if it looks too good to be true, you can bet your boots that it is.. it looks like they sold like ~$800 worth of scam. maybe some redmont ex-employee who is playing with keygens, i would not risk gbp 4.99 on it. i would not care to be in that guys` shoes, if m$ finds him out, and he has 114 customers screaming for $7.03 worth of his blood because their licences suddenly stopped working. if he is on ebay, he is tracable. just follow the trail of blood..
and what about the keys sold on scdkey : [removed] this site is over 10 years old, if it was illegal would it be still online ? did it happen to someone ? i can't see anyone complaining about it. if it works you saved $2000, if it doesn't work then you lost $7. Why not try (if it's legal)?
ok, so i just tested. i bought a 2016 datacenter licence, i received the key maybe 2 seconds after paying on Ebay...incredible....faster than the Ebay notification message i just did a : dism /online /set-edition:serverdatacenter /productkey:XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX /accepteula Rebooted the server and voilà, it works.
@kenshi1023 i'm using it on a Xeon quad core E3-1225 V3, so yes. But i guess you wanted to know if it was working on a 16 core machine...i can't answer.
Once your server is activated, what could happen ? does it try to revalidate your key every now and then ? Or once it's activated it's done until you have to reinstall your server again ? From what i read these keys could be MSDN generated keys, Academic keys, and from the link above: unused portion of volume licence keys...it is clear that there are flaws in the system and some are taking advantage of it to make money and others to save money...even if we have to buy a new key every year it's more profitable ($7 vs $6180 !!)...as long as the key lets you activate windows you're not scammed (only microsoft is scammed maybe ) Back to my questions above. Once your windows is activated, what could happen to you? even if microsoft disable your key, you'll have a problem only if maybe one day you have to reinstall your server and insert the key again...or is your server is checking your key every now and then ? and could suddenly say that "this key is not genuine, please buy a new key..."
SPP rechecks validity at regular intervals. Just check out the Event Viewer for SPP related entries ("SPP completed a license check.").
I bet u does licenses are coming from china or russia i dont see how that could be legal...i wounder if MS is aware of this?
Once I purchased Office 2016 for GBP 4.99 from a similar seller on eBay UK. He gave me just the keys and I went to Microsoft servers and downloaded the Office 2016 after MS verified the keys. Still no problem with that installation. This could be similar ? (The explanation given on eBay UK was that the keys are from destroyed laptops and that it is legal in UK to re-sell keys. It is not possible elsewhere in Europe nor the Americas.)
Its "genuine", just make sure to use the keys asap after you buy it. Tons of software is sold this way on ebay and other sites and microsoft simply cannot or does not want to interfere in this. Looking at the current scenario m$ and almost all software corps more interested into pushing people towards subscription based software suites to eliminate as much piracy as possible along with stable revenue generation.
It is legal in germany as well, to sell "old" keys or unused OEM keys. As long as their origin is "somewhere in Europe". Still, you are adviced to check the sellers history. Always ! 5 Euro for Office or Server Keys ? There are enough stories about developer keys or non-working ones...even in the ratings of sellers, who will then just send you the next key...and so on... This market works since ages. If you are lucky, there will be no problems. ,-)