From time to time, I receive email from someone who has come across another one of those too-good-to-be-true offers for cheap software and would like my opinion on the legitimacy of the company and the offer. Adobe Photoshop and other Adobe software is especially common in these software scams. We've all heard it a million times, but allow me the privilege of saying it one more time: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

Some of the warning signs that a vendor is not operating legitimately are:

    * If the price is way out of line from the prices offered by reputable, authorized resellers such as your local computer store or well-known online retailers such as Amazon.com.
    * If the merchant has a page on their site or in their FAQ explaining how they are legal, they probably aren't.
     * If the product is advertised as an OEM, NFR, or academic version. (OEM software is only to be sold with hardware such as new computer systems. NFR stands for not for resale and is generally distributed for evaluation purposes and beta testing. Academic versions can only be purchased by students, teachers, and education faculty.)

Here are some additional pointers for spotting piracy, directly from Adobe:
If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Check a reputable retailer site to look up the market price for the software. If there is more than a 20% discount on the MSRP without Adobe rebates, then there is a significant risk that the seller is:

    * Trying to resell OEM bundle copies without the required hardware,
    * Trying to resell products unbundled from an Adobe Collection or Suite,
    * Trying to pass off an educational version of software as a full retail version,
    * Trying to sell a counterfeit or illegal product (usually provided on CD-R) with a cracked or bogus serial number,
    * Trying to provide an upgrade version with a counterfeit previous version as a "full" version of the current software, or
    * Trying to resell a product stolen from a reseller or retailer.