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.

[Anakin_Skywalker]

 

33 minutes ago, mesje said:

Its very easy to distinguish flippers from long-term investors - they can just apply a ban policy for new sets for first weeks after release. For older sets, it doesnt matter who is buying them. Plus, they can be active before Xmas.

Well, QFLL can be performed as a strategy at any stage of the life of a set theoretically, I guess the main trigger for flipping is the scarcity of the set in both TLG and retailers and this can even happen after the "first weeks" you are mentioning. The important thing is WHEN the resource becomes scarce (and this can be sometimes unpredictable).

As long as the set does not retire, QFLL is still a viable strategy used to fill the gap when the product is not readily available. Hence preventing people from buying a quantity linked to a time window may not be the best option here. But I've got your point.

I agree with the ones that are saying that LEGO does need a robust secondary market BUT does NOT need the competition of resellers when the set is still alive: this is the crucial (and mostly controversial) point. Having a strong secondary market, makes LEGO an even more desirable product but LEGO does not want a lot of resellers eating the cake when it's still fresh on the market. All these resellers are just nullifying the profits that they could realise if the people could access the set when it's still available.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Anakin_Skywalker
missed a word

[Achilles]

It's weird to me that most of you seem to ignore the fact that most people only have X amount of dollars and time to spend. If people are spending money on two year old or outdated LEGO sets, they have LESS money (time, whatever) to spend on NEW releases. This upsets not only TLG, but potential partners (Disney, etc) - who have license agreements. This doesn't even scratch the surface of the relationships LEGO must have with large retailers (Walmart, Target, etc) not to mention whatever preexisting deals they had to move out large quantities of excess inventory. TLG, especially publicly, HAS to disavow resellers. 

Everyone's like, "We're filling a gap" - But that's not completely true. YES there is a gap being filled, but we are in part creating the gap that LEGO doesn't really want to see. Are they happy there's some folks that have old sets and there's a demand for them? I am sure they are. Do they want large percentage of their consumer stock to go to people who are going to sit on it for 2 years and prevent people from buying twice as many new sets in the future? Of course not. If they wanted SSDs to sell for 1k, they would have priced it at 1k. If someone is spending 1 month and 1k on a aftermarket SSD, that's money they are NOT spending on new sets - which not only impacts their bottom line, but also their research and metrics.

Again, it's partially a love/hate relationship - but in no way can they ever condone reselling. We're not the ones spending multi-millions of dollars to sell and advertise their products on retail shelves. It's obviously an extremely complicated issue top to bottom. 

Personally, I think the shorter lived sets and themes are GOOD for us. It means they are producing fewer of set x, making it hard to get, and making it harder to find at discount. but I guess the future will tell how that all plays out.

[Robb]

I don't understand why they outright ban accounts. Most of us are both end users and resellers. Limiting accounts seems like a better solution. They could just put accounts on "approval status". "Because of your purchaceing patterns this order is in approval status, please be patient as this process may take a long time. Sorry for the inconvenience. In the future if you limit your ordering you may avoid this inconvenience. Thank you for your patience". Something like that.

[mauro23]

9 minutes ago, Achilles said:

It's weird to me that most of you seem to ignore the fact that most people only have X amount of dollars and time to spend. If people are spending money on two year old or outdated LEGO sets, they have LESS money (time, whatever) to spend on NEW releases. This upsets not only TLG, but potential partners (Disney, etc) - who have license agreements. This doesn't even scratch the surface of the relationships LEGO must have with large retailers (Walmart, Target, etc) not to mention whatever preexisting deals they had to move out large quantities of excess inventory. TLG, especially publicly, HAS to disavow resellers. 

Everyone's like, "We're filling a gap" - But that's not completely true. YES there is a gap being filled, but we are in part creating the gap that LEGO doesn't really want to see. Are they happy there's some folks that have old sets and there's a demand for them? I am sure they are. Do they want large percentage of their consumer stock to go to people who are going to sit on it for 2 years and prevent people from buying twice as many new sets in the future? Of course not. If they wanted SSDs to sell for 1k, they would have priced it at 1k. If someone is spending 1 month and 1k on a aftermarket SSD, that's money they are NOT spending on new sets - which not only impacts their bottom line, but also their research and metrics.

Again, it's partially a love/hate relationship - but in no way can they ever condone reselling. We're not the ones spending multi-millions of dollars to sell and advertise their products on retail shelves. It's obviously an extremely complicated issue top to bottom. 

Personally, I think the shorter lived sets and themes are GOOD for us. It means they are producing fewer of set x, making it hard to get, and making it harder to find at discount. but I guess the future will tell how that all plays out.

This is exactly the reason which I have pointed out few posts before. Mesje diagrees but in my eyes this point is still valid. Just imagine you buy today UCS Falcon at 5000 Euro. You won't be able to buy 20 other new sets from LEGO S&H because of lack of your money. And I am pretty sure that for LEGO it would be much better when you would buy 25 current "usual" Falcons from their store instead. (But be careful not to get baned ;-) )

Edited February 9, 2016 by mauro23

[fantomas007]

3 minutes ago, Achilles said:

It's weird to me that most of you seem to ignore the fact that most people only have X amount of dollars and time to spend. If people are spending money on two year old or outdated LEGO sets, they have LESS money (time, whatever) to spend on NEW releases. This upsets not only TLG, but potential partners (Disney, etc) - who have license agreements. This doesn't even scratch the surface of the relationships LEGO must have with large retailers (Walmart, Target, etc) not to mention whatever preexisting deals they had to move out large quantities of excess inventory. TLG, especially publicly, HAS to disavow resellers. 

Everyone's like, "We're filling a gap" - But that's not completely true. YES there is a gap being filled, but we are in part creating the gap that LEGO doesn't really want to see. Are they happy there's some folks that have old sets and there's a demand for them? I am sure they are. Do they want large percentage of their consumer stock to go to people who are going to sit on it for 2 years and prevent people from buying twice as many new sets in the future? Of course not. If they wanted SSDs to sell for 1k, they would have priced it at 1k. If someone is spending 1 month and 1k on a aftermarket SSD, that's money they are NOT spending on new sets - which not only impacts their bottom line, but also their research and metrics.

Again, it's partially a love/hate relationship - but in no way can they ever condone reselling. We're not the ones spending multi-millions of dollars to sell and advertise their products on retail shelves. It's obviously an extremely complicated issue top to bottom. 

Personally, I think the shorter lived sets and themes are GOOD for us. It means they are producing fewer of set x, making it hard to get, and making it harder to find at discount. but I guess the future will tell how that all plays out.

You are right, but on the other hand, old sets also attract buying new sets - for example modulars - without secondary market people are without chance to have a complete line - and could resign to collect and buy all new modulars...

Personally I dont know any AFOLs, who are thinking in terms - "i have X eur and will spend them either on 4 new sets or on 2 old sets" - some of them are buying both, some of them just refuse to pay triple price, ignore old sets and buy just new sets, some of them are fans of classic space or town, so are buying just old sets. I think there is just a negligible number of collectors, who have strict purchase limit in the wallet and are deciding between the sets. Again, if this is an issue for TLG, there is NO WAY to offer 5 modulars, 3 creator expert cars, 4 UCSs together in shelves !!!! The main cannibalism is performed by TLG itself.

 

[Anomander]

1 hour ago, Achilles said:

It's weird to me that most of you seem to ignore the fact that most people only have X amount of dollars and time to spend. If people are spending money on two year old or outdated LEGO sets, they have LESS money (time, whatever) to spend on NEW releases. This upsets not only TLG, but potential partners (Disney, etc) - who have license agreements. This doesn't even scratch the surface of the relationships LEGO must have with large retailers (Walmart, Target, etc) not to mention whatever preexisting deals they had to move out large quantities of excess inventory. TLG, especially publicly, HAS to disavow resellers. 

Everyone's like, "We're filling a gap" - But that's not completely true. YES there is a gap being filled, but we are in part creating the gap that LEGO doesn't really want to see. Are they happy there's some folks that have old sets and there's a demand for them? I am sure they are. Do they want large percentage of their consumer stock to go to people who are going to sit on it for 2 years and prevent people from buying twice as many new sets in the future? Of course not. If they wanted SSDs to sell for 1k, they would have priced it at 1k. If someone is spending 1 month and 1k on a aftermarket SSD, that's money they are NOT spending on new sets - which not only impacts their bottom line, but also their research and metrics.

Again, it's partially a love/hate relationship - but in no way can they ever condone reselling. We're not the ones spending multi-millions of dollars to sell and advertise their products on retail shelves. It's obviously an extremely complicated issue top to bottom. 

Personally, I think the shorter lived sets and themes are GOOD for us. It means they are producing fewer of set x, making it hard to get, and making it harder to find at discount. but I guess the future will tell how that all plays out.

This assumes that buyers would spend the same amount on current production LEGO if the retired set(s) were unavailable through reseller. While true in some cases, many AFOL's are discriminatory towards certain themes only and can leave the rest.

Most of these buyers would buy all sets they were interested in that were avaialble on the shelves eventually anyway, so LEGO wouldn't lose these potential sales from collectors dedicating budget to reseller 'gouging'

[redcell]

A lot of you are really overthinking this.  At the end of the day, TLG bans resellers from LEGO Shop at Home because it is a retail outlet, not a wholesale outlet.  TLG maintains a completely separate wholesale distribution channel.  Just like TLG wouldn't let an end-user buy products through its wholesale channel, TLG doesn't want resellers using its retail sales channel for wholesale purchases.  When you buy wholesale from TLG, you pay freight.  When you buy retail from LEGO Shop at Home, you don't pay shipping if you're over the threshold.  When you buy wholesale from TLG, you have to meet very specific requirements that every other retailer who is buying wholesale must also meet (more or less).  When you buy retail through LEGO Shop at Home, you have the ability to be far more selective in terms of what you buy than when you buy wholesale.  Banning resellers is simply TLG's effort to keep the two separate sales channels separate.  If TLG openly allowed wholesale purchases through LEGO Shop at Home, the impetus for many retailers to maintain wholesale accounts would weaken because even though you wouldn't get the same discount by purchasing through LEGO Shop at Home, you could cherry pick the specific sets that you want to sell and leave the less desirable sets alone. 

[Anomander]

51 minutes ago, redcell said:

A lot of you are really overthinking this.  At the end of the day, TLG bans resellers from LEGO Shop at Home because it is a retail outlet, not a wholesale outlet.  TLG maintains a completely separate wholesale distribution channel.  Just like TLG wouldn't let an end-user buy products through its wholesale channel, TLG doesn't want resellers using its retail sales channel for wholesale purchases.  When you buy wholesale from TLG, you pay freight.  When you buy retail from LEGO Shop at Home, you don't pay shipping if you're over the threshold.  When you buy wholesale from TLG, you have to meet very specific requirements that every other retailer who is buying wholesale must also meet (more or less).  When you buy retail through LEGO Shop at Home, you have the ability to be far more selective in terms of what you buy than when you buy wholesale.  Banning resellers is simply TLG's effort to keep the two separate sales channels separate.  If TLG openly allowed wholesale purchases through LEGO Shop at Home, the impetus for many retailers to maintain wholesale accounts would weaken because even though you wouldn't get the same discount by purchasing through LEGO Shop at Home, you could cherry pick the specific sets that you want to sell and leave the less desirable sets alone. 

It makes sense if they want to strictly adhere to wholesale and retail conventions. The cherry picking, I feel, is the most pertinant point, as I imagine being cleaned out of stock for certain popular sets regularly affects their image.

The injustice some resellers rail at is that by trying their hand using LEGO retail distributors as wholesale sources, they are being persecuted despite the 'penalties' that they suffer (higher price & longer hold) for deviating from the usual chain of supply model.

[redcell]

25 minutes ago, Anomander said:

It makes sense if they want to strictly adhere to wholesale and retail conventions. The cherry picking, I feel, is the most pertinant point, as I imagine being cleaned out of stock for certain popular sets regularly affects their image.

The injustice some resellers rail at is that by trying their hand using LEGO retail distributors as wholesale sources, they are being persecuted despite the 'penalties' that they suffer (higher price & longer hold) for deviating from the usual chain of supply model.

Anyone who views their being banned by LEGO Shop at Home as an injustice or persecution needs to get their head out of their a**.  Buying Lego from LEGO Shop at Home is not a right, it is a privilege that is subject to the terms and conditions that TLG establishes.  If you violate those terms and conditions, you are putting yourself at risk of being banned from purchasing any further products from LEGO Shop at Home.  The same holds true for every other retailer out there.  They can't force us to buy from them and we can't force them to do business with us.  

[Anomander]

1 hour ago, redcell said:

Anyone who views their being banned by LEGO Shop at Home as an injustice or persecution needs to get their head out of their a**.  Buying Lego from LEGO Shop at Home is not a right, it is a privilege that is subject to the terms and conditions that TLG establishes.  If you violate those terms and conditions, you are putting yourself at risk of being banned from purchasing any further products from LEGO Shop at Home.  The same holds true for every other retailer out there.  They can't force us to buy from them and we can't force them to do business with us.  

lol

True.

Perhaps persecuted is too strong an adjective in its standard sense.

Maybe more apt is some resellers are pouting that the rules of the  'game' was changed by a business, partly on vague ethical grounds. The reseller's sense of being 'wronged' comes from feeling that they commited no ethical  transgression in the first place, and LEGO welcomed their business previously.

So LEGO went from an collaborative facilitator to suddenly finger-wagging from a newfound moral high ground. 

Hoping the policy somehow bites them in behind and makes them see the light is a part vengence, part self-righteous reaction, wishing the return of the comfortable status quo. 

Dealing with he rug being pulled out from under you is never going to be enjoyable, but the game is theirs to change, as you say. The reselling business is subject to Darwinism also, it seems.

 Adapt and overcome,  

 

Edited February 9, 2016 by Anomander
x

[DadsAFOL]

Just as an FYI warning, apparently its possible to get completely banned from PayPal.  I had a customer that was getting a weird "card cannot be used" error when trying to pay me.  I helped them do some research and they wrote back with this...

-Okay so I went back, and I found out what it was.  I used paypal to pay for a private torrent service (to paypal it's illegal). -anything I use that is associated to my bank cards, my email, my phone number, pretty much anything used to identify me is permanently locked out. 

I could survive a Lego ban (knock on wood), but a PayPal ban would cripple my business.

[Alcarin]

7 minutes ago, DadsAFOL said:

Just as an FYI warning, apparently its possible to get completely banned from PayPal.  I had a customer that was getting a weird "card cannot be used" error when trying to pay me.  I helped them do some research and they wrote back with this...

-Okay so I went back, and I found out what it was.  I used paypal to pay for a private torrent service (to paypal it's illegal). -anything I use that is associated to my bank cards, my email, my phone number, pretty much anything used to identify me is permanently locked out. 

I could survive a Lego ban (knock on wood), but a PayPal ban would cripple my business.

Now thats a first for me...

 

Good to know, thanks!

 

 

[dinner41]

On 2/3/2016 at 1:39 PM, BarryZola said:

36 minutes ago, DadsAFOL said:

-Okay so I went back, and I found out what it was.  I used paypal to pay for a private torrent service (to paypal it's illegal). -anything I use that is associated to my bank cards, my email, my phone number, pretty much anything used to identify me is permanently locked out.

 

That's interesting. I've never heard about that until now, but it's easy enough to google. And it's crazy. Paypal seems to even ban legitimate VPN services. I get that technically they have the right to do so. But I hope they regret that decision at some point big time.

And taking it out on customers of these services instead of just blocking the service accounts - is taking it to another level.

Edited February 10, 2016 by dinner41

[mayor]

AMNESTY NOW!!!

[Eric83]

Got banned from the Galeria Kaufhof website. Got a nice email from them when ordering 1 PC and 1 EV:

 

thank you for your e-mail.

Unfortunately we won't deliver any goods to somebody who is listed as a reseller. Please buy your favourite products at our local stores. Thank you.

 If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 Best Regards,

 your-customer-service-team

galeria-kaufhof.de

 

I guess I had it coming. I had ordered several PC before over the last year and as reaction to this particular order I got this e-mail: (basicly it says they are forced to cancel my order because I've ordered more items than household use allows, be it this order or al the previous orders combined.

 

vielen Dank für Ihre E-Mail vom 10.02.2016.

 

Leider sahen wir uns gezwungen Ihre Bestellung zu stornieren, da die Anzahl der von Ihnen bestellten Artikel (in dieser Bestellung oder in der Summe der vorgenommenen Bestellungen) eine haushaltsübliche Menge übersteigt.

 

 

 

I guess I'll be going to the stores a bit more often from now on. I just wanted to post this to warn others. Be careful when ordering over the maximum allowed number of items or you may be getting this e-mail too.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Eric83

[Yinchuan]

3 hours ago, Eric83 said:

Got banned from the Galeria Kaufhof website. Got a nice email from them when ordering 1 PC and 1 EV:

 

thank you for your e-mail.

Unfortunately we won't deliver any goods to somebody who is listed as a reseller. Please buy your favourite products at our local stores. Thank you.

 If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 Best Regards,

 your-customer-service-team

galeria-kaufhof.de

 

I guess I had it coming. I had ordered several PC before over the last year and as reaction to this particular order I got this e-mail: (basicly it says they are forced to cancel my order because I've ordered more items than household use allows, be it this order or al the previous orders combined.

 

vielen Dank für Ihre E-Mail vom 10.02.2016.

 

Leider sahen wir uns gezwungen Ihre Bestellung zu stornieren, da die Anzahl der von Ihnen bestellten Artikel (in dieser Bestellung oder in der Summe der vorgenommenen Bestellungen) eine haushaltsübliche Menge übersteigt.

 

 

 

I guess I'll be going to the stores a bit more often from now on. I just wanted to post this to warn others. Be careful when ordering over the maximum allowed number of items or you may be getting this e-mail too.

How many PC did you order?

[Eric83]

1 hour ago, Yinchuan said:

How many PC did you order?

I ordered 7 with this one included over the last year. Back then the max limit purchase was higher (I think 6). I ordered 6 in February 2015. When trying to order 1 (last week) the ban hammer struck.. 

[Brian Briggs]

52 minutes ago, Eric83 said:

I ordered 7 with this one included over the last year. Back then the max limit purchase was higher (I think 6). I ordered 6 in February 2015. When trying to order 1 (last week) the ban hammer struck.. 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Did you order anything inbetween those two orders? Still it's strange that they had no problem selling you 6 PCs all at once.

[Eric83]

43 minutes ago, Brian Briggs said:

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Did you order anything inbetween those two orders? Still it's strange that they had no problem selling you 6 PCs all at once.

No Problem, Glad to help out (or warn in this case). I did order quite a lot of Lego the past year on their webshop, even more than allowed at some points. (ordered it in separate orders) Never had any problems though.

I think it has something to do with their stricter policy regarding Lego purchases. For the past months I have seen a decrease in the number of maximum allowed items per customer on the webshop and now (since a few weeks) the discount code for the newsletter doesn't apply anymore on the sunday offers, so you can't stack them anymore.

I see this phenomenon happening more often with webshops which didn't have a strict limit before. My guess is that they have been warned by TLG  in some way not to sell to customers, suspected of being a reseller or to just limit the purchases for every customer. It is getting increasingly harder to order large quantities of Lego through webshops.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Eric83

[Yinchuan]

1 hour ago, Eric83 said:

No Problem, Glad to help out (or warn in this case). I did order quite a lot of Lego the past year on their webshop, even more than allowed at some points. (ordered it in separate orders) Never had any problems though.

I think it has something to do with their stricter policy regarding Lego purchases. For the past months I have seen a decrease in the number of maximum allowed items per customer on the webshop and now (since a few weeks) the discount code for the newsletter doesn't apply anymore on the sunday offers, so you can't stack them anymore.

I see this phenomenon happening more often with webshops which didn't have a strict limit before. My guess is that they have been warned by TLG  in some way not to sell to customers, suspected of being a reseller or to just limit the purchases for every customer. It is getting increasingly harder to order large quantities of Lego through webshops.

I don't know if I would consider this a new phenomenon. By the sound of it, it seems you were pushing the envelope pretty hard on numerous sets. If I am going to be ordering multiples of exclusives I tend to fan them out of a good portion of time. I don't believe I have ever ordered for than one of each set in an order except for over the holidays when I got a handful of the seasonal $10 sets.  

IMHO it is better to do a slow burn on purchasing multiple sets, or else the hammer cometh...

[Brian Briggs]

1 hour ago, Eric83 said:

No Problem, Glad to help out (or warn in this case). I did order quite a lot of Lego the past year on their webshop, even more than allowed at some points. (ordered it in separate orders) Never had any problems though.

I think it has something to do with their stricter policy regarding Lego purchases. For the past months I have seen a decrease in the number of maximum allowed items per customer on the webshop and now (since a few weeks) the discount code for the newsletter doesn't apply anymore on the sunday offers, so you can't stack them anymore.

I see this phenomenon happening more often with webshops which didn't have a strict limit before. My guess is that they have been warned by TLG  in some way not to sell to customers, suspected of being a reseller or to just limit the purchases for every customer. It is getting increasingly harder to order large quantities of Lego through webshops.

It looks like one has to be extremely careful nowadays when purchasing high amounts of a single set. Spreading purchases among as many different retailers as possible and setting yourself a low limit per item is advisable. Unfortunately, this makes acquiring exclusive sets for investment purposes a rather difficult endeavour.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Brian Briggs

[Eric83]

1 hour ago, Yinchuan said:

I don't know if I would consider this a new phenomenon. By the sound of it, it seems you were pushing the envelope pretty hard on numerous sets. If I am going to be ordering multiples of exclusives I tend to fan them out of a good portion of time. I don't believe I have ever ordered for than one of each set in an order except for over the holidays when I got a handful of the seasonal $10 sets.  

IMHO it is better to do a slow burn on purchasing multiple sets, or else the hammer cometh...

By the phenomenon I meant the number of maximum allowed items per customer (per order) Many shops where I've purchased over the past year had a higher maximum before than nowadays. And you're right about me pushing it. In my beginning days I wasn't so careful with ordering large quantities. I guess that has caught up with me now. It only took them 1,5 year  

 

1 hour ago, Brian Briggs said:

It looks like one has to be extremely careful nowadays when purchasing high amounts of a single set. Spreading purchases among as many different retailers as possible and setting yourself a low limit per item is advisable. Unfortunately, this makes acquiring exclusive sets for investment purposes a rather difficult endeavour.

This is indeed an extra wake up call to spread out everything more wisely when ordering. Too many bans and this will prove to be a pretty challenging endeavour if you're after the exclusives.

[EliasFelipe]

On 14-2-2016 at 5:09 PM, Eric83 said:

I ordered 7 with this one included over the last year. Back then the max limit purchase was higher (I think 6). I ordered 6 in February 2015. When trying to order 1 (last week) the ban hammer struck.. 

Thank you Eric for sharing, I just recently discovered the store you are talking about so this information comes just at the right time

[Eric83]

19 hours ago, EliasFelipe said:

Thank you Eric for sharing, I just recently discovered the store you are talking about so this information comes just at the right time

Glad to help out! I wonder if the (more recent) online limits also apply to their B&M stores. I picked up 10 sets (5 PC and 5 PR) last year in one trip and the floor manager wasn't that surprised and was even very helpful. I rolled them out of the store in a rolling container because they didn't fit in the shopping cart   But I'll be a bit more cautious the next visit. A warned person...

Edited February 17, 2016 by Eric83

[Tex]

I got redirected over here from the speculator page, seems like i was a bit off topic and they were kind enough to point me over here,

I thought i would share my experience since there seems to be quite a lot of inconsistencies in who gets "banned" or who has problems. 

You can see my screenshot if you need proof of these orders (seems like some very quickly didn't believe me) but none the less i just want to contribute. 

all of these orders were individual, so 15 separate orders and not one large bulk order spanning roughly 1-2 weeks

6 tower bridges   1 canceled

2 sand crawlers 1 canceled  

1 SOH    0 canceled 

4 Ewok villages 2 canceled

I didn't get a single email saying any were canceled, i only found out by looking at my account 

From what I've read previously and obviously not every page there is no rhyme or reason or even a pattern to being banned, just some of my orders went through and some didn't, i even called lego on the phone 2 times and gave them my account to figure out what was going on, and they were nothing but helpful.