Trademe and "entrepreneurial" people

[M1CRO]

After viewing a hayabusa manual for sale on Trademe (http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=43450533) for a cheap price I thought I would bid for it.

After winning the auction, and paying the money, the CD arrived in the mail today. When I put the CD into my laptop, I find that that it contains two files. One PDF document and one executable. The executable is the installation exe for Acrobat reader (which was already installed on my laptop).

Upon closer inspection of the PDF (Service Manual) - around 80MB, I found that it looked similar to one that I downloaded off the internet a few years ago... In fact, after opening them both up and looking at them I find that they are identical.

I was a little disapointed and looked at the sellers feedback list. There are 31 such feedbacks of which he purchased 2. Therefore, he has sold around 29 manuals over the last month of so, and no-one has presented any hint that it is on-selling copyrighted material.

Dont get me wrong, I am all for the free-market regime, but I find that people making copyright material freely available for other people's use to be a slight bend of the rules, but to blatantly on-sell it for a profit, I find a little hard to swallow..

So, to back up my thoughts/opinion, I sent the seller an email asking for my money back, & post negative feedback with a warning to others that the seller on-sells copyrighted material. I also sent a seperate email to Trademe advising them of the situation;

The feedback I posted was;
**WARNING** I received the CD today in the mail and am a little disappointed that you have elected to on-sell copyrighted material that is freely available from the internet. I already have a copy of the PDF document you decided to on-sell from one of the forums on www.hayabusa.org (http://www.hayabusa.org/cgi-bin/busa/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=24;t=29016) which is probably the same place you got yours from. I have compared the two copies and they appear identical.

His response? Well, here it is;
unreasonable guy, i have given full refund as he is not happy, but gave negative feedback before he even made contact. hope to never deal with again.

Cmon people - what would you have done. Was it better to ask for a refund and keep my mouth shut, or do what I have done and let other people know of the potential "scam"?

[M1CRO]

An emailed update from the "seller":

well im sorry you are unhappy with the item, it is as stated on the auction
and if you already had the document then there is nothing more you possibly
need to know about the bike

these were not aquired from the net as you implied, but if the document are
the same then they obvoiusly came from the same source at some time in their life

people only need to ask what it is they are buying and i will tell them, i
have nothing to hide

think its pretty indecent of you to leave bad feeback without even
contacting me about your dissapointment, you seem to be the only one who is getting on their high horse. at the end of the day it is a small price to
pay for a lot of info.

i will put the money back ito your bank as requested and thank you very much for telling tales to trade me.

hope you have a prosperous season of good will

[WINJA]

trademe is shit , shut that fucker down

[M1CRO]

trademe is shit , shut that fucker down
lol, thanks for the words of wisdom mate :rockon:

[WINJA]

lol, thanks for the words of wisdom mate :rockon:

ive seen some real cons on that site , ive seen fuckers selling tools of my trade for the wrong purposes and more than retail.
i just couldnt be fucked with bidding and the conmen , id rather get a t and e or loot ring , negotiate and pick up when i want

[thehollowmen]

just before I left I saw a newspaper article where trademe had been given a month to clean up "their" act (and implicated as being responsable in part for the listed sellers) by the commerce commission..
did anything come of that?

[Big Chim]

Free information ie sharing it with a mate is good but selling on someone elses copyrighted material and making money out of it is BullShit.

Not surprised the commerce commission is concerned. All Trademe can do is stipulate the rules and monitor what is being sold cause if people are going to use the trademe forum to sell items like that they will. Nearly impossible to police as well as it stands.

[M1CRO]

Free information ie sharing it with a mate is good but selling on someone elses copyrighted material and making money out of it is BullShit.
I guess the hardest thing for me to believe, is that potentially 29 people bought downloaded manuals off this guy (on plain CD's) and not one of them posted anything about the product... (i.e. Where it actually came from.. You dont need a PHD in nuclear physics to know)

Ok, so I don’t "absolutely" know that all of em were pirated, but I think it would be reasonable to assume that most were. Suffice to say, I find it to be quite "weird"? Are we now a society of people that are more interested in a "deal" than our scruples?

[Big Chim]

Ok, so I don’t "absolutely" know that all of em were pirated, but I think it would be reasonable to assume that most were. Suffice to say, I find it to be quite "weird"? Are we now a society of people that are more interested in a "deal" than our scruples?

I second that motion

[Deviant Esq]

Buying something like that - the buyer should be aware that the seller could perfectly reasonably have copied the file hundreds of times. Takes them no effort, no time, and costs them nothing to do. Totally illegal and ripping someone off bigtime at the same time, but there you go.

Having said that, TradeMe is full of similar little money making schemes. At the end of the day quite a few people are willing to make a quick buck without being entirely honest about it. I work at Noel Leeming. Without going into what my job's like, I know RRP prices of cellphones, and they're a prime example of TradeMe ripjobs. Panasonic VS2 mobile phone - we were selling these BRAND NEW from a retail store with a good reputation for $199.99. I've seen these very same phones go on TradeMe for over $300. Stupid, isn't it? But they get away with it. And by buying from a seller over trademe gives the buyer no recourse - not even the 12 month manufacturers warranty.

There are some things people just shouldn't buy off TradeMe.

My $0.02

[marty]

maybe you should send something to suzuki?

[HenryDorsetCase]

Im not sure I see your point: were you disappointed because you thought you were getting a CD of a factory service manual, and got an owners manual or something?

I do see the point about copyright protection, but surely that is the copyright owners concern, not that of an innocent third party?

I bought a reproduction of a factory service manual for my bike off tardme, and the ad says something like "tardme has determined there is no breach of copyright here" or some such crap.

I didnt give a toss, the manual for my bike (CB400F) was unobtainable any other way... I tried!

[digsaw]

:Oi: Ebay,trademe and others,are not the only places that will slip yar the micky.
There are places that deal with valid complaints.:Police: :yeah: and other places too. :ride:

[RantyDave]

Y'know, I think he has a point. Why did you bid for a Hyabusa service manual on CD when you already had one?

Sure he's selling copyrighted materials, but I'm not convinced Suzuki would give a shit (raising the value of second hand bikes must be good for them), and at fifteen bucks a pop I can't see anybody bothering to enforce it.

Look on the plus side: Finding the manual, downloading it, burning it to CD (did it come with a printed cover?), advertising it on trademe, shipping it, collecting the cash. Fucked if that's worth $15 of my time, dude's got to be doing this on damn nearly minimum wage - would make more asking if I wanted fries with that.

[M1CRO]

Im not sure I see your point: were you disappointed because you thought you were getting a CD of a factory service manual, and got an owners manual or something?

The manual I got was the same as the manual I had downloaded off the internet a few years ago. I thought I was going to get an updated (or at least semi-legit) version..
Edit: With the version I have, you cannot highlight the text as the whole "page" has been scanned - Having the ability to do this would have been alot nicer so I could reformat it and have it available with me depending on what I was doing - tightening chain etc

I guess, from another perspective, my point is this;
If you order something (and pay for it) and find that what you get is a copy of something and the seller did not pay for the original goods - would you warn other people about it or stay quiet. In other words, if you ordered a book and a whole bunch of photo-copy pages arrived.. How would you feel?

Do you allow people that do this to continue on with what they are doin?

[Angry Puppy]

ive seen some real cons on that site , ive seen fuckers selling tools of my trade for the wrong purposes and more than retail.
i just couldnt be fucked with bidding and the conmen , id rather get a t and e or loot ring , negotiate and pick up when i want

If you want to see some real cons, check out www.alibaba.com. I was looking at buying and importing 2nd hand sports bikes. this one guy in Italy was trying to sell me a 2001 CBR 600 F4i at a very reasonable price. provided loads of pics and the vin number. later, I went to ebay to see what was available in the states. Fuck me, I found the same bike, VIN number and all for sale on ebay! the MF had just copied and pasted all the details out of ebay.

THis wasn't an isolated incident, I had a couple of potential deals that were just seemed too dodgy for words. amazing how some people clam up when you suggest using an eskrow service.....

FB

[Motig]

Whats the problem? You got what you wanted, probably at a bargain price.Methinks your just a little pissed of to find thay you already had it,otherwise I doubt very much if you would be complaining. You could always have asked your dealer to get one for you then we wouldn't have to hear your bleating:nya:

[Virago]

Buying something like that - the buyer should be aware that the seller could perfectly reasonably have copied the file hundreds of times. Takes them no effort, no time, and costs them nothing to do. Totally illegal and ripping someone off bigtime at the same time, but there you go.

Having said that, TradeMe is full of similar little money making schemes. At the end of the day quite a few people are willing to make a quick buck without being entirely honest about it. I work at Noel Leeming. Without going into what my job's like, I know RRP prices of cellphones, and they're a prime example of TradeMe ripjobs. Panasonic VS2 mobile phone - we were selling these BRAND NEW from a retail store with a good reputation for $199.99. I've seen these very same phones go on TradeMe for over $300. Stupid, isn't it? But they get away with it. And by buying from a seller over trademe gives the buyer no recourse - not even the 12 month manufacturers warranty.

There are some things people just shouldn't buy off TradeMe.

My $0.02
Here's a classic example:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/Motorbikes/Motorbikes/Cruiser/auction-42907555.htm

(I mentioned this in another thread).

This guy is trying to sell a second-hand Yamaha Virago 250, with over 10,000Km on it. He wants $8,000 for it.

A brand new one, complete with a two-year factory warranty, costs $6,995....:crazy:

[M1CRO]

I do see the point about copyright protection, but surely that is the copyright owners concern, not that of an innocent third party?

So, I guess your saying that I shouldv'e kept quiet?

Let me ask another similar question... Not sure if you were at the trackday, but if someone (not the original taker of the photo) was selling trackday photo's from the KB site (downloaded and printed out on their printer), and you found out.. you wouldn't let, say, Felix (being the copyright owner) or other people on this site know what was happening?

[M1CRO]

Whats the problem? You got what you wanted, probably at a bargain price.Methinks your just a little pissed of to find thay you already had it,otherwise I doubt very much if you would be complaining. You could always have asked your dealer to get one for you then we wouldn't have to hear your bleating:nya:

An excellent view Motig.. But my gripe was really about whether or not you keep quiet when you learn that people are "selling" downloaded copyright material..

I'll put you down for the "i'll just keep quiet" vote... :)

[erik]

I reckon it's wrong that he's selling copyrighted stuff like that. Sharing information is one thing, selling it is another.

But like RantyDave pointed out, it doesn't look like he's making much money from it. In a way he is providing a service to people that are unable to find the manuals on the net themselves.
At least he is giving you a refund.
It still bugs me though, there is no way I'd sell pirated stuff like that.

[M1CRO]

This guy is trying to sell a second-hand Yamaha Virago 250, with over 10,000Km on it. He wants $8,000 for it. A brand new one, complete with a two-year factory warranty, costs $6,995....:crazy:

Thank you for the observation, but not quite the point I was making...
My gripe was really about whether or not you keep quiet when you learn that people are "selling" downloaded copyright material.. So whats the vote? Stay quiet or tell all or :whocares:

[M1CRO]

I reckon it's wrong that he's selling copyrighted stuff like that. Sharing information is one thing, selling it is another. But like RantyDave pointed out, it doesn't look like he's making much money from it. In a way he is providing a service to people that are unable to find the manuals on the net themselves. At least he is giving you a refund. It still bugs me though, there is no way I'd sell pirated stuff like that.

So if anyone wants a Service Manual for a Hayabusa, let me know cos I am selling them real cheap :rockon: jj

[erik]

Thank you for the observation, but not quite the point I was making...
My gripe was really about whether or not you keep quiet when you learn that people are "selling" downloaded copyright material.. So whats the vote? Stay quiet or tell all or

I reckon stay quiet. I don't think the guy deserves to go to court or jail for breaking copyright infringements.
But I do think it is good to let people know what they are buying off him.

It's a very grey area if you ask me. (if you want to be really morally righteous or law abiding, I guess you could say it's black and white - he is breaking the law and should be punished. But I don't agree with that personally.)

[M1CRO]

I reckon stay quiet. ... But I do think it is good to let people know what they are buying off him.

Thanks for that.. Stay quiet but let people know.. Got it! :)
jk.. appreciate your comments

[Biff]

I bought a copy of Office 2005 Pro from E-Bay once. When it arrived it was obviously a copy of an original copy, or a copy of a copy etc etc. Despite my slight surprise I followed the included instructions (phone register - don't register online etc), and it worked a treat ( I've since de-installed it because I'm appalled at the fact that it wasn't an original Microshaft yeah right).

Anyhoo - I mailed the guy (before I red blinged him on E-Bay), expressed my mild disappointment upon realising that I'd received a hooky copy and asked for a refund. He said ok, and I received a refund the following day. This despite the fact that in his response to my mail he reminded me that I'd only paid £40 for a piece of software that would have cost several hundred ££ had I bought a legit copy. And had I read the advert properly I would have seen that he did, in all due fairness, point out the fact that his advert clearly stated, "Copy Of Microshaft Orifice Pro".

Oh - and I still have a copy. Anyone want to buy if from me for £150? It is a genuine copy after all.

[Beemer]

Someone emailed me the link to someone selling a BMW F650CS manual - again, on CD with Adobe Acrobat included. I wasn't interested but it looks like the guy has downloaded heaps of different manuals, copied them onto CD and is trying to hock them off on Trade Me. He could sell the same thing over and over again. It's the old case of caveat emptor - let the buyer beware.

[gav]

Whats that latin term "Caveat Empore" or something, "let the buyer beware"?
You could have asked him a question before bidding, his ad does say its on a CD. Maybe an email to him first rather than your response on Trade Me, could have been a better response.
But hey, it pays to shop around, apparently Bond and Bond and Noel Leeming are owned by the same company, and yet quite often the price on an item will be different between the two shops, guy at work said there was something like $15 difference on a $100 item, between the two stores, and the employee admitted that the same company now owns both stores. You could argue why are they allowed to do this? Shouldn't the prices be the same in both stores?
Personally I've found Trade Me great for both buying and selling, but I've just had my first sell, where it looks like the buyer aint coming to the party, oh well, his loss I guess, so long as I get my selling fee refunded by Trade Me.

[Quartida]

I have to say M1CRO, I'm a bit of an idealist myself, and I say SPEAK UP. I think it's wrong to onsell freely available information in such a way, regardless of how much he's making off it.
And although you were on the wrong side of 'caveat emptor', I think by speaking up you are allowing other people to make an informed choice.

[Korea]

How about this analogy:
"I've just downloaded the King Kong movie and burnt it to CD for nothing! I'll sell it hundreds of times to anyone who's keen to pay me $20 a pop. Takers???"
Personally, I agree, it's one thing to 'share' stuff but it's bloody cheeky to try and flog it off for a profit.

[Brian d marge]

Whats that latin term "Caveat Empore" or something, "let the buyer beware"?

Yup I would agree here ,also add that as far as I know Bike makers dont put service manuals out on CD ,,( Ive never heard of it ...)

So I would be asking HOW .why or where the copy came from...( understand and accept point about a updated , formatable copy )

But in this big wide world there are scammier scams than that ! ..

Copywrited material is just that ,,see china ,,, YOU cant copy and resell OR you get busted or a nasty letter from ,,,the nurse ... ( like selling dope ,,,you can do it ,,,it has questions either side,,,but we as a people have ( wonder who decided that one !!) decided thats a No No ...Same with copywriting ,, Trade me should be on to that ...( As I am sure the original service manual is copywrited ,,,My CR250 service manual says on the back page say No can do ....)

So I would say that trade me should be notified that a seller is selling contra band ,,illegal hooch ,,naughty stuff,,no can do ....

So the sale is ( I would assume ) illeagal ( like a seagul but completely different ..) ..as in cant be transacted ,,...he could give it to you for free ,,i assume ,,,but cant ask money for it ,,,

Stephen

[Mrs Busa Pete]

Bugger We payed for our's last night before reading this

[Eurodave]

Who cares?,:shake: copied CD's are still really cheap information & we do, after all,live in a capitalistic country. People NEED to do some research on TardMe prices B4 bidding. Its the same if you went into Cash Converters,their prices are NEVER 1/2 retail & sometimes MORE than retail!! :weird: LET THE BUYER BEWARE!!!

[Swoop]

If you want to see some real cons, check out www.alibaba.com. I was looking at buying and importing 2nd hand sports bikes. this one guy in Italy was trying to sell me a 2001 CBR 600 F4i at a very reasonable price. provided loads of pics and the vin number. later, I went to ebay to see what was available in the states. Fuck me, I found the same bike, VIN number and all for sale on ebay! the MF had just copied and pasted all the details out of ebay.

THis wasn't an isolated incident, I had a couple of potential deals that were just seemed too dodgy for words. amazing how some people clam up when you suggest using an eskrow service.....

FB

Had the same thing on betrademe a while back.
Some one "in NZ" was selling a '03 VFR 800 for 3K...

HAD to see what this was about...
Yes, yes, all genuine, etc, etc. Price was in US$ though...
Oh, and the bike ISN'T in NZ, because we shipped it there and it wasn't allowed to be landed because of "paperwork" so it's on the way to Greece - where we will be happy to ship it to you from!.......

Something smells fishy and it AIN'T the japs whaling for "research"...
(The only findings the japs have made from all this whaling is that "it's yummy!"...) Sorry-off topic...

[inlinefour]

I have now brought three motorcycles and one workshop manual for one of them. Two of the bikes I got to have a look at and had theu been crap, I'd have walked with the money still in my pocket. One bike was trucked up from the South Island, but I got it so much cheaper than what the first bid was (after calling the owner's cellphone) that I was fairly sure I got a good deal (confirmed when the bike arrived). The manual was advertised as a "carefully reproduced FACTORY ONLY manual". I'd be very warey of buying a PDF file on cd-rom as I'm aware of how easy it is to download some manuals from the net. On that note, does anyone have a manual for a 98 TT350F?:corn:

[Sensei]

Yea all write you up one if you like , Ps Sorry about spelling mistakes LOL:whistle:

[Harry33]

I think the best thing you can do is a little bit of research before you purchase anything. If your going to bid online shop online first. You have the internet use it.

In saying that if the information was never released on dvd/cd format I think it would be a good idea to report it to trademe and just hope they pull the auction before someone gets scammed.

[sefer]

Look on the plus side: Finding the manual, downloading it, burning it to CD (did it come with a printed cover?), advertising it on trademe, shipping it, collecting the cash. Fucked if that's worth $15 of my time, dude's got to be doing this on damn nearly minimum wage - would make more asking if I wanted fries with that.

Well lets see...

Finding the manual, downloading it = Free, but we'll say $15 one off for connection fees/usage.

Burning to CD = $.50 per CD (and that's full priced CDs) x 30 = $15

He's charging for shipping (too much by about $1.50 as well).

So that's $30 of costs to him (should be minus $30-45 for the over charged shipping really). So he's made about $370. Pretty good for little effort really isn't it?

I personally think there is far to many people trying to make a quick buck with copied cds, movies, games, and software on Trademe, and Trademe does stuff all about it. On those occasions when I have 'reported' an auction for the above Trademe either does nothing about it, or removes the auction, which then gets relisted almost straight away.

There should be no chances, if your selling pirated goods your account should be closed straight away.

(and don't even get me started on the feedback system where a buyer/seller can stuff you around, or even rip you off and still post negitive feedback on your account. Or where you post honest feedback either way and get negitive feedback because of that and not how you dealt with the sale)

[WINJA]

i have to say m1cro, i'm a bit of an idealist myself, and i say speak up. i think it's wrong to onsell freely available information in such a way, regardless of how much he's making off it.
and although you were on the wrong side of 'caveat emptor', i think by speaking up you are allowing other people to make an informed choice.
how you doing

[M1CRO]

Thanks for the feedback thus far. As I mentioned, I am all for the "free" market, "caveat emptor" and the need to shop around, but blatant on-selling copied CD's for a profit reaches my boundary limit and I could not sit idle and do nothing... I wasnt prepared to take the matter further through the commerce commission or even the police as I dont see how that really helps matters in a small time operation, but I think if more people got involved, this sort of practise would become "socially unacceptable".

Incidentally, there was a $2.00 shipping cost added to the auction and the CD arrived wrapped in a A4 piece of paper (no case), a few pieces of sellotape and a 45c stamp :) lol - Again, quite "entrepreneurial"