I got banned from Lego.com and Toy Dealer dept is not responding...

[Guest TabbyBoy]

Life will find a way, always does.

[Sauromosis]

Towards your point, I always see people on this forum saying that Lego is a sure fire investment because "there's always a floor value to the loose bricks" but I think market factors could change that.  Lego is currently doubling their production, in places like Mexico and China.  I don't think that will result in the value of Lego dropping by half, but I saw the sales of the recent weeks where so many people were getting Pirate Ships and other sets for close to 50% off and it hit me that this is not a guaranteed thing.

[Johnny_Lemonhead]

Totally off topic but I have to say that I am very impressed with this site so far and I'm sorry I didn't join earlier. There are two pages of posts on this topic and no one has called anyone else a name or even been rude to anyone. This puts this site in the vast minority on the internet. Thanks to everyone for being so civil and intelligent. If only every forum could be this way.

[Quacs]

Totally off topic but I have to say that I am very impressed with this site so far and I'm sorry I didn't join earlier. There are two pages of posts on this topic and no one has called anyone else a name or even been rude to anyone. This puts this site in the vast minority on the internet. Thanks to everyone for being so civil and intelligent. If only every forum could be this way.

 

I think you'll notice that almost all of the main contributors to the site (generally) do a good job of being civil to each other - it really is a credit to them.  Those rare posts that don't comply with the forum etiquette rules face the wrath of the delete button. 

[Guest TabbyBoy]

Totally off topic but I have to say that I am very impressed with this site so far and I'm sorry I didn't join earlier. There are two pages of posts on this topic and no one has called anyone else a name or even been rude to anyone. This puts this site in the vast minority on the internet. Thanks to everyone for being so civil and intelligent. If only every forum could be this way.

 

Welcome aboard the LEGO gravy train which hopefully won't be derailed any time soon.  We know production has increased but, also new buyers thanks to the Friends line (my current favourite being a bloke!) and an ever-expanding Asian market.

[Fcbarcelona101]

Welcome aboard the LEGO gravy train which hopefully won't be derailed any time soon.  We know production has increased but, also new buyers thanks to the Friends line (my current favoutite being a bloke!) and an ever-expanding Asian market.

 

The market won't derail until I get tired of LEGO....then all bets are off. lol

[Guest TabbyBoy]

For what it's worth.... I'm a keen road and mountain biker and I was buying end-of-line stock from a Shimano distributor in Germany for -60% or less.  They also tightened the rules and you then had to have a physical bike shop (I just had a shed in the garden where I offered servicing) in order to continue ordering.  I had no family/friends with a bike shop so I was a bit stuck.  However, I made a killing while it lasted.  I think manufacturers just do this just to maintain their quality image so that their items are bought from an experienced and fully trained retailer who can offer qualified support rather than some unknown "one-man-band" on eBay.  I often dream of running a toy emporium selling old and hard-to-find toys like EOL Lego.

[Achilles]

I reiterate that these policies, while hurting a very few sellers, help the vast majority of sellers. While I don't want to see anyone I know (and like) getting banned, I think these rules are good for most of us. 

 

Meanwhile, these forums have made me realize how much it sucks from a reseller standpoint to not be anywhere near an official Lego store

[citymorgue]

I generally don't have a problem with resellers. Some of the worst offenders I personally would liken to ticket scalpers, etc. Or those that purposely bought up as many PS4s/XBOX1s as possible just to take advantage or people who want it. Now granted, if someone wants to pay the ridiculous markup on those products more power to them, but I can see why Lego wants to control where a lot of the flow of products goes. If I want to go to a concert and there aren't limits on tickets and scalpers buy them all only to sell them at a ridiculous markup, I refuse to buy, and quite frankly that's a load of horse crap. I personally pre-ordered my PS4 so I didn't have to pay double for it, but it really is not fair to some people when someone else beats them to the punch just to make a quick dollar. Now for those that buy a few sets and wait until they retire and sell them down the road, that doesn't bug me terribly much either only because Lego personally decided to stop production of the set. But those that go and buy hundreds and purposely empty every store they can is a little overboard. Obviously Lego wants to get as many sells as possible, but I don't blame Lego either for giving the normal person an opportunity to buy something at normal retail price before some reseller strips them of all their inventory.

[dbost01]

No lego item is stripped from the store shelves before people have time to buy them at store prices. A lego is released, is on the market for years and then is retired. People have plenty of time to buy it during those years at retail price.

[sadowsk1]

About 6 weeks ago I got banned from the Lego.com site for being too good of a customer (buying too many items). I challenge you to try getting banned from virtually any other retail store for buying too many items. Coach handbags is possibly the only one I can think of. Can you imagine getting banned from a car dealership for buying too many cars? How about McDonald's banning you for buying too many hamburgers? In fact, according to the New York Times many retail stores have VIP and concierge services which are extended to customers who spend a lot of money each year. Not only did I not get such a benefit extended to me, I was told to hit the bricks (pun intended). What the ban means is that all of my orders are cancelled after I place them. I can't use my VIP points online (because they won't ship any more orders to me) but I can use them in stores oddly enough which I guess is alright.

 

In both of the letters I got from the Lego executive he told me to contact their reseller dvisison. Here is the passage:

 

"If you represent a retail business and are interested in purchasing LEGO products for resale, please contact our Independent Toy Dealers department to discuss our reseller requirements by calling 1-800-673-0360, or email [email protected]."

 

I emailed them over a month ago to ask for info and they have not responded to my request. Does anyone have any experience with this department? Should I try calling them? I talked to a friend of mine who owns a small toy store and she said she didn't sign up as a reseller with them because they require a minimum purchase of $10K up front. I am OK with that requirment but if they don't respond to me I don't see how it's ever going to work.

 

Anyone have any experience with all of this?

 

Thanks in advance!

Sounds like if you want to buy in the volumes you are they have requirements if your intention is to resell their product.  It makes sense if they want to control how their product is branded to others.

[Quacs]

No lego item is stripped from the store shelves before people have time to buy them at store prices. A lego is released, is on the market for years and then is retired. People have plenty of time to buy it during those years at retail price.

 

While I generally agree, both 41999 and 21102 (when first released last year) were sets that were produced in limited quantities and not so easy to get.  Veteran Lego resellers and those that followed this site knew these were coming/available, but a good chunk of the rest of the world were left behind/out of luck.

[justafrog]

No lego item is stripped from the store shelves before people have time to buy them at store prices. A lego is released, is on the market for years and then is retired. People have plenty of time to buy it during those years at retail price.

 

There are sometimes shortages that cause delays at crucial (to consumers) times, however - Minecraft last Christmas as an example.

 

Whether those shortages can be laid primarily or even significantly at the feet of resellers is open to debate

 

Yes, a lot of resellers cashed in, but if no reseller had purchased the set at all, would there then have been enough for all the "regular consumers" who wanted them? We have no idea.

 

If Lego produced a million sets for the two million buyers who wanted them, and of the million available a hundred thousand were scooped out of the pool by resellers, then resellers didn't make much difference. If 500,000 were scooped up by resellers, it's a different story.

[citymorgue]

 

While I generally agree, both 41999 and 21102 (when first released last year) were sets that were produced in limited quantities and not so easy to get.  Veteran Lego resellers and those that followed this site knew these were coming/available, but a good chunk of the rest of the world were left behind/out of luck.

 

Pretty much. I was bummed out because I literally found out about 41999 within a couple of weeks of it being released. Yet there wasn't a single one available anywhere... And I still don't own it because I'm not paying the ridiculous prices people have been asking for it.

Of course this is the exception to the rule for the most part.

There have been other times I've seen people know in advance and will go to every TRU/Target/whatever and literally buy out the entire stock of an item that goes on sale.

I'm not condemning reselling as a whole, just that some people sure do love to take advantage.

[terrymc4677]

 

This brings up an excellent question: why do so many items on the Lego site (especially items on sale) have limits of 99 if they do not want resellers using the site? Does the average person need 99 of an item? There are several items on their site right now with a 99 limit including polybags, regular sets and on sale items. Why not just make everything on the site a limit of between 1 and 5? I don't get this.

Personally I think lego raises some of those limits to 99 to root out who the resellers are. Anyone ordering more than five of the same set, especially one on sale, would most definitely raise a red flag in their eyes. They put a decent set on sale and raise the limit to 99 to see who will bite. To quote Admiral Ackbar,"IT'S A TRAP!"

[Guest TabbyBoy]

Personally I think lego raises some of those limits to 99 to root out who the resellers are. Anyone ordering more than five of the same set, especially one on sale, would most definitely raise a red flag in their eyes. They put a decent set on sale and raise the limit to 99 to see who will bite. To quote Admiral Ackbar,"IT'S A TRAP!"

 

I can't see this being legal.  If they played that trick, I'd then order 99 of the biggest/heaviest set they had and then return the whole lot on the 89th day just to be awkward and let them pick up the postage bill both ways.

[claypool0]

Lego isn't the only site that bans people, many sites do.  Personally I was banned from dell years ago.  I have also been banned from casinos too.

[roxio]

For what?

 

Suspected reselling

[justafrog]

Suspected reselling

 

 

Fascinating - did they send you a warning letter, just start refusing your orders, or ???

[TheOrcKing]

Totally off topic but I have to say that I am very impressed with this site so far and I'm sorry I didn't join earlier. There are two pages of posts on this topic and no one has called anyone else a name or even been rude to anyone. This puts this site in the vast minority on the internet. Thanks to everyone for being so civil and intelligent. If only every forum could be this way.

Wait until you start a bubble thread or talk about morals, you may just get your wish.

 

No lego item is stripped from the store shelves before people have time to buy them at store prices. A lego is released, is on the market for years and then is retired. People have plenty of time to buy it during those years at retail price.

Yeah that is generally true but how many people enjoy paying retail? A lot of people try to find the best deals for what they want if they are willing to work at it and their area actually has said discounts.

[dbost01]

Even then....those years on the shelves most sets are discounted pretty nicely more than once. Either way...people have a chance to buy it. This idea that we leave stuff for other people doesn't work anyways because theoretically how much do you leave? 4,5,6,7,8,9 things...is that enough to let all the grandma's get them?`

[Ed Mack]

My main issue with banning people is proving that people are resellers.  Buying multiples of things happen all the time in the world.  I buy multiples of toilet paper for instance.  LOL.  Also, buying within their purchase limits should not trigger a ban.  But, on the other hand, buying 50 Funhouse Escapes should trigger a ban.  

[Achilles]

My main issue with banning people is proving that people are resellers.  Buying multiples of things happen all the time in the world.  I buy multiples of toilet paper for instance.  LOL.  Also, buying within their purchase limits should not trigger a ban.  But, on the other hand, buying 50 Funhouse Escapes should trigger a ban.  

 

I would bet their batting average is pretty darn good

[Johnny_Lemonhead]

Even then....those years on the shelves most sets are discounted pretty nicely more than once. Either way...people have a chance to buy it. This idea that we leave stuff for other people doesn't work anyways because theoretically how much do you leave? 4,5,6,7,8,9 things...is that enough to let all the grandma's get them?`

 

Yeah, thanks for saying this. This has been my point for years about the whole concept of "Lego scalping." People like to bring up scalping concert tickets to make a point about buying Lego sets for resale (in fact, someone in this thread already has) but it doesn't make any sense to me. First of all, the average Lego set is sold for 2 years. Some less (Architechture Studio; Limited Ed. Crawler) and some more (Death Star; Fire Brigade) but it looks to be around 2 years for the average set. Given this fact, how in the world could anyone "scalp" a Lego set? Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Lego has the ability to make as many sets as they want! There are only so many tickets to see Miley Cyrus at the Staples Center (during the current tour, anyway) but Lego can keep making sets, right? So please please please someone explain to me how you can scalp something that 1. Is on sale for roughly 2 years and 2. The company has the ability to make an unlimited amount more of. Please, someone explain that.

 

And yes, you are dead right. There is no way to figure out what an appropriate amount of dead stock to keep on the shelves for grandma is. No matter how many you keep it will never be enough! At some point the sets will sell to someone (leaving grandma empty handed) and at some point there has to be room made for new sets. Toysrus doesn't have room for 1000 different Lego sets.

 

Lastly, how is it any one person's responsibility to "leave something for someone else" by not paying for it with their own hard-earned money? Lego sets are not given out free. Lego sets are not sold to help sick children dying of cancer. Lego sets are a luxury toy. There is nothing wrong with buying as many as you want/can and it is absurd to suggest that anyone has a moral or ethical reason not to buy as many as they care to--for any reason. Lego sets are not loaves of bread or bottles of milk sold during a hurricane. Do I have a responsibility not to buy every Corvette at the Chevy dealer because others might want one? Would anyone have a problem with it if I did? What makes little plastic bricks so special? Again, we are not talking about food or medicine for starving children in Africa. These are luxury toys. I think we should all keep that in mind when we start talking about a "responsibility to leave some for others."

[dbost01]

amen brother