A bit over a month ago, I purchased a copy of Yoshi’s Island DS on eBay.
Well, I tried to, anyway. I used to have this game, but I don’t know what happened to the cartridge, so I was looking to get it replaced cheap-ish.
I’ve never received counterfeit merchandise from an eBay seller before, so I was a bit surprised when I received a non-genuine game. But, there were a few warning signs that I should have seen before I ordered it (though I did make sure to buy from a U.S. seller, as I hear that this is often a problem with games coming from, say, China). Here what happened to me; maybe this will help out people in similar situations if they stumble across this page while Googling for information.
Like I said, the game was Yoshi’s Island DS. The eBay seller was jandjvariety, and the item number was 360215844783. Here is a link to the eBay listing, and here is a link to a local mirror of the eBay listing (since the listing will expire and be removed from eBay in 90 days or so).
What are the warning signs in the eBay listing itself?
- The game is listed as “Yoshi’s Island 2,” which is the wrong title, at least here in the United States. (Though the game was referred to by that title for some time before it was released.)
- They specifically state in the listing that the game is “not formatted for the DSi.”
I didn’t notice either of these until after I had the game in hand, and went back to look. The second one is a particularly strong indicator that the game is non-genuine, though. The Nintendo DSi has practically perfect backwards compatibility with all Nintendo DS titles. The only games that I am aware of that cause any trouble are games that require you to stick something in the Nintendo DS’s Game Boy Advance cartridge slot (i.e. Guitar Hero: World Tour), which is missing on the Nintendo DSi. However, the DSi is able to detect some counterfeit cartridges and will refuse to play them. So, the eBay seller has to put up a notice that the game will not work in the DSi, otherwise they’ll have to deal with people wondering why the game does not work.
Oh, yeah, the game didn’t work in my DSi, which was the first sign of trouble for me. It’s little icon showed up on the system menu, but when I tried to run it, my DSi told me this:
An error has occurred. Press and hold the power button to turn the system off. Please see the Nintendo DSi Operations Manual for help troubleshooting.
I was traveling at the time (I bought this game to keep me entertained during my travels!), so I couldn’t contact the seller right away, but when I got Internet access, I noticed the other discrepancies in the listing that I mentioned above.
I contacted the seller and asked for them to send a refund or a genuine copy of the game. They sent me back a polite reply, offering a refund if I return the game, and pointing out that the listing said it wasn’t supposed to work in the DSi. This was at least somewhat nice of them, since the listing also said that they don’t take returns.
I wasn’t happy with this, however. I don’t see any reason to send the game back to them, as they will probably just list it again and sell it to some other unsuspecting eBayer. (While I do not know for sure that the seller knew the game was counterfeit, the fact that they mentioned that the game does not work on the DSi means that they either knew this or they just plain don’t know that the Nintendo DSi is supposed to be backwards compatible.)
So, I sent another message with more details as to why I believed the game to be counterfeit, pointing out that there’s no reason for it not to work in the DSi, and again politely but firmly requesting a refund. I also implied that I would take this to a higher level if I didn’t hear back from them.
Well, a few days go by and I don’t hear back, so I look into what I should do. I opened a case at eBay and described the problem. Opening a case first just prompts for a reply from the seller (eBay doesn’t want to get involved if the parties can just figure it out on their own). The seller again offered to send me a refund if I return the item, and claimed that I was trying to scam them by getting my money back and keeping the game at the same time. (They never admitted to the fact that the game was non-genuine, nor did they deny it; they just mentioned that I claimed that it was fake.)
Still unhappy, I now had the option to escalated the case to eBay customer support. I did so, pointing out that I don’t want to keep the game, it doesn’t even work on my handheld, I just don’t want to send it back to them. I mentioned that if eBay customer support directed me to return it, I would do so.
Afterwards, I threw together this document detailing all of the problems with the game. It mentions the same things I have mentioned here, plus a few more things that can be noticed by inspecting the game cartridge itself, with links to online resources backing up my claims. I sent this document to the seller, mentioning that I would provide it to eBay customer support if they asked for more details. The seller never responded.
Finally, after about 3 weeks, eBay issued me a refund. They never asked for more information. While they had access to my communication with the seller (they mentioned that they might look at this communication when I opened the case), the document is hosted on my web server (you can’t send a document through eBay’s message system after all), and I can tell from the server logs that neither the seller or eBay customer support opened it.
So, where does this leave us? I’m happy that I got my money back. I was starting to give up on it, as it had been a while since I opened the case. I’m disappointed that the seller didn’t own up to their mistake and offer a refund with an apology. (But what can you expect from people who are making money off others’ work?) And finally, while I am happy that eBay decided the case in my favor, I’m disappointed that they didn’t do much verification — the case seems to have been decided from just a couple messages that I left in the case and one message from the seller. If I were a seller, I’d hate for a scamming buyer to make a similar case and run off with some money. The refund was sent to my PayPal account by claims-usd@ebay.com, I wonder if the seller was charged for the refund or if eBay covered it themselves?
Anyway, that’s the end of my article. But I am going to post a complete record of the communication between the seller, myself, and eBay, if anyone would like to see how the timeline went or how things unfolded. And, if you’re having similar trouble from an eBay seller, I wish you the best of luck in obtaining your refund! Remember to be polite, even if you are not the person in the wrong. We should all be more careful about our purchases next time.
Update: 6:00 PM, same day.
Well, I filed some reports with eBay and Nintendo Anti-Piracy and, lo and behold, jandjvariety is no longer a registered user. (Seems he was selling counterfeit DVDs as well.) Wonder if he got kicked off? Wonder if he will just start selling games under a new eBay ID? I’ll probably never know…
Game was purchased on December 8, 2009.
Received a shipment notice with USPS tracking number from PayPal on December 10, 2009.
Game arrived on December 15, 2009 and I had it in my possession on December 16, 2009.
On December 17, 2009 at 8:13 PM, I sent the following message to the seller via eBay’s message system:
Hi, the game that you sent me is counterfeit. It also does not work on the Nintendo DSi with the latest firmware. I don’t know if you were aware of this or not. However, I’m going to have to ask you to send a genuine copy or a refund. I will file the appropriate reports with eBay if I do not hear back from you. Thanks.
On December 18, 2009 at 10:17 AM, I received the following response:
In the add it stated clearly in red that this game was not formatted for DSI. We would be glad to refund your money on the game. Please send the game to:
JandJ Variety
25 Tucker Street
Buckhannon, WV 26201
Be sure to include a note in with the game with your ebay name on it. I will need your ebay name in order to issue you a refund through pay-pal. Once we receive the game back we will refund your money.If you have any questions just let us know.
Happy Holidays
JandJ Variety
I promptly replied with this message:
Hi,
There is no such thing as “not formatted for the DSi” — this can only mean that the cartridge is counterfit. The DSi has software measures in place to detect counterfeit software and refuse to run it.
Note that the fact that the DSi will not run the game is not the only evidence that I have that it is counterfeit. So please do not try to claim that it is not.
Like I said, I’m not sure if you were aware of this or not when you sold the item. If you knew that the game was counterfeit, then you knowingly sold me an illegal product. If you did not, then please be careful about selling DS games in the future. Counterfeit cartridges are not made with Nintendo’s quality standards, and while the games may work, there can be long-term issues (loss of save data, or even damage to the DS itself).
I will return the game if you like but I cannot do so until the 29th. Please go ahead and issue a refund. I do not want to take this issue any higher than I have to.
Didn’t hear back for a while. On December 23, 2009 at 9:13 PM, I opened an eBay case with this message:
Seller shipped me a counterfeit Nintendo DS game. In a response to my eBay message, the seller did not acknowledge that the item is counterfeit. (I can provide detailed evidence on the counterfeit if you like.) Offered to send a refund after I return the item. Two problems: I can’t return the item for a while since I am traveling, and I don’t want to return the item only to have the seller dupe someone else with the fake game.
On December 24, 2009 at 7:24 AM, the seller responded with this message:
Buyer says the game is fake, but wants to keep the game and us refund his money. We told him to ship the game back to us and we would give his money back if he was dissatisified with his purchase. doesn’t seem right that he would want to keep the game and get his money back too
At 12:44 PM, I escalated the case with this message:
I am happy to ship the item to a neutral third party before my refund is processed. I don’t want to keep it. I am hesitant to return the item to the seller because it is an illegal product. I’m afraid they’ll just sell it again to someone else.
If eBay Customer Support tells me that returning the product to the seller is what I should do, I will comply.
Again, I am happy to provide detailed evidence on why I believe this game to be counterfeit. Just let me know how I should get it to you.
On December 27, 2009 at 10:59 AM, I sent this message to the seller:
In the interest of full disclosure, here is the document that I will be submitting to eBay customer support detailing why I believe this game is counterfeit. http://aaron-kelley.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/yi2.pdf
I received my refund from eBay at 1:00 PM on January 19, 2010.
Tags: eBay, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi
Thanks for this, I had the exact same issues with the exact same game but through a seller on amazon which they picked for me (i just ordered the game like normal on amazon expecting them to send me a copy but they chose a 3rd party seller). It’s given me back up that I was given a pirate copy of a game I had to wait well over 2 weeks for >_>
Unfortunately, no, I didn’t get a response back from Nintendo or eBay. The only evidence that I have that someone read my reports is that the user and his auctions had disappeared by that evening. Which is good, at least there’s someone will promptly act on it once someone else points out the piracy.
I do occasionally see articles about Nintendo’s anti-piracy efforts (like this one from a few days ago), but it looks like they are after the biggest distributors of copied games, as well as people who make the devices that allow the games to be copied. Which of course makes sense, they should go after the biggest problems first.
Did you ever get a response from Nintendo? There is so much fraud on eBay, and everyone is playing ignorant about it when asked. They just say “well it SAYS its not DSi”, which is just retarded to admit if you’re selling DS games. Nintendo never released games for DS that do not work with DSi. I would like to know what Nintendo and eBay are doing about this because its a huge problem.