Digital Copy Included But Not Guaranteed To Work

[ciaodrewc]

Hey, this is my first post here so please forgive me if this is amateurish.

I listed this item, "The Lion King 3D Diamond Edition (Blu-Ray 3D + Blu-Ray + DVD)" with this description "Lenticular Slip Cover is a little beat up, check photos for damage. Discs and Blu-Ray Case are in great condition. 

DIGITAL COPY DISC/CODE INCLUDED, BUT NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK"

The first message I received was a person who asked me to send them the digital copy code so that they can test it. I refused as anybody with common sense would do.

They then asked me to test the code on a specific website, I did that and sent the person the pop up I received. They then proceeded to ask me if I would take such and such amount for the item. I told them win the auction, pay, then ask for the code and I'll send it to you. He said thanks and that he'll be on the "lookout" (whatever that means). 

The day comes and the auction ends, the person sends me a message " Hey could i get the code now?" I figured he won, he paid, sure why not. I send him the code and he says he gets a different pop-up from what I got. He asks me to put the code in the same site again, I get a different pop up this time too.

The person said he had no idea what could have happened and sends me this "I mean the whole reason i bought it was for the digital copy. So i dont guarantee ill keep it."

I ship the Blu-Ray out just before the 4th of July and it gets to him pretty quick, a couple days later he opens up an item not as described case. I can't decline the return so after contacting the buyer, I content ebay and they say they can't do anything until 3 business days pass (today was the 3rd business days). But I wake up to the case being closed and decided in the buyers favor. 

My questions are; Who is in the wrong here? Did I get scammed? How should I go about appealing this when I recieve the unwanted return?

Thanks for any and all help.

[emerald40]

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@ciaodrewc wrote:

Hey, this is my first post here so please forgive me if this is amateurish.

I listed this item, "The Lion King 3D Diamond Edition (Blu-Ray 3D + Blu-Ray + DVD)" with this description "Lenticular Slip Cover is a little beat up, check photos for damage. Discs and Blu-Ray Case are in great condition. 

DIGITAL COPY DISC/CODE INCLUDED, BUT NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK"

The first message I received was a person who asked me to send them the digital copy code so that they can test it. I refused as anybody with common sense would do.

They then asked me to test the code on a specific website, I did that and sent the person the pop up I received. They then proceeded to ask me if I would take such and such amount for the item. I told them win the auction, pay, then ask for the code and I'll send it to you. He said thanks and that he'll be on the "lookout" (whatever that means). 

The day comes and the auction ends, the person sends me a message " Hey could i get the code now?" I figured he won, he paid, sure why not. I send him the code and he says he gets a different pop-up from what I got. He asks me to put the code in the same site again, I get a different pop up this time too.

The person said he had no idea what could have happened and sends me this "I mean the whole reason i bought it was for the digital copy. So i dont guarantee ill keep it."

I ship the Blu-Ray out just before the 4th of July and it gets to him pretty quick, a couple days later he opens up an item not as described case. I can't decline the return so after contacting the buyer, I content ebay and they say they can't do anything until 3 business days pass (today was the 3rd business days). But I wake up to the case being closed and decided in the buyers favor. 

My questions are; Who is in the wrong here? Did I get scammed? How should I go about appealing this when I recieve the unwanted return?

Thanks for any and all help.

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When the questions started getting weird you should hae immediately blocked him.

I mean the whole reason i bought it was for the digital copy. So i dont guarantee ill keep it."  As said by the buyer should have been a big red flag that this guy was a scammer.

Not much you can do now instead of not repeating it.

If you have not already done so block him.

[sg51]

My questions are; Who is in the wrong here? Did I get scammed? How should I go about appealing this when I recieve the unwanted return?

You might not have been in the wrong, but your listing says "kick me", and your buyer complied.

Never, ever list something with the caveat "not guaranteed to work". Ever.  If you're not guaranteeing it to work, say it doesn't work, or leave it out of the listing.

You will not win any appeal.

Learn the lesson, move on.

[omgitlightsup]

Here's eBay's downloadable items policy:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/downloadable.html

It is woefully incomplete.

PayPal does not, apparently, provide seller protection for digital goods. My gut feeling here is that unless you're a licensed distributor (like FYE or Amazon), then you have no right to sell a digitally-delivered Disney film in the first place, and an item like this one should be approached just like one would at a pawn shop or a yard sale. Pretend that the code doesn't exist.

Digitally-delivered goods are a mechanism used by companies like Disney to destroy people like you, because you're generating revenue that they can't touch, and which cuts into their new DVD/BD sales. I doubt the situation will get better.

I'd try to get the physical BD back intact and sell it for what it is, a disc that used to have the code but doesn't anymore.

[ciaodrewc]

I was not selling the digital copy alone though, so all that stuff is irrelevent. I was selling a blu-ray that included a digital copy that I could not guarantee as working. So it was not digitally delivered it was a physical blu-ray along with a digital copy paper and disc.

But okay, let's go with what your saying, had I listed the blu-ray alone and not mentioned the digital copy, i'm sure the fact that the cover says digital copy on it and that The Lion King is vaulted and unbuyable anywhere else would make some people incquire about the validity of the digital copy, so am I just not supposed to mention digital copy at all? Am I supposed to not include the digital copy in the sale and take a possible loss for selling an incomplete set?

[rolenboy01]

Only an idiot or a scammer would expect the digital copy to work after such an amount of time has passed I'm pretty sure the packaging even states that it won't work after such and such date , you could have stated as such instead of "but not guaranteed to work" you should matter of factly state it doesn't or won't work  just cover yourself, I'm willing to bet this person took advantage of your wording they knew full well the item cost was for the physical media itself.

[couldabeenworse]

DIGITAL COPY DISC/CODE INCLUDED, BUT NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK

These sorts of disclaimers are inappropriate in mail order.  You can't say "Spins straw into gold, but maybe not."  and expect buyers to be happy if it turns out to be "not".  If you can't confirm something works, it's better to either not mention it in the description at all, or even to specifically state it is not included.

[ciaodrewc]

You just gotta take it from realistic to the absolute impossible extreme, huh?

But let's go back to my previous reply, why would I say it is not included when it is and there is a possibility of it working. The Lion King without the digital copy is worth far less, so I'm supposed to possibly screw myself out of 10-20 more dollars? Let's say I didn't mention the digital copy at all though and someone asks me about it... Am I supposed to ignore them? Say "What digital copy?" or give an actual honest answer? 

[luckythewinner]

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@ciaodrewc wrote:They then asked me to test the code on a specific website, I did that and sent the person the pop up I received.

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How do you know this "specific website" is legitimate and didn't simply steal your code?

[ciaodrewc]

It's a Disney site, I looked it up. It's possible when testing it myself it may have rendered the code used, but I did as the buyer asked, so that's on him, not me. 

[sg51]

The Lion King without the digital copy is worth far less, so I'm supposed to possibly screw myself out of 10-20 more dollars? 

You nailed it.

Figure out which one you are selling. The one with the digital copy, or the one without.

What you cannot do is sell the one without, but collect a price justified by the one with.

You need to not resist good advice here.

Understand that you now have an unresolved strike, the ebay equivalent of a felony conviction.  Take a 2nd such strike anytime soon, and you'll experience the ebay equivelent of deportation.

[omgitlightsup]

The take-away I was hoping for was this: you were selling the BD itself, not the code.

To a collector, the code is worthless anyway. Ten years from now none of them will be valid, and the servers won't be up, and no version of Windows/OSX will support the file format; so there will be absolutely no way to tell a valid one from a used or fake one.

So yeah, basically, like you said, you should have completely ignored the existence of the code from the beginning. When the buyer asked for the code, you should have replied, "the item for sale is a BD of the Lion King in 3D."

Nobody would ever buy a used DVD, Xbox game, movie, or anything else in a store with the expectation that the code was still good. I'd certainly give it a try if I bought it and saw the slip inside the package, but I wouldn't hinge my purchasing decision on it, unless it was still sealed in the factory wrapping. Which would make it new, not used.

[luckythewinner]

Who is in the wrong here?

IMHO who is in the wrong is irrelevant. The important questions are (a) who will win the case, and (b) how do I reduce the chance of this happening again.

(a) The buyer will win the case, because buyers always win SNAD cases.

(b) What you can do is stop trying to have it both ways.

The only logical explanation for mentioning the code is that you thought that would help the item sell. You wanted the benefit of mentioning the code, but did not want to be responsible for actually delivering it. So you split the difference by mentioning the code and then trying to disclaim away any responsibility for it.