LEGO Bans - Open Discussion

[TheBrickClique]

As for operating with a single account to stay within the vendor’s technically-enforced limits, I believe this is the current state of things.
 

Cliff notes: you’ll be fine as long as you don’t go on a spending spree at Target.com, and try not to bring attention to your buying patterns by dealing with online customer service for small gripes that can be dealt with in store instead.

Target - the easiest place to get banned based simply on purchase volume online and the most aggressive against resellers in store — employees trained to identify resellers loading up carts for example.  Can still use red card in store after online ban, but using with a new email account will result in repeat ban — start receiving auto cancellations and email about possible issues including payment purchase method.  Some people have bans lifted after a period in timeout. Others indefinitely. The amount of purchases that may identify you as a reseller and get a ban? One data point: I have been unable to purchase online going on 18 months now after two months of $5k purchases on the red card. Same red card still works fine in store.
 

LEGO shop at home — with the purchase limits mechanics implemented a few years ago, it is much more difficult to get the SAH ban hammer. If you exceed a limit on any item based on past purchases of the same item, they will cancel your entire order. Be warned that if they cancel an order with a VIP Rewards purchase, the reward is not automatically credited back to your account. Also, if they cancel an item due to inventory issues, the system still tracks it as qty purchased. Qty purchased in brick and mortar stores that are purchased with VIP accounts are not counted towards SAH limits and and limits in store are done at the individual store’s discretion. If you do have to call customer service to resolve an issue, they do have easy visibility to all of your previous orders and will make comments about you “really liking LEGOs”.  No indication that that is how the ban process starts, but unless you really have an issue that needs CS, might be best to just let the small things go. 
 

Amazon — shop away. Their limits are tracked to the second on a 168-hour FIFO.  Limits apply and are tracked in that window only to items sold and shipped by Amazon.com. Buy as many third party items as you wish. Anecdotal stories of bans for excessive returns, but no clear information on the metrics used. Generally, probably best to save the returns for the really bad boxes.  Creating multiple accounts will get noticed and is the quickest way to get the warning shot emails. 
 

Barnes and Noble — similar to LEGO, has a five qty per item lifetime limit online. Exceed that amount and just that item will be cancelled from the order. No reports of bans. In store purchases do not appear to be tied to online memberships as far as adding to your 5-count quantity.  
 

Walmart — most LEGO are limited to two per order, but they won’t say how often that limit is reset.  Doing a couple of multiple limit orders in the same day has worked.  Doing dozens has resulted in order cancellations of those specific items but no bans that I am aware of. Generally, I have found one limit order per day has never resulted in a cancellation. 
 

ShopDisney — some items have limits but they are selectively enforced. If you put in multiple limit orders at the same time, they might cancel those items. If you space them out, they will be fine. I ordered a dozen castles (limit one per customer) last year and they all went through. Sometimes two in two consecutive days. 
 

Costco — has item limits on some items, but I haven’t seen any on LEGOs. Even with items with limits, possible to space them out without issue.  In store limits are usually “per day”. 
 

Best Buy — unsure on LEGO as I’ve never pushed the limits on them. In the past, I would make 50 purchases at a time of 2-dollar items that had limits and they would all go through.  I have tried to make multiple purchases of Xbox consoles and those were cancelled.  So YMMV. But no reports of bans.

Anyways, those are my observations.

[IMDeus]

When they are banning people are they looking at your in store purchases in addition to your online purchases?

[Jeff Mack]

When they are banning people are they looking at your in store purchases in addition to your online purchases?

 

I really don't think anyone is looking at anything.  There really is no identifier of exactly what is happening.  Just don't be careless and purchase 40 of these and 60 of those, etc.

[weakside]

yes, same account/profile. unless you paid in cash at local store and didn't use vip card.

[IMDeus]

What qty is considered safe? 5-10?

[justafrog]

What qty is considered safe? 5-10?

 

Nobody knows for certain and TLG isn't going to tell you. Some folks get away with ordering much more.

 

Basically, use your best judgment and don't get too hung up on it - a ban from TLG is, at the very worst, an inconvenience. There are generally much easier and often cheaper places to buy most sets.

[toni8284]

I just got banned today. they said I had a store in Brickowl.

 

So... Now I dont know if they just ban my vip account?

 

Or how they going to ban me?

 

By my address? by my name?

[justafrog]

I just got banned today. they said I had a store in Brickowl.

 

So... Now I dont know if they just ban my vip account?

 

Or how they going to ban me?

 

By my address? by my name?

 

You can't use your current VIP account, they won't ship to your banned mailing address. In the event you decide to work around the ban and use someone else's address etc., don't set up your new VIP account name to match an online selling i.d. name. Also keep in mind there's nothing they can do about you spending cash or an unknown-to-them credit card in their retail stores and not using a VIP account. TLG bans are not a legal status, simply a store policy that you can circumvent and/or ignore as your own personal ethics dictate.

 

However, good news for Brickowl: They've become enough of a name that TLG is starting to hunt down their sellers! 

[river41]

I just got banned today. they said I had a store in Brickowl.

 

So... Now I dont know if they just ban my vip account?

 

Or how they going to ban me?

 

By my address? by my name?

did you?and if you did how did they know

[toni8284]

did you?and if you did how did they know

 

I do have a store in Brickowl. but I opened it and never use it.

 

Even though I can argue with this Mark guy, so I dont really think he cares.

[toni8284]

You can't use your current VIP account, they won't ship to your banned mailing address. In the event you decide to work around the ban and use someone else's address etc., don't set up your new VIP account name to match an online selling i.d. name. Also keep in mind there's nothing they can do about you spending cash or an unknown-to-them credit card in their retail stores and not using a VIP account. TLG bans are not a legal status, simply a store policy that you can circumvent and/or ignore as your own personal ethics dictate.

 

However, good news for Brickowl: They've become enough of a name that TLG is starting to hunt down their sellers! 

I dont think the store will ban me.

 

I just use another VIP card. that's easy.

 

what I worry about is my shipping address. my billing and shipping address are not the same. I prefer they ban my billing not shipping.

[toni8284]

so to other resellers, when you have a chance, change your ebay, bricklink, amazon, brickowl account id NOT to be the same as your lego id.

 

just in case, dont use the same email address, too.

 

Good luck.

[justafrog]

I dont think the store will ban me.

 

I just use another VIP card. that's easy.

 

what I worry about is my shipping address. my billing and shipping address are not the same. I prefer they ban my billing not shipping.

 

If your shipping address has been used on the VIP account they banned, they won't ship there on a different VIP account (or through any Lego.com purchase, VIP or not) - unless they're even more incompetent than I thought, and I don't think that's possible. Your preferences won't be taken into consideration, I'm afraid. You can try it, but if it fails, time to find a new shipping address if you still want to do mail order through TLG.

[toni8284]

If your shipping address has been used on the VIP account they banned, they won't ship there on a different VIP account (or through any Lego.com purchase, VIP or not) - unless they're even more incompetent than I thought, and I don't think that's possible. Your preferences won't be taken into consideration, I'm afraid. You can try it, but if it fails, time to find a new shipping address if you still want to do mail order through TLG.

 

Thanks for your advise.

 

The address I had in my account had apt #. So I can change the apt # to see if it will works.

[TheOrcKing]

I just got banned today. they said I had a store in Brickowl.

You were banned because you had a store on Brickowl? Great, now I wonder how many will be banned for simply having a Bricklink account.

[CNH1974]

Is that legal? If you open a BrickOwl/Link account and never have sold from it, what legal reason do they have for banning someone?

 

To ban, they need some proof of practices that contravene their rules. Like buying 50 VW Campers etc...

 

I would threaten  them with legal action based on the discrimination laws.

[Crustybeaver]

I would threaten  them with legal action based on the discrimination laws.

 

Considering it's their prerogative who they sell to I think you'll be wasting your time going down the legal route. If you live in the States you have other options so it's not like it's that big of a deal

[Deez_Brickz]

If your shipping address has been used on the VIP account they banned, they won't ship there on a different VIP account (or through any Lego.com purchase, VIP or not) - unless they're even more incompetent than I thought, and I don't think that's possible. Your preferences won't be taken into consideration, I'm afraid. You can try it, but if it fails, time to find a new shipping address if you still want to do mail order through TLG.

Sorry but this is wrong. I got a ban but I have been successful making an account with my wife's name, email, and credit card. The shipping address is the same of course. So they will ship to a banned buyers address.

[Ed Mack]

Funny, Jeff and I were just talking about this situation the other day. There was a post in the Bricklink forums which mentioned people getting banned on Bricklink. One of the posts mentioned Brickpicker as one of LEGO's targets. I said if you think Brickpicker is an issue, how about thousands of Bricklink members buying new LEGO sets to part them out and resell for more money than the original set? LEGO can't think to highly of that.

I also said that Brickpicker directly sells hundreds of thousands of dollars of LEGO sets annually through their affiliates like LEGO S@H, Target, Amazon, etc... Bricklink doesn't sell any. As a matter of fact, does Bricklink even have a LEGO logo anywhere on their site? I don't think so. Maybe Bricklink is the next target of LEGO.

Sent from my iPad using Brickpicker

[knarrff]

I just got banned today. they said I had a store in Brickowl.

One of the questions would be: how do they find out in the first place? Are email addresses displayed on Brickowl - and can you search for them? Did you have the same user name on Brickowl and at Lego?

[Bold-Arrow]

This happened with another BPer who used the same username for his VIP and eBay accounts. Interesting that TLG are digging deeper to find who the resellers are .

[jbacunn]

Funny, Jeff and I were just talking about this situation the other day. There was a post in the Bricklink forums which mentioned people getting banned on Bricklink. One of the posts mentioned Brickpicker as one of LEGO's targets. I said if you think Brickpicker is an issue, how about thousands of Bricklink members buying new LEGO sets to part them out and resell for more money than the original set? LEGO can't think to highly of that.

I also said that Brickpicker directly sells hundreds of thousands of dollars of LEGO sets annually through their affiliates like LEGO LEGO Shop at Home, Target, Amazon, etc... Bricklink doesn't sell any. As a matter of fact, does Bricklink even have a LEGO logo anywhere on their site? I don't think so. Maybe Bricklink is the next target of LEGO.

Sent from my iPad using Brickpicker

This seems very hypocritical to me. If BP has an affiliate deal with S&**** they obviously have been to the site and know what goes on here. Why sign sites like this up as affiliates if they don't like what we are doing?  I have changed my Ebay name to a different name than my S&**** name and my BP name. I guess I need to do the same for Bricklink now too.

[Achilles]

When is that feature allowing us to change user names being implemented, Ed and Jeff?

[exciter1]

When is that feature allowing us to change user names being implemented, Ed and Jeff?

 

I think never.  If we want to have the Brickpicker classifieds online anytime soon, usernames will have to remain as is.

[Bold-Arrow]

Many members are Lego lovers and enthusiast collectors, they are just the silent majority imo.  

[beartrapper]

Does LEGO Shop at Home directly approve of the affiliate links or is that outsourced to a third party. I thought I read somewhere during the May 4th hype that a 3rd party sent over the sale info.