What do you think this guy is selling?

[Carson Dyle]

This guy has been running ads on the local Craigslist for quite a while advertising installation media and cheap product keys for Windows operating systems and Office.

http://fortcollins.craigslist.org/sys/3132385584.html

I used to buy software for a small company through Microsoft's volume licensing program. One possibility is that these are volume licenses, although I was under the impression that OS licenses weren't available through MS volume licensing. It used to be that all OSs were typically licensed through the system builder using an OEM license. Even a large company building their own boxes had to use OEM license. Upgrades, however, were available through volume licensing.

Or maybe these are educational licenses?

 

[cl-scott]

Honestly, it wouldn't really matter.

Assuming he has a volume license, it wouldn't permit him to then just sell copies of Windows like that. Volume licenses are for a specific organization, and computers owned by that organization.

If it were academic licensed stuff, then he would be effectively selling pirated stuff because let's face it, the odds of him working for an academic institution and selling only to enrolled students seems unlikely to be exceedingly generous.

No matter which way you look at this, your reaction should be to run screaming in the other direction. Whatever it is he's selling, it's pirated, and you don't want anything to do with it.

 

[Bubbaleone]

The only reason he's still running that ad is due to no CL users flagging it as "Prohibited". They're either ignorant to what a pirate's ad looks like, or they're happy to be buying pirated software.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I just did a bit of research on Microsoft's web site. I'm convinced that he must be selling educational licenses. You don't have to be an academic institution to sell MS educational software. There are many, many retailers out there. I doubt that they even need to be approved/qualified in any way.

The pricing mostly lines up with Microsoft's published educational pricing.

It's not hard for a buyer to qualify - any k-12 or college student, teacher or administrator. When you think about how little it takes to qualify as a grade school student, you can imagine that anyone with a child under 18 can purchase the licenses. And then you can easily imagine how simple it would be on the part of the seller to fudge any sale as qualified, _if_ they even have to document those sales to Microsoft.

It could even be that he disqualifies any unqualified buyers, although his CL listings doesn't hint at that. In a college town with over 30,000 students, a few thousand teachers and admins, plus a huge supply of families with children in school, that still leaves a considerable number of potential buyers.

 

[Soundmanred]

Illegal any way he spins it.

 

[cl-scott]

You can buy from this guy if you like, but just remember that Microsoft has added teeth to its license agreements in the form of activation and the Genuine Advantage program. So if one day the software stops working, and you call Microsoft's activation support line, do not be surprised if they tell you that it is not a valid license.

The odds of this guy being completely on the up and up are slim to none, and slim left the building a few hours ago.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'm not interested, just wondered. Actually, I really have no doubt that hey product keys do work. The activation wouldn't work if the product keys were invalid, and once activated, I'm sure that the software won't someday just "stop working".

 

[sm625]

Illegal any way he spins it.

But its for the children! If someone has a kid and they buy one of these, they just bust out that line when/if they get caught. If that's what is going on it is perfectly legal.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I'm not interested, just wondered. Actually, I really have no doubt that hey product keys do work. The activation wouldn't work if the product keys were invalid, and once activated, I'm sure that the software won't someday just "stop working".

The Software if legit at one time will not quick working.

However, you can get a nag screen.

When doing working for a company in LV, they authorized me to put Office 97 on my system for support work.

3-4 years later, that key is no longer considered to be valid.
I get nag messages from the S/W but everything works fine.