Have you purchased a DVD9? Or maybe an asian import? Maybe you were just trying to buy that hard to find Disney DVD for your son or daughter. I've experienced the displeasure of buying DVD9's and Imports first hand, and I'll explain my personal experiences and how to spot and avoid these DVDs, hoping to help new users.

Over a year and a half ago I bought my first "Asian Import", it was not specified in the auction listing. the only thing specified was "region 1" and "english". I knew something was wrong from the moment I saw it. It looked almost home-made, substandard quality print on the disk as well as the sleeve(artwork). There were even spelling mistakes on the sleeve. This disk had a small logo "DVD9". Are DVD9s copies, or bootlegs? I tried to find out, but I didn't get very far. Ebay's views at the time were DVDR and DVDrw are obvious copies, and therefore are banned items, unless specified as DVDr or DVDrw in the auction listing and not violating any copyrights. They didn't see DVD9 as bootlegs, and would need a letter of "proof of in-authenticity". I paid only a few bucks for this disk and didn't want to lose any more time over it. The movie actually played fine. Leading me to believe that DVD9s are not bootlegs but very low quality factory made DVDs. Brought to this belief through the in-action of Ebay and Paypal. I went on to buy more. Next I bought a package. About sixty or seventy DVDs from the philipines, i took the time to check the dealers feedback and refund/shipping policies. I won the auction at a couple of hundred dollars, and paid another hundred for shipping. Al this was transferred from my credit card to paypal to xoom. Xoom takes care of country's that don't have paypal, in the same way paypal does here. The movies came all working wonderfully but with the same low quality prints. Some had nice prints, most did not. I was somewhat satisfied. I kept about thirty and sold the other forty to friends and various other outlets including ebay. I had no problems what so ever. I was thinking to myself that this was to good to be true. So I decided to buy another package. I almost lost six-hundred dollars! I found another dealer selling cheaper, and I decided to buy a very large package of about 250 DVD's. I won the auction, made an instant payment, and sent an email to the dealer. This payment was made the same way as the previous one. After four days with no answer to my email and six hundred dollars on the line, I got nervous. The next after contacting my credit card company I found out that the money had been refunded. Refunded by who? They said paypal refunded the money. I checked with all involved parties, and found out that xoom refunded to payapl on the basis the the bank account in the philipines was frozen and under investigation. Thank-god I thought to myself. I didn't lose any money, and the guy was obviously dirty. So feeling somewhat protected I bought more, another hundred, from a dealer with good feedback and a refund policy. The package wich I had paid 80 dollars shipping for, took about four weeks to arrive. It arrived physically damaged. 20% of the DVDs were physically damaged, also about 10% of the sleeves were physically damaged. I contacted the dealer about this, the asked me to make an inventory and send it to them. Which i did by the next day. I also started watching the movies to see how they played. 40% were unplayable. They never even started. 20% stopped half way through and had no physical damage. Another 10% had various defects, such as the audio track being too fast or slow, terrible video quality such as pixelation. One in particular looked like it was shot in a movie theater, i am sure the you can see someone in the audience get up in front of the camera. I contacted the dealer I was very upset. The dealer didn't answer for about four days. When she did she reassured me that she would refund and non-working disks and even send me extra as an apology. She told me just to throw the dvd's out and wait for the new ones. I did. One week, two weeks and then three. This was my lesson of "Buyer Beware". I contacted her again, she said she didn't received the disks. What! She told me to throw them out. Of course this all turned out to be my mistake... yeah sure! So because she didn't receive the dvds before the refund policy expired, she didn't have to refund anything. I got about 20 working dvds for about 280 dollars. Then I stopped buying imports. Some people call them imports, some asian and some DVD9. Armed with this knowledge I tried to buy one real DVD. I bought "House of 1000 Corpses" from a dealer in the US. I emailed him before I bid asking if it was an asian/import/dvd9/copy/bootleg. He guaranteed me that it was not, it was an authentic original Region 1 factory made (in the usa) DVD. When it arrived, I'm sorry to say I didn't believe it to be original or authentic. It didn't say DVD9, but again it had the same low quality prints. This time I ran the upc, it was correct. But I still believe it to be fake. Burnt Again! Then I tried to get Narnia for my kids. Searching hard through all the listings to find what i believed to be authentic region 1, again i contacted the dealer, and he too reassured me that it was authentic factory made (in canada). The same thing, no DVD9 markings but the same low quality prints. Are there any real region DVDs on ebay anymore? I mean like the ones you purchase at futureshop or HMV. I don't think so.I think i bought some imports from blockbuster the other day. I tried earlier this month to buy some "Baby Einstien" DVDs for my daughter, but they were are obvious asian imports/dvd9. Think I'm going to go to Futureshop.

How To Spot The Asian Imports DVD9's:

They usually say "region 1 playable". Before they never used to say authentic region1, now they do. Some thing are obvious, like if they say no asian markings on disk or sleeve, then you know its an import. Where is the dealer located, if they're from the philipines or hong kong forget about it. Even dealers located in the states and canada sell imports and DVD9. Most real region1 dvds have the english/spanish/french audio tracks, inquire about audio tracks, if they say anything other then probably its an import or DVD9. Ask them were the disk is made. Ask them for the upc then check it on ebay.

When Buying:

Ask the dealer straight out is this an import or asian or DVD9? Check for a refund policy that gives you enough time to return the dvd. If returning it, do it by a trackable service so you have proof you retuned it. Pay by credit card, so if anything goes wrong you can take it up with the credit card company, they are usually much better help then paypal or ebay.

Remember Buyer Beware, And Good Luck!