The piracy problem on auction sites is so bad that the Software and Information Industry Association has said it was considering suing eBay, according to a new report.

A “wot I did in my holidays” report from the anti-piracy outfit the BSA recounts the sad story of how busy the industry watchdog has been over the first half of he year. The trade group served more than 48,000 "takedown" notices related to BitTorrent files in the first half of this year, and its members lost an estimated $525 million in sales as a result of peer-to-peer piracy.

The report with the catchy title, Online Software Scams: A Threat to Your Security, tells the story of how the BSA asked auction site providers to shut down more than 18,000 auctions in which 45,000 products, worth $22 million, were being sold.

Things were so bad in auction land that the BSA was worried that it would have to sue eBay to get any form of action. Instead, as the title of the report suggests, the BSA is warning consumers that buying pirated software can lead to software incompatibility and viruses, increased maintenance costs with no technical support, as well as identity fraud and privacy breaches.

It said that one in five consumers who bought software online in 2006 reported problems, in a survey conducted by Forrester Research, the report quotes. More than half received software that was not what they ordered. Over 36 percent said the software didn't work, 14 percent realized immediately that the product was pirated and 12 percent never received what they ordered. So, let that be a lesson to you.

The report said that consumers may think they are getting a great deal when they buy software from unfamiliar sources online, it is more likely they will receive a substandard product with hidden cybersecurity threats that may expose them to identity theft and the loss of thousands of dollars.