I want to buy MS Office 2003.

eBay has lots of version for sale priced around £20-£40 which is way
cheaper than the official price.

The listings say things like:

 - This is not a trial version or upgrade 
 - this is the full edition. 
 - serial number provided, 
 - get updates from Microsoft 
 - No box or manual is included, 
 - CD Rom will be in a Sleeve 
 - fully working product key supplied.
 - this is not the official cd

My questions are: is this legal?  If not legal, isn't it surprising MS
haven't got eBay to delist them?  Will it work ok?

Thanks

to my knowledge, the (illegal)pirated versions of MS office 2003 work
just as good as the official version. You can say they are the same.
Yes, this is illegal.

It is a bad idea to buy software like this through eBay. Often you
will find that the key they provide you can't be used for activation
because the product has already been used for activation. MS does try
to track down folks doing this on eBay, but they tend to try and get
to the person rather than just shut down individual auctions.

Hi,

It is best to ask the same question to the sell of this product.
Also ask him as to what he means by "this is not the official cd"
It is possible that it is a second hand copy or an OEM version.

If you feel this is pirated copy then report to ebay.com and microsoft.com

I would also like to suggest to you openoffice.org which is an
excellent package totally free of cost.Not only you can create word
docs and sheets but it will also help you create pdf docs.


Regards,
Ashish T.