O.K. my "friend" was over the other night and he was asking me if I could order anime/VGM off of eBay if he paid me in cash first. I honestly don't have a problem ordering things for my friends (or people I *think* are my friends) if they give me the money in advance to placing an order, so I said yes. When I told him eBay is typically not the best place to buy such items due to the proliferation of bootlegs, he said he didn't mind if the items were bootlegs, he just wanted said items as cheap as he could possibly get them.

At this point I got annoyed because I always make a big deal about the legitimacy of the items I purchase and he has heard me rant about such things... so I don't know WHY he asked me or where he got up the gall in the first place. I mean I'm not the morality police and it’s true the items aren't for me but I consider myself a collector and the idea of any collection is to have legit items, not to mention idea of the money going to the correct parties. So, when I told him I wouldn't order anything that wasn't official he got pissed at me! Granted, the guy doesn't make a lot of money - which is partly his own fault due to some poor choices - but I don't feel that is an excuse to buy fake goods.

Anyway, I'm not losing any sleep over this but has anyone else run into similar situations?

I remember trying to sell an official Eternal Arcadia OST a few years ago on ebay and I get a lovely message from a buyer/troll saying how he was glad he was he didn't use the BIN on my auction (I think it was...$80? The OST was pretty rare at the time) and that he just got a "wonderful" deal on the SM branded one for a cool $25 or so. So of course, I explain through the course of 5 back and forth emails what bootlegs are and he didn't get it by then, so I just left him hanging after getting him to write up about 3 pages worth of questions. Some people just don't get it.

In casual talk, I've mentioned bootlegs, but no one seems to take the advice seriously. Which is to be expected from people that live off Dreamcast and PS2 burns. Definitely not going to force the issue there.

Eh, why can't he order anime/VGM off of eBay on his own if he doesn't care about your input?

I wouldn't like having the record of my buying bootlegs on my ebay feedback, personally. I've dealt with a few legitimate sellers that actually won't accept your bids or BINs if they see that you've been buying bootlegs.

He's living off a pretty limited income and I guess buying and smoking cigarettes and cigars with any and all expendable income seems to be more important than having his own internet connection... dial-up is dirt cheap nowadays. He comes to my place to "use" me and my computer. That's why I put the word "friend" in parentheses.

I think the real issue here is the fact that this dude sounds like he's just taking advantage of you and is either pretending to be your friend or is playing nice just to get to your network connection. That's bunk, man, even moreso than asking someone to buy pirated goods on eBay. There are "friends" and there are friends; there is EverAnime and there is Digicube. I vote you choose the legitimate thing in both situations.

Very true, unfortunately a lot of my acquaintances at the moment are pretty unsavory. I just didn't think it was worth sacrificing my own personal standards for someone that really isn't much of a friend.

In that case, I'd say you chose the right action. Now that he knows better than to rely on you for this grey area, then maybe he'll lay off on his other leeching behavior. Of course, there is the danger that he might leech onto someone else, but at least you'd have a little peace.