tvden

now and again in a mad moment usually late at night, I trawl through bootleg ebay film sellers and occasionally buy a dvd if its cheap, one particular seller on the last two occasions has sent me an extra free film with my original order, this time it was Fast and Loose 1954 and its a good copy as well !!!!

batman

There are one or two sellers of classic british films on ebay at the moment who do provide a quality product at very cheap prices. I have picked up some real bargains recently and all for under a fiver each.

Bats.

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"

tvden

this sounds like the guy I have been buying off, like Bats I have bought off a few others and to be honest there stuff has been ok and dare I say fairly cheap, and at least its keeping the old films alive for people to see, the only bad one I bought was Billy bunter which was very poor but from what I can see most of the copies of bunter are clapped out anyway

Ljelja

I think ebay is currently the cheapest way to obtain films. I usually play on patience and wait for a used original DVD. It must come up there sooner or later!

I heard there are some Korean sellers that have stuff that's been legally released in Korea, but selling very cheap. No bootleg. But then, one finds out it has been a Criterion release of a particular film. I don't understand how is that legal?!

Steve Crook

It's not. They are bootlegs, despite what the seller might say

Steve

orpheum

there is one seller from canada whom i have dealt with who has many 30s & 40s films but she is very erratic when it comes to deliveries.She often claims to have sent your delivery when she has not.Her films are worth having but you have to put up with a bit of agro.If you want her name send me a pm

Aaryk Noctivagus

I gave up on Ebay when I ordered what I thought was a used DVD which turned out to be bootleg... and the seller threatened to send a friend around to my house when I gave him a minus mark and complained about it.

My reaction to the threat was that I would go straight to the police if that happened. He backed down right away... fortunately. But he still tried to get me to remove the negative mark by giving me one and saying he'd take it away if I took his away... I did not agree.

I haven't traded with anybody on Ebay since.

Ebay is completely set up to privilage piraters. The odds are stacked against honesty.

DB7

Appledonour (sp?). I've dealt with her many times and she's always been first class. Horses for courses I suppose, and it can be frustrating dealing overseas.

Carmel

zerodaydvd is were i have picked up some great hard to get titles, the DVD's are great quality and they are quick to send the Dvd's. The picture quality is fantastic you should try them if you want some good titles. They only cost £5.95 which i think is great.

clitheroekid

Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but did you not check the seller's feedback before you made a purchase?

vaggmk1938

I have bought over 80 films on Ebay, mostly VHS (NTSC) and I have only had trouble with one dealer, a "new" dealer on Ebay, I knew I was taking a risk, but the titles he offered were so tempting, I could not resist. All four of the films I bought were copies and rather bad ones at that, and one had large chunk in the middle missing ("I was Monty's Double"--I bought it just before the new DVD release was announced!).

The packaging looked familiar so I went over my British tapes and found two done exactly the same way. A search of my email revealed that I had bought these two from an anglo-saxon named fellow in California. The new group I bought from a Chinese-sounding man whose surname was the first three letters of the first fellow's surname. He rather stupidly left his first name alone. All this was revealed because one had to pay him by postal order (a bore); his present address is some 20 miles from his previous persona's.

I thought long and hard about leaving him negative feedback and in the end decided not to leave any. One person had complained of a tape being a copy--his reply "What utter nonsense" which lead me to believe that not only was he an anglo-saxon, but an ex-pat to boot.

Anyway I usually buy from sellers with a great many feedbacks at least 200+ and have had nothing but very good luck. Recently a DVD did not arrive, I waited for 10 days as it was coming media mail, notified the dealer (feedback about 1500) who said "give it a day or two". Two weeks later I again wrote and my Paypal account was credited that day.

There are, of course, dubious sellers on Ebay, as there are some on ABE (was reading another thread). As I have been a bookseller for over 30 years, I can usually recognize the bogus on that site. If you want a good laugh go and look at the prices for the Alastair Sim biography "Dance and Skylark" at AddAll.com:

AddALL Used and Out of Print book search

This is a site which combines the results of listings of used and rare books on 24 different book-selling sites in the U.K. and U.S. There is duplication because many dealers list on more than one site, but sometimes you will find something from one of the smaller sites that is not up on ABE.

Aaryk Noctivagus

Yes. He had immaculate feedback (right up in the very high 90s... probably something like 98%)... but then, I remember the game he played with me when trying to get me to reverse my minus mark on him.

Feedback on Ebay is next to worthless... it only really guards about those sellers who don't know how to play Ebay and who fail to post items on time - or items that function as they should.

vaggmk1938

After my bad experience, mentioned above, I discovered that you should not only check the feedback, you should also look at how many items the seller has sold in the past 30 days. My man, had listed some 420 titles--he only had feedback for 20 odd when I bought from him. This means that either a lot did not sell, or a lot of people were dissatisfied with him, or a third possibility--movie buyers do not care about leaving feedback.

Ljelja

I am also the one that rather leaves none than a negative feedback. Grrrr...I once caught myself writing a positive feedback complaining about how poor the stuff was! Gosh, just not to be awarded with a negative myself! That's crazy. The system should be reconsidered and improved. Although, I don't personally have ideas how...

Thanx fro the AddAll web site, vaggmk, I always put such into good use. I am ordering almost all of my books from Alibris, and I am quite satisfied with it.

MrT

One very simple change to ebay rules would greatly reduce the negative feedbacks left in retaliation. As the seller experiences the buyer's response to the auction first - ie. did they pay up quicly, was their communication good etc, the system should force the seller to leave feedback first. At the moment many sellers will not do this - they wait for the buyer to leave feedback saying how great the seller was and how pleased they are with the item etc, and then the seller responds praising the buyer and their quick payment etc. The threat is always there that the seller will leave negative feedback if the buyer is unhappy with the product or service and dares to say so on the feedback page. Of course nobody on ebay likes negative feedback and most people go to great lengths to avoid it - but sometimes it is justfied and if negative feedbacks are not posted when they should be, the whole feedback system is pretty pointless.

Mike (MrT)