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Post by Stan on Feb 8, 2010 19:01:52 GMT
There was a similar instance I had with a German seller. First off, yeah, I noticed the whole bank transfer thing seems particular to there for some reason. It's very odd. I once bought a black metal shirt from this guy there and regretted it later because the shirt itself was only like 10 bucks but the transfer fee from here was like $80. In terms of being ripped off, I once bought a complete Home Alone from this guy in Germany. Waited FOREVER. Then, I noticed he relisted the damn thing under a different name. I caught him on it and he ended up sending the game anyway, but man, almost got jolted like 100 bucks I think.
Let me know what happens with this guy so we can block him or put him on a warning status for awhile.
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drrotule
Wonderboy
sex, drugs and master system
Posts: 843
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Post by drrotule on Feb 8, 2010 19:22:54 GMT
I m waiting for playgeneration to receive his game. If he confirms that the game is a fake, we could black-list this seller
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Post by edwithmj on Feb 9, 2010 0:23:54 GMT
There was a similar instance I had with a German seller. First off, yeah, I noticed the whole bank transfer thing seems particular to there for some reason. It's very odd. I once bought a black metal shirt from this guy there and regretted it later because the shirt itself was only like 10 bucks but the transfer fee from here was like $80. In terms of being ripped off, I once bought a complete Home Alone from this guy in Germany. Waited FOREVER. Then, I noticed he relisted the damn thing under a different name. I caught him on it and he ended up sending the game anyway, but man, almost got jolted like 100 bucks I think. Let me know what happens with this guy so we can block him or put him on a warning status for awhile. $80? Wow. I asked at my bank how much it would be to send money to France via bank transfer for a rare game I think was Streets of Rage II. They said it would cost £15 or something. Whatever it was, it was far too expensive and so I let the auction go much higher and I lost it. I found the game again at a much cheaper price a few weeks later anyway. Again, bank transfers put me right off because it's increased cost and increased risk.
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Post by opaopa on Feb 9, 2010 16:39:28 GMT
Hmm, payment should be free in Europe, if you pay shared. Just ask a Euro next time, if you need to make a worldwide payment.
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Post by ShadowAngel on Feb 10, 2010 14:12:32 GMT
Most german seller on Ebay accept PayPal, so far i haven't seen even many sellers who doesn't accept it. Even if they don't list it directly on the auction site, just ask them.
Though i can't say much about PayPal, i used it two times, both times it took an awful lot of time, till the money arrived by the seller. One reason i only use bank transfer, it's just faster and i had never one problem on Ebay. Never got fake stuff or had any problems.
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Post by playgeneration on Feb 10, 2010 16:38:15 GMT
I just got the game. And as suspected, its got to be a fake. It is a pretty convincing one though, the quality of the print out is very high indeed, looks like it was done with a top laser printer.
What the guy has sneakily done to make it look more authentic, is to artificially age it all. Several grubby marks have been purposely left and light scratches made on both insert and manual. Also the manual has been bent around to make it look like it has been read several times.
So if it looks old, how can we be sure it isn't? Well most glaringly the paper is all wrong. Stick the box and manual next to genuine ones, and the colour difference is massive, this hang-on is ultra bright white, not the off-white it ought to be. Also when you look closely at the print, its slightly textured, which shouldn't be the case. Even the insert I got isn't cut out perfectly straight, and looks like it was done by hand with scissors. The paper used is exactly the same for both the insert and the manual, its matte instead of glossy and very much thinner than it should be.
The silver grid of the original insert that the seller scanned to create this would have been shiny. And because of this the printed insert has slight gaps in the grid lines where light has been reflected.
In this printed manual you can still see the staple holes from the original scanned manual, off center and not covered by the staples put in.
If all that wasn't enough, most damning is the simple fact the seller sold two of them at once, and lied about the fact that the top bidder on ebay actually bought it and instead told me he hadn't.
Effort has clearly gone into this to deliberately fool buyers, and I guess some people would buy and not realize its a fake. Since a loose German hang on card can be bought very cheaply, and a lesser wanted card game like Super Tennis the same for its box, the print outs themselves probably next to nothing, there must be an easy 40 euro profit a time in this for that seller.
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Post by Estimated Prophet on Feb 10, 2010 20:24:31 GMT
Oh man that is just terrible. I've had similar problems with fake inserts in the past and it is infuriating.
Has he offered either one of you a refund or is there no end to the douchebaggery?
Not that it makes much of a difference but was it actually pr3ston?
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Post by coenak on Feb 10, 2010 23:34:35 GMT
Hopefully this can help out a little... I had a look at mine and here are some things I noticed. I believe mine to be a genuine copy, but who knows, I could've been fooled too. I bought mine maybe 6-9 months ago on eBay from a US seller that seemed to not know what he had totally.
-The cover silver lines are metallic -The cover paper is thin with a semi-gloss -The cover images can be seen through from the reverse side (it is semi-transparent) -The insert lines are gray, not metallic (if you look extremely close, these lines are made up of very small dots) -The insert paper is thin, maybe just a little thinner than the cover. -The insert is whiter than most my other manuals, but when held up to a white piece of paper, it is off-white (the cover is even more off-white than the insert). -The insert is also semi-transparent. -The text on both is extremely crisp, not fuzzy at all.
This might sound weird, but smell the inside of the insert. Most will have that old paper smell from being around for 20+ years. My camera is at work, I will try and take some high res photos for you guys tomorrow. Now, as I said, I believe mine to be originals, but I guess I could be fooled too. Hope that helps some.
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Post by playgeneration on Feb 11, 2010 14:31:24 GMT
From your description, yours will be original. You can't fake the metallic grid lines of the box insert, or really the type of paper.
A fake one will stand out a mile when put next to any other card games. That is it will stand out when looking with your own eyes, a photograph is very misleading as a camera's lens picks up colours differently to the human eye. I took a few photos of the hangon I got with my other card games, and in the photos the difference wasn't all that much, but when looking at them myself it was huge. Common white printing paper makes a genuine sms insert look really dirty by comparison, even though they look white when viewed on their own.
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Post by barney on Feb 20, 2010 14:54:11 GMT
Any sign of a refund yet guys?
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Post by playgeneration on Feb 20, 2010 15:11:39 GMT
Nope, I haven't had any response to my messages from the seller either.
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Post by Stan on Feb 20, 2010 20:16:14 GMT
Groan, maybe like some NES sites we're going to need to make a 'buyer beware' part of the site in the Games section detailing things like this. I seem to remember someone here has an idea of how to spot fakes and such.
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Post by brianvgplayer on Feb 21, 2010 5:55:31 GMT
I think the topic title should have mentioned ebay. I thought this was going to be about differences between the card and cart, or different region cards (I was hoping to hear some since I have the JP card). I didn't notice too much difference between the card and Hang On/Safari Hunt version aside maybe a few extra level titles.
It's disappointing that these bootleg boxes are turning up on ebay. It makes looking for the real thing harder than it should be. Are the cards themselves from this seller bootlegs too? If so, that would be an even bigger shame.
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Post by Chunkchenko on Feb 21, 2010 14:12:30 GMT
I think the topic title should have mentioned ebay. I thought this was going to be about differences between the card and cart, or different region cards (I was hoping to hear some since I have the JP cart). I didn't notice too much difference between the card and Hang On/Safari Hunt version aside maybe a few extra level titles. It's disappointing that these bootleg boxes are turning up on ebay. It makes looking for the real thing harder than it should be. Are the carts themselves from this seller bootlegs too? If so, that would be an even bigger shame. Finding the cards loose are common because they were packed with a lot of sms m1 consoles that were sold. I believe the card with the boxed and manual versions were only sold in Australia and Italy (well im assuming italy since i have a copy) also a German manual was made for hang on that came packaged with the console but never boxed.
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Post by brianvgplayer on Feb 24, 2010 3:15:25 GMT
Finding the cards loose are common because they were packed with a lot of sms m1 consoles that were sold. I thought that was the case, but with ebay, it's good to be careful.
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