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Question

Smartshop website for OEM software - safe or no?

Jan 22, 2014 1:21AM PST

I need to purchase a copy of Quickbooks Pro. Cheapest offers are from two OEM sites - Smartshop and QualitySoftware. Both have weird URLs but other than that look very legit... anyone knows if these are reliable vendors? should I pay double for a legit copy from Amazon or someone else or triple for a copy from Intuit??? Please help!!

much appreciated!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Run away.
Jan 22, 2014 1:25AM PST
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Sometimes you will find
Jan 22, 2014 9:09PM PST

sites the sell older versions of software at a bargain prices. Also if the site is in the USA and they are selling pirated software they are an easy target for the Feds. If the consumer knows about a site then feds also know about a site.

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Answer
As a general rule
Jan 22, 2014 8:53AM PST

As a general rule, if one site is significantly cheaper than everyone else for essentially the exact same product, that's a pretty big warning sign.

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Answer
Typically OEM software is MS Windows
Jan 22, 2014 9:13PM PST

OS's. OEM means it made to be distributed on new computers and typically applications installed on PC's come with the trial version and not an OEM version.