Hello.
This is angeldibujo. After the last days doing detective work at eBay, I've confirmed that I've been ripped-off by the argentinian seller called "uwuvand". He has vanished with my money.
Now he is offering other items using another eay ID: "gaburet".
Everyone out there, be careful!
I'm affraid I'm not going to be a good help to solve the "RUNAWAY-bootleg affair", because I will not be able to check my copy. Definetively my copy of RUNAWAY never existed. Anyway, I hope all your RUNAWAY copies to be legal ones. Good luck!

angeldibujo, December 14, 2003; 5:12 PM

My CD did in fact come with the gray foam insert that was mentioned by hammon. Furthermore, I've compared scans of the disc/inserts with hammon, and we concluded that both of our CDs are absolutely identical (even the size of the aforementioned spine perforations are the same length), except for the tiny code that is printed around the inner ring of the disc.

About those codes, I've decided that it is acceptable for these codes to differ slightly, even for the same title, since so many members who believe their CDs to be original have mentioned that each of their RUNAWAY CDs have codes that differ slightly from one another (VCD-47221-1-S5C1, VCD 47221-1-S5C2, VCD 47221 1 M3E01, VCD-47221-1-S5C|2, etc.). It is only a theory, but I still believe that this discrepancy between the codes printed on our discs is a result of the manufacturer notating separate "batches" that were pressed (i.e., each "batch" that was pressed was assigned a slightly different code).



At this point, I'm 99.9% convinced that my RUNAWAY CD is an original. As I admitted to hammon via e-mail, the slight sound "flaws" that I mentioned in an earlier post are perhaps a result of my oversensitive ear, and not resulting from an actual flaw within the CD itself.

I thank you all so much for your contributions to this discussion. Any further developments/comments would be sincerely appreciated, of course. I have given up on the hope that the guys at Varese Sarabande would fulfill my request to confirm the authenticity of my CD. They must be too busy, or unconcerned, or whatever, to reply to my e-mails. At any rate, now I know who I can really rely on...YOU GUYS!

Thanks again everybody...

P.S. FYI, I changed my e-mail address, and consequently my user ID on this site changed along with it. My former ID was "American_Nightmare." I am now "Open_For_Business."

P.P.S. Further development as of December 7: when I played the RUNAWAY CD on my computer instead of my CD player (which for some reason I didn't consider doing before), there were NO "digital pops" or abrupt starts/stops whatsoever, as I'd experienced when playing the CD on my CD player. It seems that the sound "flaws" were actually occuring as a result of my (vertical-loading "jukebox-style") CD player, and not from a defect within the actual CD itself. Since then, I've noticed that other CDs seem to suffer the same fate (abrupt starts and stops and a light but audible "pop" at the beginning of some tracks) on the same CD player, so now I'm convinced even further that my CD is an original. BTW, the next time that I go shopping for a CD player, I'm buying a horizontal-loader...I've had more problems with this verticle-loading CD player! In fact, I had to exchange the first vertical-loader that I bought because IT WAS DROPPING MY CDs INTO THE BACK OF THE MACHINE! I was obligated to exchange it for the same make/model because the 30-day warranty had expired. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

Adios amigos, and happy holidays...

"American Nightmare"



American_Nightmare, December 14, 2003; 5:12 PM

I finally received a reply from Varese. Here's what they said-



"Thank you for your note.

We are not aware of a confirmed counterfeit bootleg version of our RUNAWAY soundtrack but the person who claimed audio problems with the disc certainly makes this suspect, since RUNAWAY is not afflicted with such problems.

Other than this, we're not sure what to say since confirming anything without the product in hand is next to impossible.

It's such a shame that collectors must be wary of such things these days.

Thanks again for writing. I wish we could be more help."




Author's note: Read "P.P.S." in the post above for author's update regarding the audio "problems" that are referred to in this letter.

American_Nightmare, December 17, 2003; 11:13 PM