The individual sold, me and others, professionally counterfeited Adobe Photoshop 7 software discs advertised as new and unregistered on pricegrabber.com under the seller name aridcelt, and I have reason to believe that he is doing it again on eBay. His username brianc0704 has a (private) eBay feedback of (270 positive/69 neutral/78 negative) My purchase was made on 2/28/04 in the amount of $150 which was a good deal but not a "too good to be true deal" considering it was an OEM product and the highly competitive nature of pricegrabber.com where many vendors often institute the "loss leader" sales tactic on one or more items. On pricegrabber.com he was operating under the name of Maria Valtierra, who I assume to have been his girlfriend, and using her PayPal account to receive Payments:
Maria Valtierra [[email protected]]
(928) 428-1639
2008 S 9th Ave
Safford, AZ 85546
I received my product in an untimely manner because the vendor claimed to have been shorted on one of his orders or some other obscure excuse. However the product did arrive, and I inspected it thoroughly and it appeared to be genuine Adobe software in that:
1. The disc was stamped not burned
2. The disc was professionally silk-screen printed on the face of the discs
3. The insert was professionally done on premium gloss paper comparable to what one would expect for a genuine insert.
I had purchased the software for school and waited to install it until I had the new machine built which it was intended for. Upon installation, the activation did not work, and I called Adobe who informed me that it was a genuine Photoshop 7 key but the activation had been revoked do to excessive activation of the key. I filled out a report with Adobe and another agency at that time unaware that the seller was selling on eBay. I was one of the first individuals to purchase from him from pricegrabber which offers a $500 buyer protection if the seller matches certain criteria which aridcelt did but they withheld investigation because a stringent 30 day policy on buyer protection. I then contacted PayPal and they withheld because:
"PayPal's Buyer Complaint Policy only applies to the shipment of goods and does not apply to disputes about the attributes or quality of goods received."
This told me that Mr. Clarke could have sent me a random piece of trash and they still would not have investigated the matter. At this point I have not recovered my $150 and I know the individual continued to sell the counterfeit software on pricegrabber.com because another buyer posted a feedback indicating the exact same thing had happened to them and others identified similar business practices. As previously stated it has come to my attention that the individual has been selling on eBay with 78 "private" negative feedbacks that indicates that he has likely defrauded at least 100 people of $15000 collectively, so I've found it imperative to pursue the matter further.
Information about Witnesses:
1. Brian Clarke's girlfriend
2.47 pricegrabber sales and feedback are still accessible
3.418 eBay private feedbacks with the last 6 months (89 in the past month) that are not available to the public
I still have all of my emails and documentation and the counterfeit software that I received if useful. Please prevent this scumbag from harming anyone else and catch his counterfeiting supplier as well.
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