Larry,
SNIP

Well I'm hoping for the best (obviously). I did check out the prior buyers' comments and all were highly positive and many described the prompt contact from MS and later delivery.

But it still seems highly "unusual" to me too. But retail is an odd thing and it seems that e-bay adds yet another dimension to the whole thing.

You can be sure that if it turns out to be fishy I'll be making that known here.

cheers

>
>I'm just asking myself, how can they legally do that on eBay? The academic price might seem to be a reasonable differential for what they are selling it at "ebay retail"....could they be using academic licenses and selling them as something else?
>
>Then again...if Dell can buy Win XP Pro for $15.00 and sell it for $195, I suppose the price differential isn't that out of wack.
>
>I will watch your experience with interest.