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.

[Veegs]

11 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

In all truth , it becomes close to impossible to expand the business and still fly under the radar . 

We need to work on some cloaking or stealth tech...

[Lordoflego]

On December 28, 2015 at 2:09 AM, Robb said:

I think the big issue is that we cherry pick their stock.  This makes them look bad to their customers when they "never" have the most popular product in stock. Also, we exploit their best deals. So, before a deal launches at a store they don't exactly know if the deal will do what they want or not, but I can tell you what they don't want is deal useage to sell 99% of stock they would sell just fine without the deals. And that's what we do! Use deals to kill the stock that they don't need deals to sale.

I agree, I think some people overdo it with coupons/discounts/sales and it leads to a ban, we abuse the sales and coupons, we take full advantage of some deals/sales. There is at the end nothing wrong with it, that's what is being offered by retailers but still, and don't nobody get me wrong please, the only reason I haven't been really doing it, is because I wasn't smart enough, plus the fact that in the past Lego was a money maker almost no matter how much u spent. Now, TLG isn't banning people because of coupons....because they don't really offer any lol, they ban for what? Buying too much I guess...of one set or something similar.

 

17 minutes ago, redcell said:

I'll keep an eye out for it.  After going for years without a single ban, I managed to rack up four in one year in 2015 (Jet.com (on several accounts), Target, TRU, and a cashback site).  No more flying under the radar for me.  

That's funny, not laughing at you though, that's scary but funny how you put it, years without a ban, now 4 in one year, scary.....my history of VIP points is huge

[redcell]

17 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

In all truth , it becomes close to impossible to expand the business and still fly under the radar . 

Indeed, it's not hard to see growing to the point where starting a B&M store would be necessary just to get access to the wholesale purchasing power that it would bring.

[California92563]

29 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

I'll make sure I send you an invite to my annual round table of banned Reeses

We need to start making banned badges for each store lol. 

[MarleyMoose]

8 minutes ago, redcell said:

Indeed, it's not hard to see growing to the point where starting a B&M store would be necessary just to get access to the wholesale purchasing power that it would bring.

Which opens a whole new can of worms.

[newbie77]

31 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

In all truth , it becomes close to impossible to expand the business and still fly under the radar . 

truly said. its going to be very very hard to expand business and still fly under the radar.

 

[Phil B]

2 hours ago, redcell said:

Indeed, it's not hard to see growing to the point where starting a B&M store would be necessary just to get access to the wholesale purchasing power that it would bring.

That's an interesting idea Immediately start a nationwide (heck: global!) chain of stores .... let's call them "BrickPicker" .... every active, contributing member opens one And then we'll work on a membership model like Costco, and sell only to eachother ..... 4000 Tumblers? Sure, let's order .....

[mayor]

AMNESTY!!! LEGO, CAN I SAY IT ANY LOUDER?

Lego!!! we are your friends. What can we do to regain our buying from you? We don't wish to hurt you. Why are you picking on the little guys and girls that have had Lego bricks in our homes for several decades. That love Lego. That have ideas about Lego. We have helped to spread the name LEGO. Don't kill the geese, that lay the golden eggs!

signed: a 70 year old LEGO Fan.

[justapilgrim]

Indeed, it's not hard to see growing to the point where starting a B&M store would be necessary just to get access to the wholesale purchasing power that it would bring.

That's an interesting idea Immediately start a nationwide (heck: global!) chain of stores .... let's call them "BrickPicker" .... every active, contributing member opens one And then we'll work on a membership model like Costco, and sell only to eachother ..... 4000 Tumblers? Sure, let's order .....

We need at least two other products to sell, and have to have been open a year. Also we won't be able to sell exclusives, and will be forced to buy duplo, elves and all the other lines we don't want to buy. I vote we sell Funko pops and Tshirts as our other two products

[mayor]

Seriously, Amnesty.

[Bold-Arrow]

22 minutes ago, mayor said:

Seriously, Amnesty.

Lego has zero problems with the casual hobbyist /collector .

[Bold-Arrow]

i see the awards are back... i demand ask for a Thor badge 

[Val-E]

http://www.lego.com/en-us/careers/jobdescriptionpage?title=E-commerce+Fraud+Assistant&id=53573722

Interesting job opportunity...

[Roy vd M.]

Interesting find Eric!

[Ed Mack]

13 minutes ago, valenciaeric said:

http://www.lego.com/en-us/careers/jobdescriptionpage?title=E-commerce+Fraud+Assistant&id=53573722

Interesting job opportunity...

We need to get an insider hired.  Crustybeaver or Tabbyboy...Are you up to it?  LOL

[Val-E]

PM´d Tabby already. I´m sure a portfolio of prospective dodgy customer Id´s would be a distinct advantage over other candidates.

Main conclusions: There is a department already established for this based at UK customer service HQ, they have some type of heuristic software, they do look at ebay and other sellers.

[exciter1]

11 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

We need to get an insider hired.  Crustybeaver or Tabbyboy...Are you up to it?  LOL

I think the last guy started selling LEGO after reading the latest news.

[Val-E]

Yeah, when he ran a scan and saw that no one was actually buying anything for personal consumption so they´d have to ban ALL their clients.

[Crustybeaver]

45 minutes ago, valenciaeric said:

http://www.lego.com/en-us/careers/jobdescriptionpage?title=E-commerce+Fraud+Assistant&id=53573722

Interesting job opportunity...

Languages: American

LOL

38 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

We need to get an insider hired.  Crustybeaver or Tabbyboy...Are you up to it?  LOL

Only if I get staff discount and exemption from any rules deemed unreasonable.

[Battrax]

13 minutes ago, Crustybeaver said:

Languages: American

LOL

....

Well, quite a few of us are now ruled out by default as we only speak English

[Ed Mack]

13 minutes ago, Crustybeaver said:

Languages: American

LOL

Only if I get staff discount and exemption from any rules deemed unreasonable.

Those Damn 'Mericans!!!

[Val-E]

So beware of any new forum members from Berkshire that write trunk instead of boot and line instead of queue.

[Poly 30286]

13 minutes ago, Battrax said:

Well, quite a few of us are now ruled out by default as we only speak English

There is a difference. I have a very hard time with Indian English as an American English speaker.

[Crustybeaver]

1 hour ago, valenciaeric said:

So beware of any new forum members from Berkshire that write trunk instead of boot and line instead of queue.

TabbyBoy lives in Berkshire and I believe works for United Airlines, just saying

[Val-E]

In IT too, so either is the perfect candidate or a mole.