Bleh - I look at it this way: If a potential scalper wants to waste their valuable time just to scrape together a couple of extra bucks, more power to them I say. Maybe I'm being naive here but I don't think these people slinking around the local TRU or Walmart are getting rich on Transformers. It's actually kind of sad when you think about it. The wally world employees taking wal-mart exclusives before they can sniff the shelf are a different story though... Sure it sucks when stuff is hard to find but now more than ever you have a multitude of online retailers competing for your business. If I can't find it on the shelf, I'd rather spend the extra couple of bucks per figure and have time to spend at home with my family. It's pretty much the same as people who go out scouring for rock bottom deals - some people are willing to spend the time doing it while others are not.
i have yet to see a scalper but if i do and he's still in the store and they have something i need... i would just grab it off his cart. no questions asked. my cousin ran into one a couple of months back scalping voyager the fallen for some reason. he was able to catch a dx twins and arcee which were hard to find at the time. it was a female in her late 30's with her daughter.
lol, i've been attacked because people thought I was a scalper. Around the time Uncharted 2 came out, TRU had a buy 2, get 1 free. So I walked in there with the intention of buying 2 uncharted games and something else, can't remember the other game. The extra uncharted was for my nephew.. who also wanted the game. Anyhow, Batman and Robin jumped in and tried to stop me from buying the game. They were like "Scalper!!! WHY DO YOU NEED TWO!!! HUH WWWWHHHHYYYYY" I applauded their effort but just made my purchase and walked away. Really WHO SCALPS VIDEO GAMES!!!!! Everyone has it... Target, Walmart, 7-11, even the grocery stores around here sell games.
There worst thing I ever saw was when two Hot Wheel collectors fought (to blows) over a Lava Vader when ROTS came out at a Target. Two middle-aged overweight guys fighting over a figure was hilarious but sad.
Believe the revenge of the fallen line killed all the TF scalpers in my area. They won't even buy dirge or bludgeon. Nothing is moving at all. Built a Endcap of Nest Alliance bumblebee vs. soundwave packs. Still no Sale. Guess the ebay sales were not going well in the past few months on Transformers movie product and they gave up. There was stupid demand for the fallen from those people in july. "do you have the fallen in the back?" "go check the back for another case. I'm looking for the fallen specifically" I'm pretty sure there is a GIJoe scalper though. He told me Cobra Commander is the rare figure to get in the movie line. Later on Snagging desert vipers and City Strike Snake Eyes practically from the stock room. Beat him to the punch on Christmas Eve though. So finally got myself a set. Hot Wheels guys are here. But they are pretty civil to me as a associate. I just open the case and leave them to the slaughter.
The $$$ for these scalpers is made by selling these figures WORLDWIDE on ebay. That way, they're catering to collectors in countries that may NEVER see basic figures that we get to see all the time (or collectors in other countries that may not see these figures for quite a while.) That's why when I'm bidding on ebay, I almost always buy from sellers that are USA only because the WORLDWIDE auctions almost always go for more that they're supposed to. There's probably collectors in China and Japan who say the same thing about scalpers who scoop up their exclusive (and basic) figures so that they can sell them to us collectors here in the states and other countries. I hate scalpers as much as the next guy but it's a little give-and-take in the worldwide market you know?
Oh no. There is no scum in toy collecting like a swapper. Those are true losers. Scalpers can be annoying, selfish, and so on, but at least what they're doing is legal. I've always felt collectors have a tendency to overblow the scalper phenomenon. A swapper, however, is nothing but a LOSER. LOSER! Nothing gets in my craw more than seeing swapped toys on the shelf. I keep hoping to find one of these people in the return line so I can out their loser asses! They're just toys! For some idiot to swap out a toy and return it is the act of a lowlife who has issues. They are the worst.
IMO Scalpers are as imaginary as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Maybe the dude in the original post was buying toys for his kids, charities etc. Has no one here ever taken a list to a store? I know I do all the time. People need to stop policing what people buy at stores.
Unless stuff gets shortpacked, like Inferno and Vector Prime, I always find Transformers in my area. I might be he only collector that looks for at least one of everything in my area too. Living in the somewhat middle of nowhere FTW!
I never saw wave 5 of the Classics legends-class. Ever, nowhere. But you bet your ass I saw a couple of Wheelies and Warpaths going for about $25 each on eBay. Oddly enough from different sellers in Canada. The only way I even got to touch those things was buying the Henkei! releases.
Yeah, that's basically my thoughts on the matter. Now, I don't see this Lockdown/Ratchet/etc. wave of ROTF deluxes being rare like the last gasp of Universe toys last spring, but even so, there will be some people who will not see them at retail (especially if they just stay local and don't hunt) for at least a month and a half or two months. Heck, or longer. The good thing is that HTS has put this wave up, so that should take some wind out of the scalpers' sails, but HTS is also kind of bad about restocking. After this first batch of toys in ROTF deluxe wave 9 (?) goes, they may not restock for several weeks (like they seem to be doing with HA Barricade).
I was just thinking about this the other day...I for one also hate scalpers. Back when Classics Grimlock was released I was at Walmart, there was a fresh case of opened, and these two tweedle dee/dum looking mofo's take all 4 from the case(s). I walk up and I'm like, " do you need all these? I came here specifically for grimlock" well Derpy Dee says "Tough Sh*T" and drags his buddy off....needless to say I was pissed. Well fast forward 10 min, i've grabbed classics roddy ( which they left...they really didn't think there would be aftermarket for it?) and i find both of them up front arguing. Me and my gal are walking past them when dumb taps me on the shoulder. "Here he says" and hands me Grimlock. By now his friend had stormed off all pissed. Well dumb tells me Mr. scapler only had 30 bucks on him and forgot his wallet at home. So I lucked out, but i said to him that I appreciate it, but leave a few for guys like me, we're not all that rare in the area. Story number 2 almost resulted in a fight. So i was picketing out the local walmart for the final Alternators release for Rumble/Ravage and I got there at 12:30 tuesday night/wednesday morning as i saw them on a pallet. I ask a toy area worker if they stock had been checked in, and he nods saying go right ahead. Well i grab the minty case and proceed to open it, then this kid I used to have nerd rage at back in highschool ( he himself a nerd) comes tearing ass from the backroom next to toys and grabs, literally tears the case out of my hand and says i can't buy it. Then he scolds the guy stocking the shelves. So i stare him down and I grab the box back, and proceed to the front of the store. This @$$hat is threatening to call security on my walk to the front, i turn to him and say, " i'm going to your manager, something isn't right here". Well long story short, the kid had kept the alts prices at the 11.99 clearance price from the previous wave and was going to buy the whole case. The Manager caught it and said this was almost a regular thing, but not assaulting the customers. They fired him the next week, and the manager said I could buy the toys at the 11.99 price point. so i did, the whole case, because if I hadn't he would have. But i'm no scalper, i sold them on the board and at cost on ebay sans my set. okay i'm done rage dumping.
Some of these stories... *shakes head* I've never actually encountered a Scalper in a store before (you don't get many scalpers in Schrute Farms ie. Australia ) so I really don't know how I'd react. Sure I'd be pissed but I doubt I'd make a scene in the middle of a toy aisle. Then again, If a Scalper tried to purchase 7-8 ROTF Bludgeons/Animated Arcees at the one time - Do you think a Manager would stop them? Do stores really care about scalpers buying up all their toys? I really don't think so...
with this economy right now...Any store manager would be welcoming anyone buying stock in their toy section and helping clear it out...besides...most box stores don't even specify the name of the TF bought...just transformers ultra, scout, deluxe, etc....so the store staff could give 2 shits on a shingle if someone is going uber army building with ROTF bludgeon.
I think scalpers exist, but I also think the collecting community wildly over-exaggerates and dramatises the problem. It seems that if you can't find a particular toy, there are cries of "must have been the scalper boogey-man!!". Sure, sometimes it might be, but no one even seems to consider that it may have been a fellow collector or - gasp! - a child. I am sure there aren't that many scalpers (some, but not many) - these guys are in in for the cash, and - hey, didn't you get the memo? - there isn't any cash/profit in new toys anymore. If they have even the most elementary grasp of economics, they must realise that $1-2 profit after petrol/time/ebay fees etc are taken into account cannot be worth it. The scalpers are part-real, part-fan-scare stories.
