People selling Windows 7 Refurbisher license's outright on eBay?

[DonS]

I was looking to get a deal on a new Windows 7 OS for a client on eBay, among other sources. I ran across tons of auctions for people clearly selling Windows 7 32 bit disk with a refurbished license sticker. HOW is this possible? I thought Microsoft would be all over this. These are clearly the same items from the MS refurbisher program. I can only assume they had a bunch of Windows XP keys, turned them in, and are just reselling the Windows 7 licenses and disks.

Example below.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microsoft-W...866?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27fb95a11a

 

[PBComputer]

It's the same on Amazon, it's being reported to Microsoft a number of times. They just don't seem interested.

 

[Markverhyden]

It's the same on Amazon, it's being reported to Microsoft a number of times. They just don't seem interested.

Yep. They are not going to spend money going after nickle and dime stuff. That's the reality of it all.

 

[gadgetfixup]

Yeah but be a licensed refurbisher and put those disks in a display case in your store and see how fast they email you. We did exactly that. No price and not for sale to the public but secure and inventoried. We got an email within 2 months saying we might be in violation of the refurbisher program with references to not allowed to sell the disks or use for upgrades. We just moved the CDs to a locked filing cabinet but for sure they check up on retail establishments. The idea of the display case was to make them easy to count but Microsoft didn't see it that way =(

 

[DonS]

Interesting.. and I am seeing sellers auctions with literally hundreds sold.. surprising.

 

[JustInspired]

These days the product key is no longer on the coa so these are probably 'old stock'.
I imagine it's because of this reason Microsoft has made it so you have to generate the key via the portal instead of having it on the sticker.

 

[PBComputer]

These days the product key is no longer on the coa so these are probably 'old stock'.
I imagine it's because of this reason Microsoft has made it so you have to generate the key via the portal instead of having it on the sticker.

I had a customer buy one, to install on there old XP box which had a failing hard drive, mobo with blown caps and faulty ram. So not worth fixing. Bit it was a refurb cd and a Coa pulled from a different pc. This one was from a HP machine.

 

[JustInspired]

I had a customer buy one, to install on there old XP box which had a failing hard drive, mobo with blown caps and faulty ram. So not worth fixing. Bit it was a refurb cd and a Coa pulled from a different pc. This one was from a HP machine.

Ah yes, the: "from a decommissioned machine" type of COA
Yep, plenty of those about. OEM and OEM refurbs.

Must be legions of minions with hairdryers and razor blades working like beavers all over the world.