The hunt for bootlegs
Long story short: I bought DVD and Blu-ray movies from 7 different sellers. Everything I received was bootleg. Burned Blu-rays and DVDs on single-layer discs with horrible quality. 4 sellers from China (duh!), 2 sellers from Hong Kong, and 1 seller from the US. The Blu-rays are obviously created from downloaded material from streaming services.
I opened cases on all orders and asked for return labels. All sellers except one refunded me immediately instead of handling the return. Fine by me. The last seller completely ghosted me and told eBay they had sent return labels to my email, which was a lie. eBay extended the case by 5 days and asked the seller to contact me through eBay messages, probably so they could see what was being written. The seller vanished and never contacted me. eBay extended the case again. I think we are on week 3 now. I want my $170 back, but I guess the seller has already been paid out and the refund now has to come from eBay’s own pocket, which probably stings for them.
I started reporting tons of obvious bootlegs, but at first none of them were taken down. After some arguing and several additional purchases where I could prove that everything these sellers list on eBay is bootleg, things finally started moving.
Over the past few days, I have managed to get more than 1,500 listings taken down. Absolutely insane. The removals happen within 10 minutes and are handled by both AI and actual staff. I have now made it a hobby to report huge amounts of listings every day. I use AI to help spot the listings, and then it gives me lists of item numbers that I can send in batches of 25 at a time.
The sellers have started changing tactics and opening new accounts where they claim the items ship from England or the US, hoping they will not attract attention. They have also started changing their product images.
The sellers have multiple accounts, and some have thousands of items listed. One movie can be sold by 40+ sellers, all with 0-3 positive feedbacks. Some also have 0 positive feedback and only negative feedback. It is fascinating that they are allowed to continue.
I think eBay has shut down 2–3 sellers, which surprises me. Personally, I think all of these accounts should be deleted, but on the other hand, they will probably just open new accounts. Catch-22.
If these bootlegs are removed from eBay, sales for sellers offering genuine products will probably increase. It is hard to compete with something being sold almost for free.
If anyone at eBay sees this and wants more information, feel free to contact me.
