I just received two CDs from ebay
1. mariah the ballads
2. celine dion ultimate collection

Firstly, the two CDs came without any plastic covering (maybe this is no big problem)
Secondly, the CD case had minor scratches in a few places
Thirdly, the printing is very faint (e.g. back cover, cd booklet) so much that I have to concentrate even in a lit room.

So I was suspicious so went on ebay guide section and searched: how to tell bootleg cd

Many different opinions... but one guy said "if the back of the cd has IFPI on it, its definitely a bootleg from asia"............ I checked the back of both my CDs and it says IFPI on it!

I even ran TauAnalyser and results seem ok... but the IFPI is still bugging me. COuld anyone tell me?

thanks

Well, the good news is, if these are bootleg copies then they are likely bit perfect and you will not be listening to an inferior version (unlike when, for instance, bootleg cassettes probably didn't sound that great).

I kind of doubt that a bootleger would go to the trouble of printing IFPI on the copies if it wasn't on the original, but the rest of it does sound suspicious. I would avoid that seller in the future.