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.

[dcdfan]

The more people they ban, the less orders they have to worry about having to fill, due to the "shortage"...

[Ed Mack]

1 hour ago, dcdfan said:

 

The more people they ban, the less orders they have to worry about having to fill, due to the "shortage"...

The resellers will just buy the sets from other sources.  I guess S@H will look better in the eye of the consumer, but overall, people will be mad that they can't buy from other retailers and get mad at LEGO anyway.  

[mfortunek]

The ban is a very interesting topic. I've said before, and I'll say again, that Lego wants its products to increase in value after they retire.  TLG wants consumers standing there in the store holding that $200 set and thinking "I know it's expensive but these things become collector's items and that justifies the price. So I'm going to buy it."

So to some extent, Lego requires a post-retirement secondary market (with much higher prices) to legitimize its MSRP prices and to augment the brand.  This drives up sales and drives up profits.  TLG wants this - but they want it after they decide to stop producing a specific item.

What TLG doesn't want is people "scalping" their products - the QFLL in particular.  Lego doesn't want you making a $20 profit off the set that you don't want to open and play with but somebody else does, and, unfortunately that "someone else" wasn't quick enough or informed enough to get it for himself, but you were.  

TLG doesn't want resellers stealing its profits and frustrating its "playing customers" because it can't keep up with all the demand and it can't keep 100 copies of each and every set on each and every shelf in each and every town on the planet.

That's my two cents anyway. TLG wants to protect the people who play with their toys, but they also secretly love the massive price jumps when they retire a product - almost as much as we do.  

[asharerin]

3 hours ago, hannibal said:

All that is crazy!

I also think that they've called your bluff. Do you think lego will keep people on the payroll to surf the internet, make tons of lists who is a seller who isn't? Spending thousands of Euros to have the Lego police after you? Come on! Relax people!

 

From my experience if you make a number of orders quickly on the one account then that account will get flagged by a bot for manual review. If an order is over a certain dollar threshold it will also be flagged for manual review. During the manual review they will cross check all of your identifying info to link any other accounts you may have made and take a look at your entire history from the very first order you ever made until present. They will then make a purely arbitrary decision on whether to ban or not. If your orders are not going to "in warehouse" within 30 mins or so then you are getting a manual review. I don't believe they employ anyone to preemptively discover sellers. It is not rocket science to link all of your accounts and order history once a bot flags for manual review. If you must purchase in volume from LEGO Shop at Home then spread it over many clean and completely unassociated accounts. IME it is not worth it to invest your time ordering this way unless it is for a true exclusive like 10241 and even then it is a very marginal decision. Keep LEGO Shop at Home for your personal stash and keep the volume for the other retailers is my advice.

[Brian Briggs]

2 hours ago, Ed Mack said:

Maybe so, but remember this, Studio 54 closed its doors and went out of business...

As far as I know it wasn't exclusivity that caused Studio 54 to close down. At least the first time it was related to tax evasion.

[minicoopers11]

5 hours ago, Brick_Head said:

I don't think they were calling my bluff as the Rep put me on hold for a while to look into it and when she got back she specifically stated the GH being sold on my account. It just seems bizarre that they are tracking us down like that. 

This has been happening since at least 2014. They due their due diligence.

[minicoopers11]

4 hours ago, hannibal said:

All that is crazy!

I also think that they've called your bluff. Do you think lego will keep people on the payroll to surf the internet, make tons of lists who is a seller who isn't? Spending thousands of Euros to have the Lego police after you? Come on! Relax people!

Second and very important. As long as we're all within the limits, we have a good reason to object and report them to the trading authorities. And even more, sniffing around and tryign to cherry pick eBay accounts on the base of presumtion and so on can be considered as a serious harrassment and violation to the private space. If you have sets being sold to you, then its only your own business what to do with them and how you sell them!

It only takes one guy to be banned...but the wrong guy. One that has a friend or family member who is a lawyer and have plenty of time to spare. Take LEGO to court for that...and they'll drop the bans policy.

On the other hand side. It's all stupid. So if Lego wants to limit this, then make it all 2-5 sets maximum per houshold. Which is reasonable. Saying it allows you to buy 99 and then slap you with a ban is quite hypocritic to say the least!

I don't understand some of us here either. You want to sell dozens of sets privately as a full time business operation, but at the same time you don't have the courage to open a proper business with shop and so on. You can't have the cake and eat it!

LEGO cited my BL store and the items that were the reason for the ban. They did actual, paid research into this. They wrote an actual, personalized letter and followed up on it. Keep in mind that LEGO is privately held and while they are for-profit, that is not their only concern. This is one point they were emphatic about on that inside tour.

[minicoopers11]

3 hours ago, valenciaeric said:

Do Playmobil ban resellers?

Think they need all the help they can get after that slave ship something something incident!

[Alpinemaps]

4 hours ago, hannibal said: All that is crazy!

I also think that they've called your bluff. Do you think lego will keep people on the payroll to surf the internet, make tons of lists who is a seller who isn't? Spending thousands of Euros to have the Lego police after you? Come on! Relax people!

Second and very important. As long as we're all within the limits, we have a good reason to object and report them to the trading authorities. And even more, sniffing around and tryign to cherry pick eBay accounts on the base of presumtion and so on can be considered as a serious harrassment and violation to the private space. If you have sets being sold to you, then its only your own business what to do with them and how you sell them!

It only takes one guy to be banned...but the wrong guy. One that has a friend or family member who is a lawyer and have plenty of time to spare. Take LEGO to court for that...and they'll drop the bans policy.

On the other hand side. It's all stupid. So if Lego wants to limit this, then make it all 2-5 sets maximum per houshold. Which is reasonable. Saying it allows you to buy 99 and then slap you with a ban is quite hypocritic to say the least!

I don't understand some of us here either. You want to sell dozens of sets privately as a full time business operation, but at the same time you don't have the courage to open a proper business with shop and so on. You can't have the cake and eat it!

LEGO cited my BL store and the items that were the reason for the ban. They did actual, paid research into this. They wrote an actual, personalized letter and followed up on it. Keep in mind that LEGO is privately held and while they are for-profit, that is not their only concern. This is one point they were emphatic about on that inside tour.

Was your BL store name similar to your LEGO.com user name?

[Robb]

Can someone remind me, what effects does the ban hammer have on in-store purchasing?

[exciter1]

It does appear multiple accounts to like addresses, credit card info, IP addresses, naming on public selling vehicles, etc. all play into their research.  Although, folks with new accounts or single accounts have also been banned.

[minicoopers11]

19 minutes ago, Alpinemaps said:

Was your BL store name similar to your LEGO.com user name?

Yes, this is really reseller 101. Never, ever do that!

20 minutes ago, Robb said:

Can someone remind me, what effects does the ban hammer have on in-store purchasing?

None. VIP cards still active, no effect on points. Hopefully that is still the case.

[exciter1]

5 minutes ago, minicoopers11 said:

Yes, this is really reseller 101. Never, ever do that!

That might be a good blog, "Reseller 101", but some ethics boundaries might be touched on there as well.  There's lots of new folks who could benefit from it, to our benefit or dismay.

[Pseudoty]

Can anyone in the US sign into LEGO Shop at Home and see their order history? Not sure if it is a website issue or if I earned a free hammer for Xmas. 

[Fcbarcelona101]

22 minutes ago, Pseudoty said:

Can anyone in the US sign into LEGO Shop at Home and see their order history? Not sure if it is a website issue or if I earned a free hammer for Xmas. 

I could not yesterday but was able to today. Seems to be yet another glitch.

[cmartin33]

I think I might be banned from Target.com. Every order I place is now cancelled. Does anyone know if they are just reinforcing the limits as hard limits or if anyone else if having their orders cancelled?

[newbie77]

14 minutes ago, cmartin33 said:

I think I might be banned from Target.com. Every order I place is now cancelled. Does anyone know if they are just reinforcing the limits as hard limits or if anyone else if having their orders cancelled?

no hard limit. if they are canceling orders most likely means ban

[BrickLegacy]

17 minutes ago, cmartin33 said:

I think I might be banned from Target.com. Every order I place is now cancelled. Does anyone know if they are just reinforcing the limits as hard limits or if anyone else if having their orders cancelled?

Were you ordering a large volume of sets?  Redcard?  Tax exempt?  I think some folks got banned for using redcard + tax exempt earlier this year.  Anything others should watch out for?

[Bold-Arrow]

Target.com has been extra vigilant banning account in the last few weeks

[Achilles]

What does Target ban for?

[redcell]

9 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Target.com has been extra vigilant banning account in the last few weeks

They must not be looking too hard because I haven't had any problems and I have placed a lot of orders recently and haven't had any problems. 

[Bold-Arrow]

6 minutes ago, Achilles said:

What does Target ban for?

Reselling and using stolen GC. 

6 minutes ago, redcell said:

They must not be looking too hard because I haven't had any problems and I have placed a lot of orders recently and haven't had any problems. 

Shhhhhh, don't jinx it 

[Loghamel]

57 minutes ago, BrickLegacy said:

Were you ordering a large volume of sets?  Redcard?  Tax exempt?  I think some folks got banned for using redcard + tax exempt earlier this year.  Anything others should watch out for?

My Target told me they don't do tax exempt.

[Achilles]

Last year Target stopped taking Tax Exempt sales at their registers, the option was completely removed from the registers. I didn't know they were banning resellers though. 

 

[Bold-Arrow]

9 minutes ago, Achilles said:

Last year Target stopped taking Tax Exempt sales at their registers, the option was completely removed from the registers. I didn't know they were banning resellers though. 

 

RC TOS prohibit its use for reselling