in authentic box, but the usual health and safety manuals were missing. There was an instruction manual that was 6 pages long. What really alerted me that it was fake was when I was unable to use Pal Park, and kept getting a message stating that the Fire Red save file had been deleted. Also the cartridge color was a darker see through red, and there was a circular thing inside the cartridge (an internal clock?) that should not have been there.

Apparently, someone reported the loser who sold me the game to ebay since he is no longer a registered user.

I've bought plenty of games from ebay and never ran into this problem, needless to say I won't buy anymore GBA games from ebay!

 

[Geoffrey]

Sucks to be you. That's all I can say.

 

[Kasumi]

The lesson here is: never buy ANYTHING from eBay, EVER.

 

[Nick]

The lesson here is: never buy ANYTHING from eBay, EVER.

I have to disagree there slightly, though the topic creator probably didn't take into account the seller's feedback score, the amount of negative feedbacks the seller had in the past month, and possibly if the seller neglected to show pictures of the item. With eBay and other auction sites, there is a small amount of risk involved, though I've had a lot of positive experiences.

In the future, try and be more careful and check all factors.

 

[AshKetchum17]

The lesson here is: never buy ANYTHING from eBay, EVER.

I don't think you can really blame eBay. It's the individual seller that's to blame, not eBay as a whole.

I've never bought any Pokemon games from eBay, but I have bought several other items from sellers there and never had any problem. Just keep in mind, especially with games, that there are people who might try selling fakes.

Some rules I go by for buying on eBay:

Make sure the seller has their own picture of the game, instead of a stock picture that's available pretty much anywhere. If they don't have their own picture, write to them and ask if they could send you a picture of the actual item. If they refuse, ignore their auction, as that can be an indicator that the game is fake.

If the game is used or opened, ask for a close-up picture of the cartridge/disk/whatever, if they don't already have one in their auction.

Check the seller's feedback. If they have a lot of negatives, especially ones from people that bought similar items to what you're considering, try to find another seller that has the same item and better feedback. I usually avoid any seller with less than 90% positive feedback.

 

[acetrainer]

That's good advice. As for the feedback rating this seller had a 95% positive feedback rating, so even the seller's feedback rating can be misleading.

Apparently, he is not ripping everyone off, just a select few

I should have read through the actual feedback comments though. Their were two complaints from buyers who recieved fake games. I was naive and took his positive rating at face value.

I have learned my lesson, and will be more careful in the future.

 

[Geoffrey]

Or perhaps the seller didn't know it was fake, although, that's not very likely.

 

[Turtle Tamer Kammy]

The lesson here is: never buy ANYTHING from eBay, EVER.

I dunno about EVER, but you do have to be a smart shopper. I've purchased plenty of great stuff from eBay without a problem. Although after reading this, I'm having second thoughts on my Mario Brothers pursuit.

 

[phantomness]

I made the same mistake on Amazon.com, so you have my sympathies. Now I *still* need a FireRed version