Stolen copy of Win 7 ?

[Oreo]

My dad just bought windows 7 from a fairly big ebay shop with 99percent feedback. He got the home premium reatail for £49.99, but the odd thing is.. on the front of the case there is a sticker that says:

"Need help installing this ? Ring the PC World Techguys"

So it is either bought from PC World and sold at a loss (PC world is expensive)
Or it is stolen.


I am not aware of the ability to buy large amounts of items at discount at PC world, and it seems very unlikely the ebay shop would sell it at a loss (they had 20 copies). Just seems very odd.

Any ideas ?

 

[kmote]

This is obviously not legal advice but you should probably report it to the police. I believe possession of stolen property is a crime in itself, the police most likely won't do anything but reporting aught to cover you. Ask them what you can do about getting your money back if they want you to hand it in.

 

[KSoD]

Exactly what kmote said. We cant give advice nor can we sit here and try to even figure out what is going on. The police have the means to be able to trace the eBay account and can take the investigation much further than the mere speculation that can be done on a forum.

 

[Lexluethar]

NEVER NEVER NEVER purchase licensed copies of software off ebay. An absolutely rediculous idea and 99.9 times out of 100 the software is boosted or illegal.

Do you think they just got a sweet deal from microsoft and can sell the product for lower than microsoft is selling it for? Doesn't make much sense when you think about it that way...

 

[Harper]

With the way in which software requires unlocking and registration these days, software on eBay is a big no no for me. I have heard too many stories about people purchasing a bargain software from eBay only to find that it's been activated already.

 

[Oreo]

**** me im confused. You see my dad got it delivered to work, so he rang me, then rang his dad. His dad then rang me with different details.

Dad is home now.

I have the correct facts:

Yes it was retail not oem
The price was 59.99 not 49.99, still cheep, though.
The sticker is not PC world it is for Comet tech support, but thats insignificant.
He has still reported it to the police.

However the situation still seems confusing, why would a big store with 1000's of positive feedback at 99.9% sell stolen copies ?

 

[wafflehammer]

i dunno..that's weird

what did the police say about it?

All i can say is maybe try it? and if it's already been activated contact ebay/paypal?

 

[kmote]

**** me im confused. You see my dad got it delivered to work, so he rang me, then rang his dad. His dad then rang me with different details.

Dad is home now.

I have the correct facts:

Yes it was retail not oem
The price was 59.99 not 49.99, still cheep, though.
The sticker is not PC world it is for Comet tech support, but thats insignificant.
He has still reported it to the police.

However the situation still seems confusing, why would a big store with 1000's of positive feedback at 99.9% sell stolen copies ?

Thousands is a small number these days.

 

[Oreo]

But did i say how many, perhaps they have 999 of them small thousands

Okay they havn't got 999k feedback, but even if they had 1000 and only 1 or 2 negative feedback, that is practically 1000 flawless transactions - so why would anyone suddenly sell stolen goods :\

 

[KSoD]

However the situation still seems confusing, why would a big store with 1000's of positive feedback at 99.9% sell stolen copies ?

That means absolutely nothing. How do you even know that those feedbacks are all legit? Do you know any one of them? Do they ALL have positive feedback or no feedback? ebay is just like any other site and its rating system can be abused. Just like the Rep system even on this site.

Does someone having 1 post make them less knowledgeable than anyone with 100K posts? Absolutely not. Does someone having 100K posts make them more knowledgeable than someone with 1 post? No. It is a arbitrary number. It means nothing.

So you ask why a big store with all that feedback be selling stolen goods? Easy. MONEY.

Who is to say that they didnt abuse the system? Who is to say that they are legit? Who is to say that it wasnt part of the "Family Pack" where you get 3 serials and 1 copy?

Dont buy software from eBay. It is as simple as that. You dont know what your going to get as all you see is a picture and get a description. With that i could sell you the Statue of Liberty but you wouldnt know that it was a fake until you got it.