The -aquired under unlawfull means- thread

Discussion in 'Transformers General Discussion' started by wheeljaxx, Mar 19, 2007.

  1. Skunky

    Skunky Well-Known Member

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    Um, I plead the fifth! That Wolffang followed me home!! :sly: 
     
  2. KA

    KA Well-Known Member

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    for the record, this thread was MY idea.

    ahem.

    last thing i, er, took without permission was a lego block from the play area of a dept. store. it was to fix the broken tab on my THS02.

    yes, my THS02. i was already 30 then -.-'
     
  3. Chaos Incarnate

    Chaos Incarnate Not just a name.

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    When I was younger, like middle school age, I used to be quite a prolific thief, and I had shoplifted some as well. I got my G2 Autorollers that way, and a few other things. In fact, a local store had one of those RFID doorway scanners installed, I think, as a direct result of my, eh, pillaging. Didn't stop me though, I would cut the item out and leave the packaging. Those people liked me though, I caught a couple other shoplifters for them. One kid I literally dragged back into the store to face the music.
     
  4. alphie

    alphie Veteran

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    Wait, I do remember stealing some store TF displays. Does that count? :lol 
     
  5. Sludge

    Sludge Well-Known Member

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    Ok, I'll play.

    When I was much younger, I wanted to buy Air-raid but didn't have enough money. My sisters boyfriend took the price tag off a lower priced toy and put it on Air-raid. I wasn't exactly sure what he did at the time though. I was just happy to get the toy I wanted.

    Also, I had G1 Grimlock stolen from me in first grade. I took him in for show and tell, at the end of the day he was missing from my bookbag. About a week later he magically re-appeared! The kid that said he found him, had really stolen it and tried to return it without getting caught.
     
  6. llamatron

    llamatron OFFICIAL MMC REP TFW2005 Supporter

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    Some stuff in this thread is freaking crazy.

    I don't think I've ever stolen a Transformer.

    When I was about 12 I was in some department store looking at video games - in particular Pandemonium. I noticed that it had a price sticker on it of say $40 - but underneath that sticker were several others, each one with a lower price. So I peeled off them off until I got to the bottom one, which said it was about $10 or so. I figured this was justified as the game could be easily bought for $20 or less in any other store, and well technically it was priced as that. I took it up to the register and of course they just scanned the barcode and asked for $40. I was all like "hey! It says $10!" and they were all like "whatever, must be a mistake" and I was all like "well screw you guys then!" The end.
     
  7. Tenebrouser

    Tenebrouser Craft...or is it crap?

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    I swiped a Cliffjumper from my best friend back in '85. Never did I do it again.

    I also had a Scrapper stolen from me in 4th grade, an Ironhide and Man-at-Arms later that year, and a Skullcruncher stolen in '87.

    Needless to say, I was horrible about leaving my toys around outside and at school.
     
  8. NeilJam

    NeilJam Resident Audiophile

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    Since many are bringing up the price switching technique thought I'd mention this:

    I got G1 Jetfire for cheap because one store had ALL of their Jetfires priced wrong (around $15). Of course I grabbed one, but when I went to check out they scanned the bar code and and the price came up much higher. I think at first they suspected I switched the price tag (I did not), but I argued that all of the Jetfires were marked that price, so with the help of my father (a master of arguments) I made them give it to me at the price marked.
     
  9. Incepticon

    Incepticon |-+-|

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    I had pretty good luck lifting Transformers when I was a kid. Probably because it was the early 80's and no one had security cameras/alarms.

    I can't remember all of them, but I distinctly remember getting all the Dinobots in one day from the same store over the course of a few visits one Saturday afternoon.
     
  10. Dirge121

    Dirge121 I'll be your end of days

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    The closest I ever came to stealing would be when I was in TRU a few years back, and found an open reissue Jazz box on the shelf, with the toy next to it.

    Decision Time:
    Angel - tell the store people, they can take it back to the stockroom and seal it, then maybe you can buy it for cheap.
    Devil - Theres no one around, stick it in your pocket, no one will know.

    The Angel won out, and playing a goody-two-shoes, I put Jazz in the box and handed the box into an employee, who just chucked it back on the shelf a few minutes later.

    I was proud, but annoyed, as I could have gotten a free Jazz, damn moral high ground.
     
  11. RandomFerret

    RandomFerret Fuzzy Forever

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    Nothing. Never. Except for the very first time I went to a toy store.

    I've been TOLD this is what happened, because I was far too young to remember it. My mom was pushing me through the store in a buggy, and it was completely uneventful, except when we got home there was a stuffed toy sitting right beside me with the tag still on. I had apparently managed to nick the toy and stash it without making a sound or even slowing down.

    I was a born natural. I think I could have made a career of it.
     
  12. Lumpy

    Lumpy Taylor Swift Action Master Super Mod

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    i'm a price changer...you can put clearance tags on just about anything and just play dumb when it rings up wrong...works about 85% of the time....but im sure they are working on ways to stop that....but as far as actually stealing items and not paying anything at all? i stole a lighter a few years ago from a gas station...other then that, probably not a whole bunch else...
     
  13. SMOG

    SMOG Vocabchampion ArgueTitan

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    I had a peculiar "policy" about stealing when I was a kid...

    Basically, if there was a toy kicking around the toy department without a box, it was fair game. My logic was that they couldn't likely sell it anyway, so it was a write-off.

    I ended up with quite a few random action figures that way... orphaned Star Wars and GI Joes, as well as some random Transformer accessories (guns, combiner accessories, etc). I don't think I ever had the will (or the guts) to actually steal a boxed, intact toy, and I never ended up with anything as big as a Transformer. One of my first G1 Transformers was Megatron, and a neighborhood kid swiped him from me once when he visited... so maybe I was sensitive to stealing things that "had value".

    I did have a friend though, who was a paper boy, and managed to smuggle out a G1 Shockwave, in-box, in his newspaper bag. He never admitted this to me until a few years ago (we're in our 30's now)... I think he feared my faux-righteous shock and indignation when we were kids.

    In more recent times, the closest I've come to outright theft is pilfering at Value Village... sometimes I pocket a random TF accessory or broken arm, leg or head for kitbashing/repair, because I can't bring myself to pay $5 for the whole grab-bag full of broken toy junk that they have the piece in.

    zmog
     
  14. Ceerad

    Ceerad Well-Known Member

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    Jeez, I used to go shoplifting all the time when I was a kid back in the 80s.
    Used to pilfer later G1 figures from local K-Marts all the time.
    Baseball cards didn't stand a chance.
     
  15. RandomFerret

    RandomFerret Fuzzy Forever

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    Oh, so you won't swipe stuff from a dubiously-moral conglomerate like Wal-Mart, but you've got no qualms about robbing a charitable organization?

    Shame, shame.
     
  16. Team Jetfire

    Team Jetfire Pop-POP!

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    Charitable is being nice.

    Some of the prices they charge for shit that comes in off the street.

    Plus they make the donations based on what they get in bulk weight, not how much they sell it for.

    Biggest scam eva!
     
  17. Lumpy

    Lumpy Taylor Swift Action Master Super Mod

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    walmart definately deserves to be ripped off....if i were to steal, thats where i would do it....
     
  18. cappeca

    cappeca wtf is this?

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    Well...

    It all began in 1986. I had this very annoying friend, the kind that gets everything they want from their parents if they cry and bitch in a certain way. He was sort of my best friend then, since both of us were of the reclusive type. But since his mom had more money than mine and gave him everything he wanted, he usually abused this friendship by showing off his toys - I got Spidrax, next day he'd have the complete Sectaurs set; I got Daredevil, by sunday he'd have all the Secret Wars characters, and so on.

    We were big Transformers fans by then, and we both already had the complete Brazilian stuff, since only the minibots and jumpstarters were released here. Regardless, my favorite character was Shockwave. Despite the lack of proper toys, we had both comic and cartoon going on, so we were pretty much up to date with what was going on.

    So, on this particular afternoon, I get this call from him:

    "You're not gonna believe what I just got"
    "What?"
    "Shockwave!"
    "WHAT???!?!"
    "Seriously, he's right here!"

    And he starts making sounds with it, and saying how cool the figure was. I was instantly desperate. Where did you find him? How much was that? Was there more of it? How do I get one? He kept showing off, giving evasive answers. Next day I was at his place, and the toy he had was the one we know now as the Astro Magnum. For those who haven't seen it, it's a beauty. I simply couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't let the toy go. All the time bugging him about where did he get him and how much was that. Never getting a straight answer.

    I tell you, I've hunted for this toy for nearly three years with no rest. I went to every store in the japanese neighboorhood area here in Sao Paulo, where he said he found it. I saved lunch money for two weeks every month, so I'd always be ready if this toy came up. I bugged my mother, two aunts, my sister, HIS mother and almost everyone I knew who I thought could help me at the least.

    I never found it.

    While we grew up, he never stopped showing off.

    We went into separate ways eventually, and I met eBay in 1998. Got me a beautiful Hasbro G1 Shockwave MIB as my first "real" Transformer. I remember my hands shaking when I opened that package, my first overseas aquisition, after 3 months of waiting (those days we had no paypal). I thought I was finally cured.

    So in early 2001, I was organizing the first Brazilian Transformers convention, and I contacted him about his toy. I asked if he could lend me the toy so I could put him in the middle of the pre-Transformers display section, along with a MIB Kaen I got. He was no longer into Transformers, so he made a little fun of me for collecting robots, as if I wanted to become one or something. Ha-ha. I didn't pay much attention, as I was more concerned to the damage he made to the toy since the first time I had seen it - the tip of the gun-arm was broken. As I recall, I believe that was the moment everything came back to me. Nevertheless I had to promise I'd give it back as soon as the convention was over, since although he was not into Transformers, that stuff was HIS, and he was pretty serious about HIS stuff. Sure, of course.

    It's been six years, and the toy is still with me.

    We don't talk to anymore. He went to my house after the toy at least two times, and I cleverly bypassed him. On the other hand I invited him for my wedding and my bachelor's party, and he ditched both. I guess I lost a friend. Can't feel any remorse, though.
     
  19. KA

    KA Well-Known Member

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    okay, everybody else stop posting. capeca just won this thread.
     
  20. Spartan-117

    Spartan-117 Well-Known Member

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    The worst thing I've ever done is when my AC Cloud figure from the bike set snapped a leg off. I just bought a new one, swapped the figures and returned the duff one. To be fair it was two weeks after I had bought the bloody thing.
    Never swiped a Transformer though, or anything else come to that.