PokéBase - Pokémon Q&A
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Context: In the past two years, I've been searching for a copy of Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum. I bought a Platinum cartridge from Gamestop two years ago and it was very pricey. When I started playing it, it would always freeze. My saved progress would also get erased by itself. I've always questioned whether it's a fake copy because of the game-play and the blurry sticker. Today, I concluded that it's actually fake. I compared it to my authentic SoulSilver, seeing that the white Nintendo DS bar was larger and a little more bold. This is the first time I got scammed.

Two days ago, I bought a cartridge of Pearl, on ebay, from a seller who has 100% feedback, however the seller sold over 60 copies of it, and it actually comes from China, despite the seller resides in Utah. This was the second time I got scammed for buying a generation 4 game. I received the cartridge yesterday, and turned out to be fake. The Nintendo logo on the back didn't match my Soulsilver's, and the E for the game's age rating wasn't bold enough. I tested it, and it worked fine. But, I don't want to face the same issues I had with Platinum, like save files being corrupt and the game always freezing.

Edit: I gave gamestop one more chance, and they gave me an authentic copy of Pearl. The condition was good. The price wasn't so bad.

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I doubt it's been less than a week since you bought from GameStop, but they have a 7 day return policy.
jimmy, what are you saying ?
There's no way for sure to know whether you're going to get an authentic copy or not from anywhere you buy your game (especially websites), but your best bet is a store that specializes in video games. I know you got scammed at GameStop before, but if you really want the game, it's worth another try. You know what to look for now and you can probably tell if the game you buy is authentic just by playing it for a while. If you find out it's fake, you can return it. I've bought a lot of my games from GameStop and as far as I can tell, none of them are fake. If they have one, your best bet is in buying a game that hasn't been used before. There's more of a chance that you'll get scammed online, but there's always the main websites like Amazon and, as you mentioned in your description, Ebay.
You could try asking around to buy one form people on reddit
I bought a white copy of Amazon and it works perfectly. (but it was $60 Canadian). And I am %98 sure they had platinum diamond and pearl.
I don’t think it’s worth buying a gen 4 game over $40
Amazon is typically less preferred unless the game is new. I'd just recommend eBay or maybe Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace
@Rick eBay is filled with people selling multiple bootleg copies of gen 4 games from China. I'll try Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.
A lot of more small local game shops have legit copies of games, I found to observe at least in my area
I bought 2 Generation 4 games from my local Gamestop, and both were real. They were over $40 each, though.

1 Answer

0 votes

Amazon.com (Usually real, read review)
eBay.com (Wouldent trust but you never know)
taobao.com (Most used games are real, but may have hacked Pokemon).

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