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.

[ichiroll]

2 minutes ago, superlegolover said:

If it's not the hard ban, yes you can still use your VIP pts in store

You have to go into the store, make a purchase using that account and if the purchase goes thru then it's not the hard ban

Thanks, I'll give it a try in-store.

So definitely a no-go through online store even if purchased solely with points right.

[SLL]

1 minute ago, ichiroll said:

Thanks, I'll give it a try in-store.

So definitely a no-go through online store even if purchased solely with points right.

yes, E10 email is your death penalty, they will block anything associated with your account, address, cc, name, etc

all following online orders will be cancelled as they stated in the email, and they meant it 

[ichiroll]

yes, E10 email is your death penalty, they will block anything associated with your account, address, cc, name, etc
all following online orders will be cancelled as they stated in the email, and they meant it 

Ok so try a purchase in-store or don’t bother?

[SLL]

1 hour ago, ichiroll said:

 

Ok so try a purchase in-store or don’t bother?

 

that's your only way using up the saved pts

[mizeur]

On 12/6/2017 at 12:08 PM, ichiroll said:

Barnes and Noble site won't load for a few days now...  Is this what I think it is, lol.

This page is unavailable due to either geographic restrictions or other restrictions in place at this time. NOTE: other restrictions can be a result of our security platform detecting potential malicious activity. Please try again later as the restrictions may be lifted, or contact your service provider if the issue persists.

 

 

This is usually from too much use of the search box. Especially if you were checking store inventory through zip code lookups. Mostly an anti-bot, anti-DDoS feature and it's temporary.

[minicoopers11]

3 hours ago, ichiroll said:

 

Ok so try a purchase in-store or don’t bother?

 

Yes, try. Highly doubt you got the hard ban.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

I got banned last year and insisted on speaking to a customer services manager. Even though I've bought a lot from SaH, I've never breached the limits apart from "Limit Exceeded" when trying to buy a Saturn V with the VIP polybag and Snow Globe which was only recently. Once I spoke to the right person, I asked why I was banned, assuming they thought I was a reseller. I also asked why were the limits set to 99 (even on 10221 SSD and 10197 Fire Brigade) a few years ago and 20 now on some sets if you want to discourage reselling? Their response was, "Our concern is not reselling as it's up to you what you do with the items purchased, we only want to make sure that our availability of sets ensures that everybody who wants one has the opportunity to get one at a fair price. Please adhere to current limits and we will reinstate your account, thank you for contacting us." It's probably "what did a LEGO employee say today", but I don't think they're too worried about resellers in the UK as long as there's enough to go around. They may well be relying on us to clear the turkeys ;-)

[Fenix_2k1]

12 minutes ago, TabbyBoy said:

They may well be relying on us to clear the turkeys ;-)

I'm pretty certain they rely on us to clear out retiring sets. How many sets went OOS without a discount when "the list" came out and even more so when the retiring soon tags hit. Much better for Lego to do that than discount a lot of sets to get rid.

The problem is when Lego confuses real demand with reseller demand and over produces.

[Captain_chaos]

41 minutes ago, TabbyBoy said:

"Our concern is not reselling as it's up to you what you do with the items purchased, we only want to make sure that our availability of sets ensures that everybody who wants one has the opportunity to get one at a fair price. Please adhere to current limits and we will reinstate your account, thank you for contacting us." It's probably "what did a LEGO employee say today", but I don't think they're too worried about resellers in the UK as long as there's enough to go around. They may well be relying on us to clear the turkeys ;-)

How bizarre. If they want to ensure availability, you'd think the obvious step was lowering the limits. Seems like they have finally got the message with sets like 21309.

[Ed Mack]

3 hours ago, Fenix_2k1 said:

I'm pretty certain they rely on us to clear out retiring sets. How many sets went OOS without a discount when "the list" came out and even more so when the retiring soon tags hit. Much better for Lego to do that than discount a lot of sets to get rid.

The problem is when Lego confuses real demand with reseller demand and over produces.

It has always been a love-hate relationship with resellers.  They love us when they want to unload terds and hate us when people resell out of stock, popular current retail sets for double the MSRP.  

[Shewie]

24 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

It has always been a love-hate relationship with resellers.  They love us when they want to unload terds and hate us when people resell out of stock, popular current retail sets for double the MSRP.  

I've witnessed funny as hell situation in Leicester Lego Store about 2 weeks ago.
Lanky Lego Store employee with some weird af moustache rushed out of nowhere towards the store supervisor pointing at some Asian guy  who was about to buy 5x Lego London Bus (the small one)  noticing him with <quote>:
"reseller! this guy is a reseller!!"
my cringe level was out of the charts.

the supervisor moved immediately towards the Asian guy but he changed his mind just about 2 meters being away from him just to see how it's gonna develop further.

[Ed Mack]

15 minutes ago, Shewie said:

I've witnessed funny as hell situation in Leicester Lego Store about 2 weeks ago.
Lanky Lego Store employee with some weird af moustache rushed out of nowhere towards the store supervisor pointing at some Asian guy  who was about to buy 5x Lego London Bus (the small one)  noticing him with <quote>:
"reseller! this guy is a reseller!!"
my cringe level was out of the charts.

the supervisor moved immediately towards the Asian guy but he changed his mind just about 2 meters being away from him just to see how it's gonna develop further.

I would shove those sets right up Mr. Lanky's arse if he tried that stunt on me...LOL

[Will 4]

7 hours ago, Shewie said:

I've witnessed funny as hell situation in Leicester Lego Store about 2 weeks ago.
Lanky Lego Store employee with some weird af moustache rushed out of nowhere towards the store supervisor pointing at some Asian guy  who was about to buy 5x Lego London Bus (the small one)  noticing him with <quote>:
"reseller! this guy is a reseller!!"
my cringe level was out of the charts.

the supervisor moved immediately towards the Asian guy but he changed his mind just about 2 meters being away from him just to see how it's gonna develop further.

Cleary never met a tourist

[Shewie]

20 hours ago, Will 4 said:

Cleary never met a tourist

They are highly educated and trained units to spot unusual purchase behaviour to report it immediately discovering potential THREAT AND ENEMY named

R.E.S.E.L.L.E.R

[Will 4]

1 hour ago, Shewie said:

They are highly educated and trained units to spot unusual purchase behaviour to report it immediately discovering potential THREAT AND ENEMY named

R.E.S.E.L.L.E.R

Ah so if you were doing a limited signing of a new release set where people waited until 00:00 to get the item none of them would turn up on ebay due to these so-called trained units?

[Phil B]

Guys, what's the difference between an E13 (Verification Failed) and an E10 (Ban) ? I just got an E13 - should I just be careful or have I already been banned somehow?

Email text:

Thank you for your recent order. Please note that your order did not pass our order verification and has been cancelled. 

The LEGO® Company takes its customers security and privacy very seriously. If you place another order with us, please ensure that all payment information you provide is accurate and that you are an authorized user for the payment type being submitted. 

Sincerely,

LEGO Systems, Inc.
Consumer Services

[LegoBro]

@phil b did you place multiple orders just now or just one? I'm assuming you just got the E13 email?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Brickpicker Forum mobile app

[Phil B]

@phil b did you place multiple orders just now or just one? I'm assuming you just got the E13 email?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Brickpicker Forum mobile app

Just the one order. Did do some to-the-limit store orders yesterday, and my previous online purchase was also a high-multiple order.... got the E13 just now on my Brickheadz order. Funnily enough followed 2 minutes later by an order confirmation email, but order shows cancelled in order status screen. Might give them a call tomorrow morning if that’s worth the effort ....

[newbie77]

this vip points and the bonanza sounds like a "trap" 

[Phil B]

Looks like the E13 was really just an internal verification error. Woke up this morning remembering that there was one of those red banner "Oops something went wrong" banners during my checkout at some point, but after a refresh the checkout continued. Think somehow internally in the order there was something wrong, because I just tried again and order is already In Warehouse 10 minutes later.

[Guest TabbyBoy]

2 hours ago, Phil B said:

Looks like the E13 was really just an internal verification error. Woke up this morning remembering that there was one of those red banner "Oops something went wrong" banners during my checkout at some point, but after a refresh the checkout continued. Think somehow internally in the order there was something wrong, because I just tried again and order is already In Warehouse 10 minutes later.

I get those red banners nearly every time I order even when using different computers. Their webmaster needs to be fired as I think these latest retirements and resurrections could be yet another glitch. I found that errors are fewer when using a credit card instead of PayPal.

[Gary81]

Today I ordered a couple of sets from amazon using the wife’s prime account, then another two from my own. Different card used both times. Amazon emailed me to say they had cancelled the order as it exceeded the limit per customer. Have I been unlucky here or are their systems that good? Delivery was to the same address. And anybody know how much they take before a ban starts being realistic?

[newbie77]

6 minutes ago, Gary81 said:

Today I ordered a couple of sets from amazon using the wife’s prime account, then another two from my own. Different card used both times. Amazon emailed me to say they had cancelled the order as it exceeded the limit per customer. Have I been unlucky here or are their systems that good? Delivery was to the same address. And anybody know how much they take before a ban starts being realistic?

Don’t play with amazon. When they say limit is 2 they mean it. If you have not received warning from qla@ before then u had just been lucky.

if amazon bans you then you are really banned so weigh what’s more important.

[BearCrash]

9 minutes ago, Gary81 said:

Have I been unlucky here or are their systems that good? Delivery was to the same address. 

Let me get this straight: you consider a system to be very good because it can detect two accounts with the same address? ?

[Gary81]

Nope, not had the email before so obviously underestimated the stringency. Thanks ??