I'm no stranger to watching out for fake GBA games on eBay, and I was familiar with the look of the fake Fire Emblem cartridges (with the three characters on front, slightly faded) so I thought I was okay. Found one for 23$ and jumped on it (figured it was someone who found it in a drawer and didn't care about getting full price for it, undercutting the competition's price, or something? I dunno). Had the right code on the front so I assumed it was fine.
It arrives, looks PERFECT, shiny label etc, and plays fine. I look under the cartridge on the board, and I see (c) Nintendo AGB-E05-01, so can't be a fake, right? I open it up just to check... and it's a almost bare board, and that telling glob of black stuff is in the center (likely covering the cheap battery). On closer inspection, the label doesn't have a two digit code stamped into it, the label doesn't have pictures of mountains in the background (took me a while to notice this was on real carts) and the "Game Boy Advance" on top is most certainly different than my other GBA games (thinner GAME BOY letters, etc).
So, darn! Messaged the seller asking for my money back, and bought another (legit, obviously, though I'll certainly check closer when it gets here) cartridge (32$, so not THAT bad, but a more reasonable price). I can start a dispute with Paypal if the seller doesn't respond back to me though, right?
Anyways for those curious, I'm pretty sure from googling that that white stamped code on the board is for a Pokemon game, not fire Emblem (though maybe those codes can be reused?). Oh, and the seller put up another copy for the same price in the last couple days since I bought it. Anyways on closer inspection, pretty much every copy of FE under 30$ is one of these fakes, so watch out if you're in the market. Are there any other GBA games with such convincing fakes? I'm assuming these specifically are newer, probably to capitalize on the series' new found popularity thanks to FE:A.
Argh, frustrating!
It arrives, looks PERFECT, shiny label etc, and plays fine. I look under the cartridge on the board, and I see (c) Nintendo AGB-E05-01, so can't be a fake, right? I open it up just to check... and it's a almost bare board, and that telling glob of black stuff is in the center (likely covering the cheap battery). On closer inspection, the label doesn't have a two digit code stamped into it, the label doesn't have pictures of mountains in the background (took me a while to notice this was on real carts) and the "Game Boy Advance" on top is most certainly different than my other GBA games (thinner GAME BOY letters, etc).
So, darn! Messaged the seller asking for my money back, and bought another (legit, obviously, though I'll certainly check closer when it gets here) cartridge (32$, so not THAT bad, but a more reasonable price). I can start a dispute with Paypal if the seller doesn't respond back to me though, right?
Anyways for those curious, I'm pretty sure from googling that that white stamped code on the board is for a Pokemon game, not fire Emblem (though maybe those codes can be reused?). Oh, and the seller put up another copy for the same price in the last couple days since I bought it. Anyways on closer inspection, pretty much every copy of FE under 30$ is one of these fakes, so watch out if you're in the market. Are there any other GBA games with such convincing fakes? I'm assuming these specifically are newer, probably to capitalize on the series' new found popularity thanks to FE:A.
Argh, frustrating!