Let's say the tables are turned.

You paid $250. Now 01-Studio has a change of heart and made it $150. But your seller does not want to refund you the difference. What would you do?

You go by the contract when it benefits you. When it doesn't?

The seller can fulfill the contract for one person, no problem. But multiply it by 50, 100...

 

Sorry to tell you, but Core Star has long been cancelled. LOL

 

1-Studio Cell then.  

 

I would *ask* the retailer for a refund, but the retailer is under no obligation to provide one. I entered into the contract to purchase said item for $250, and that's what I receive. Whether or not it costs the retailer that much to provide it is not my concern.

I could then go onto a forum and bash the retailer for ripping me off, and try to destroy their reputation and drive them out of business - which is incentive for the retailer to try to keep me onside by a financial inducement (ie a refund). But all of those are business decisions that are outside of the contract itself.

 

the reason they can change the prices on a whim is because they aren't here in the states.

dont expect china to play by the rules you are use to.

here that cant happen because we have laws that protect against bait and switch and deceptive practices.

store owners are basically forced to eat it and honor the price or face a one sided lawsuit.

 

What if she decides not to carry the product anymore?

Another thing she can do is to hold the orders until a reissue so that she can get them at lower cost. No timeframe, right?

(There is too much discrepancy between the MSRP in China and $400. One of them is wrong.)

The T&C for many (all?) sellers are often incomplete. They don't cater for the worst case. When shipping was disrupted (still disrupted?), many sellers ask buyers to top-up shipping, even though that wasn't in the T&C either.

 

For anyone ordering via Taobao I paid my balance. All up about 1,400 yuan and I'll have to pay shipping on top. Both the head and body is being shipped to the seller together.

All along Taobao sellers have stated the price is 14xx at nornal retail. Worst case of 1499, that's $211USD before shipping. Based on this, the price for China based sellers hasn't changed and other retailer price changes are probably a reflection of shipping availablity and increased prices due to COVID.

For ShowZ though and pushing their price up. I believe there's truth to them having to source off the secondary market and therefore their prices are going up, but also being able to also honour initial ballpark $250 USD pre orders.

Anyway, just my logic. Take it with some salt if it doesn't agree with you  

 

Totally agree, that’s why I cancelled and went where I had store credits and coupon to bring down the price.

 

Paid off my Cell.

 

So, this tactic of selling a figure with the head sold separately... does this really work, to keep away the lawsuits from big companies? LoL, it's just an amusing work-around. I remember Fanstoys Grinder made the Grimlock accurate dino head a separate thing too. Why don't 3P companies just sell the Gundam/Lego/Marvel/Mickey Mouse figures with the heads separate?

 

Because it really doesn’t work. If this was a Bandai or Disney 3p, it would be obliterated. They honestly have no reason to actually sell it separately.

 

Not really. Grinder put Kapow in the crosshairs a while back. What a mess 3rd party can become in the wrong hands. (Manufacturer, not the store, I should clarify.) Zeta's just desperate to get the thing sold after all of the tooling costs and production run. The price hike doesn't help matters, either.

Pretty much this. They're hoping beyond hope that this works, but it wouldn't have been a problem to begin with if Zeta hadn't pissed in HasLab's Cheerios. Regardless of what side you fall on, I think pretty much everyone can admit that Zeta crossed a line there and really blew it needlessly.

 

Easy guys. Nobody here is being a Karen.

Except her terms already cover what happens if the price goes down: she refunds you the difference. It's part of the same contract spelled out on her store. If a seller didn't have that policy, they'd find themselves with a lot of cancelled orders.

I don't understand why there is even a debate here. @backhawkdown is absolutely right and there's no room for interpretation: if it's explicitly in the terms on her site, then it's what she agreed to do. Sure, she probably never considered a figure's price would go up by this much when she wrote those terms but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be held to them. It's why ShowZ isn't jacking the price up on those of us who locked in our pre-orders, even though I'm sure it's hurting them, and it's why I'm grateful for the way they do business. Hopefully my continued business with them is enough to make up for the hit they're taking by selling it to me for $150 less than the final price.

On the other hand, if she wants to cancel the orders, there's not much anybody can do besides just not give her any more business. I've never bought from her and, seeing this, I'm glad. I definitely won't start buying from her now. Again, I recognize that $150 per unit is a really freaking big hit to take, so I sympathize, but she was the one who set the terms without leaving herself an out. Maybe she should revise the terms for future purchases to put a limit on how much she's able to eat on any given purchase.

 

Zeta... got spooked coz they got the red laser sights of Hasbro glowing on their foreheads. That’s all. They figured Hasbro would continue to ignore them like it’s ignored TE01 and Magic Square, or Dx9 and Maketoys during the Mp36 reveal. The separate head/wings kit is just plain silly, but hey, it gives them the frijoles to release it, so it’s all good. Thankfully it’s being shipped together by almost every seller, so it’s all good in the end. As a bonus, the easily removed head allows some great “You... cannot... destroy... my.... destinyyyyyyyyy!” pics.

 

You know what would be funny? Two separate model kits that each assemble into a full figure that doesn't infringe on any trademarked character but, if you buy both, and use certain parts from each, you get Mickey Mouse. Nowhere in the packaging or instructions would it make any reference to assembling the Mickey figure, nor would it make any mention of Mickey at all. And the company wouldn't make any mention of it online or anything either, but a completely unaffiliated party would publish the instructions online. I bet even Disney couldn't put a stop to it - best they could hope is to get the instructions for the Mickey figure taken down.

 

This is why I love video games with an extensive custom create-your-character mode. You could almost make everybody in Soul Calibur, or have famous celebrities in Saints Row.

 

TE-01 and Magic Square were ballsy, but they weren't doing what MP-44 was doing. With those two, you only got the core robot. With MP-44, you got the whole kit n' kaboodle. This, on the other hand, is Zeta saying "Hey! Look over here! Ours is the same character, but better made, reasonably scaled, and it's more affordable HAHA!" and Hasbro was like "Uh, no. We invested too much money into this and we need the crowdfunding to recoup the costs and make some interest off of it. Smash it, nao. HULK SMASH!" There is a difference.
Hasbro won't do much of anything about it, now, because HasLab was fully funded and the stores that ordered some to resell at a higher price will eat any losses after the fact, but Hasbro gets to sit pretty. They have no desire to go after this project now, they made their money.

That was the mistake Zeta made, they actually made HasLab lose money for a while. People actually dropped their crowdfunding promise for this version and that rankled Hasbro's cankles. Most 3rd parties leech, some, not actually empty the victim's wallet. Zeta really grew a pair and it blew up in their faces and they're stuck pulling stupid stunts in the hopes of making their investment back.

And yes, the inevitable destruction depictions should make for some delicious camera fodder.

It's Disney. They'll find a way to crack down on that. I read a fascinating article in which the animators have a clause where when they work for Disney, whatever they do either on the clock or in their personal time becomes Disney's property. (Whether or not that's true, I have no idea, but it sounds plausible and from what was said, other companies do the same thing.) Problem is, most animators have a perve side to them and thus Disney smut is born. Long story short, people have confirmed there's a Disney vault full of Disney smut they own because the animators are tied to them and they own whatever they produce, so they have to claim it even if it can never see the light of day. Now, if that's all true and it's sort of illicit... Imagine what they'd do to someone who pulls something like you're talking about, which is fully illicit and actionable. A conglomerate as powerful as Disney probably hires people to scour the internet for them to find things like this.

 

Went out and picked up these guys today at TD in anticipation of Core Star. The only other legends scale 3P I have are Galvatron and Cyclonus.

These guys are tad more impressive than those other two.

Why am I collecting MP again?! lol

 

One could argue Zeta wasn’t in direct competition either, with a smaller robot, inferior tiny planet mode, and no gimmicks/accessories. It’s the same basic scenario as mp44 vs 3p.

But you are right about one thing, Zeta was stupid for advertising it during the campaign. While I don’t personally know anyone who changed their Haslab order, I’ll assume it probably did happen, but I think even more noticeable was the press on all the forums that Zeta was going up against the giant. Also, from what I heard from friends that attended comicon, people were ACTUALLY asking the Hasbro reps about the Zeta prototype pics, and basically rubbing Hasbro’s nose in it.

 

Well, DX9 and Maketoys both had their Megatrons hitting the market before MP-36 was officially announced (the news of MP-36 was leaked, supposedly by Fans Toy as a way to torpedo DX9 and Maketoys' sales). I think Magic Square and Transform Element is a closer comparison. But even then...

I don't think that's it. I think if the official Unicron were already in production they'd have ignored Core Star. I think it was entirely because the crowdfunding was in danger of missing it's goal (technically it was going to miss it, but then the deadline was extended) and fans were calling Core Star out directly to Hasbro. Hasbro was pretty much put into a situation where they couldn't not take action. Zeta even seemed to have some inkling that the Hasblab crowdfund was going to cause problems for them because there was the initial reveal but they tried to stall giving any kind of details or updates until after the original Haslab deadline, but when Hasbro moved the deadline it put them back into direct competition.