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.

[minicoopers11]

3 hours ago, KingFelix said:

So I was warned by LEGO by email

" Thanks for your interest in LEGO toys.

LEGO.com/service, LEGO.com/shop and the LEGO Stores are dedicated direct-to-consumer sales channels. In order to provide the highest possible level of service to our consumers, we have instituted a policy of not selling or shipping products or individual bricks and pieces to retailers or business owners/companies via these channels.

Due to our policies, your recent order couldn’t be processed and has been cancelled. Any future orders will also be cancelled.

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions or concerns. "

I'm not sure what I did wrong exactly. I didn't try and go over any purchase limits, I did make multiple separate orders in order to get more Nutcracker sets, I didn't think that alone would get me flagged though.

I did an online chat and they said I was flagged for reselling. I do some selling on Ebay, but I rarely ever sell anything I buy directly from LEGO. Any thoughts?

That's not a warning, that's the ban notice. You're banned. 

[Guest TabbyBoy]

4 hours ago, andyposterfan said:

These bans seem to be mainly a US problem. Not sure I've heard of any in the UK / Europe? Is that generally right?

I was banned at the beginning of last year. My LEGO username is unique to LEGO only so they couldn't compare that with eBay or anywhere else online. I think the only way that they found out about me was to probably ask eBay what IP address I was using or simply buy something off me and check the returns address. It's very easy for them to do detective work on resellers if they really want to as nobody can really hide online. I called them and asked for proof that I was reselling and, at the time, I had sold one single set bought from LEGO themselves - mainly because they are too expensive to make any profit! 3 months later the ban was lifted with no explanation and I still order what I want and when I want. If I'm banned again and it's permanent, so be it. Nothing is exclusive anymore and the promos are no longer rare. They can even ban their products from being sold on eBay if they want, it won't take much and it would kill the reseller market overnight.

[mauro23]

3 minutes ago, TabbyBoy said:

I had sold one single set bought from LEGO themselves - mainly because they are too expensive to make any profit!

You are speaking about selling sets that are not EOL...  This has been always risky. When you buy sets at S&H and sell them all after EOL then a ban will never happen to you.

[newbie77]

4 hours ago, mauro23 said:

You are speaking about selling sets that are not EOL...  This has been always risky. When you buy sets at S&H and sell them all after EOL then a ban will never happen to you.

That's an incorrect statement to make at least for people in US. 

[mauro23]

1 minute ago, newbie77 said:

That's an incorrect statement to make at least for people in US. 

I am European and have answered to an European, too... :-)

[newbie77]

7 hours ago, ravenb99 said:

Lego has a lot of that blame as well.  They have deliberately shorted some items and promos that wound up having way more production than was ever let on.  Reseller demand only affects the hot sets as well not the 95% of sets that are in production.  The people that have the connections are also helping bail out certain products along the way which goes on in pretty much every collectible / toy company. 

21312 is a great example of reseller horde affecting the initial run.  With the success of 21309 just some talk on here took out the online stock but the in store demand was never that way.  I mentioned this in that thread a few times.  It was a perfect storm for a week or 2 flip.  21309 had true demand online and in store.  Still it got affected by the horde but the set had collector interest as well.    It correlates perfectly to how the 2 have faired as well.  

Lego has done things the past few years that keep pushing the limits of getting more and more product out there.  Promos are not rare anymore and seasonal items last for multiple years.  They did something this year that they have never done (similar to selling the globe outright a year later).    They are trying to sell as much as they can no matter what the costs to their perceived collectible image they used to have.

You said it succinctly sir

3 minutes ago, mauro23 said:

I am European and have answered to an European, too... :-)

I thought uk went out of being part of Europe or I am living in different world ?

 

Edited December 6, 2017 by newbie77

[Sandwraith]

On 11/29/2017 at 10:03 PM, Jackson said:

LEGO bans are real. I have been banned for a long time and have not been able to find a workaround. Who has ideas?

I've been banned for a couple years now, my story is somewhere in this thread, but i don't know exactly what put me on their radar as my buying habits leading up to the ban were mostly in-line with what an average consumer would be doing (i never bought too much from LEGO Shop at Home for investment purposes).

Anyways i have/had dozens of throwaway accounts that i would usually get an order or 2 in (and ship) before they take a closer look and ban it. I've changed up everything like names, billing address, shipping address, credit card numbers, phone numbers, name, IP address, and finally have an account that has been ban free for about a year. Simply changing shipping or billing address sometimes didn't even work for me.

In short i don't think there's a definitive work around other than having every single personal detail changed, like moving, new credit card, new name? (which not many people can do). Not sure why this account has been OK as i really didn't change all that much, but hey i'm happy. I don't really invest much anymore, so i'm glad i have an un-banned account to make leisure purchases online. Of course i live down the street from a Lego store, so i never really got too upset at the ban.

[lego rules]

1 hour ago, Sandwraith said:

I've been banned for a couple years now, my story is somewhere in this thread, but i don't know exactly what put me on their radar as my buying habits leading up to the ban were mostly in-line with what an average consumer would be doing (i never bought too much from LEGO Shop at Home for investment purposes).

Anyways i have/had dozens of throwaway accounts that i would usually get an order or 2 in (and ship) before they take a closer look and ban it. I've changed up everything like names, billing address, shipping address, credit card numbers, phone numbers, name, IP address, and finally have an account that has been ban free for about a year. Simply changing shipping or billing address sometimes didn't even work for me.

In short i don't think there's a definitive work around other than having every single personal detail changed, like moving, new credit card, new name? (which not many people can do). Not sure why this account has been OK as i really didn't change all that much, but hey i'm happy. I don't really invest much anymore, so i'm glad i have an un-banned account to make leisure purchases online. Of course i live down the street from a Lego store, so i never really got too upset at the ban.

Only thing I can think of is selling current sets on ebay with similar name would be a red flag.  I personally rarely if ever sell anything that is available to purchase in store.

You must be one of the few Canadians as I have never heard of any others.

[Wildemar]

1 hour ago, newbie77 said:

I thought uk went out of being part of Europe or I am living in different world ?

Yes, because EU ≠ Europe.

[andyposterfan]

6 hours ago, TabbyBoy said:

I was banned at the beginning of last year. My LEGO username is unique to LEGO only so they couldn't compare that with eBay or anywhere else online. I think the only way that they found out about me was to probably ask eBay what IP address I was using or simply buy something off me and check the returns address. It's very easy for them to do detective work on resellers if they really want to as nobody can really hide online. I called them and asked for proof that I was reselling and, at the time, I had sold one single set bought from LEGO themselves - mainly because they are too expensive to make any profit! 3 months later the ban was lifted with no explanation and I still order what I want and when I want. If I'm banned again and it's permanent, so be it. Nothing is exclusive anymore and the promos are no longer rare. They can even ban their products from being sold on eBay if they want, it won't take much and it would kill the reseller market overnight.

That's interesting Tabby, thanks for sharing.

Would be pretty surprised if eBay shared your IP address / other details with them, that's would be quite a breach of your details.

[minicoopers11]

8 minutes ago, andyposterfan said:

That's interesting Tabby, thanks for sharing.

Would be pretty surprised if eBay shared your IP address / other details with them, that's would be quite a breach of your details.

I wouldn't be surprised at a breach of details, but I would be surprised if eBay would comply with this but wouldn't restrict (eg, gate) LEGO sellers on eBay, ala Amazon.

[exracer327]

Just curious, is selling used sets getting people into trouble, or is it that people are selling only new, sealed sets?

Additionally, I have been debating about selling my UCS MF just because I know I will eventually get another one, but also the premium price it's pulling right now would give me a few hundred bucks extra to buy more LEGO.  However, it makes me wonder if LEGO is becoming hyper sensitive to people selling that they would be actually tracking MF sales for banning purposes.  There are a bunch of UCS MFs being sold on the secondary market since Sept.  Is LEGO banning everyone who has sold on the secondary market, or what is their rhyme or reason for the bans?  Any thoughts?

[ichiroll]

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.

 

 

[Phil B]

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.
 
 

I've had the same message sporadically for spans of a few hours. Typically goes away. Happens when I do too many "Find in store" searches in a row, I guess they have a detection system that tries to filter out bots (was going to respond to the Grinch Bots topic about this filter existing, now I don't have to )

[minicoopers11]

10 minutes ago, Phil B said:

I've had the same message sporadically for spans of a few hours. Typically goes away. Happens when I do too many "Find in store" searches in a row, I guess they have a detection system that tries to filter out bots (was going to respond to the Grinch Bots topic about this filter existing, now I don't have to )

Right, I've had the same from too many searches in too quick of succession.

[ichiroll]

33 minutes ago, Phil B said:

I've had the same message sporadically for spans of a few hours. Typically goes away. Happens when I do too many "Find in store" searches in a row, I guess they have a detection system that tries to filter out bots (was going to respond to the Grinch Bots topic about this filter existing, now I don't have to )

 

22 minutes ago, minicoopers11 said:

Right, I've had the same from too many searches in too quick of succession.

 

yup, I've gotten it in the past as well.

the weird thing is I haven't done a search for days and it's still like that...

[thermos]

12 hours ago, ravenb99 said:

Lego has a lot of that blame as well.  They have deliberately shorted some items and promos that wound up having way more production than was ever let on.  Reseller demand only affects the hot sets as well not the 95% of sets that are in production.  The people that have the connections are also helping bail out certain products along the way which goes on in pretty much every collectible / toy company. 

21312 is a great example of reseller horde affecting the initial run.  With the success of 21309 just some talk on here took out the online stock but the in store demand was never that way.  I mentioned this in that thread a few times.  It was a perfect storm for a week or 2 flip.  21309 had true demand online and in store.  Still it got affected by the horde but the set had collector interest as well.    It correlates perfectly to how the 2 have faired as well.  

Lego has done things the past few years that keep pushing the limits of getting more and more product out there.  Promos are not rare anymore and seasonal items last for multiple years.  They did something this year that they have never done (similar to selling the globe outright a year later).    They are trying to sell as much as they can no matter what the costs to their perceived collectible image they used to have.

What they did with MF 75192 was legit with 10 years since 10179 was released and a significant redesign.

Selling the 2016 holiday set, 40223, for $10 was not cool.

The reissue of the Taj Mahal was shameless.

[KingFelix]

20 hours ago, boliramirez said:

You have not been warned, you have been banned...

Welcome to the Club !

Is your eBay name different from the one from lego LEGO Shop at Home?

 

Unfortunately I made the mistake of having the same/similar eBay name as my account with LEGO. I never come close to purchase limits with them, rarely sell any sets I buy from them directly and only sell a moderate amount of sets in general. Would they really ban somebody over a few extra nut crackers?

[KShine]

20 minutes ago, KingFelix said:

Unfortunately I made the mistake of having the same/similar eBay name as my account with LEGO. I never come close to purchase limits with them, rarely sell any sets I buy from them directly and only sell a moderate amount of sets in general. Would they really ban somebody over a few extra nut crackers?

I wasn't banned years ago (when I would have thought it was justified), but did get banned last year (when it wasn't).

My impression is that if your order somehow ends up for review, at a certain department (with banning power) - the ban can happen.

Edited December 7, 2017 by KShine

[redcell]

19 hours ago, 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.

 

 

I doubt it's a ban.  B&N deals with resellers through hard quantity limits.

[republicbricks]

Hi all, 

 

I've purchased 40+ times from shop at home over the years spanning back to 2010. Recently, I tried buying ninjago city for Christmas. 

 

I ordered my set, as happy as could be to get that mega monster of a set to then get this email only 10 minutes later. 

 

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.

 

I got E-13 as the code next to my order as well.

 

I tried purchasing it three times, twice on one card and two times on another. 

All three times order cancelled. my info was correct. 

 

I called Lego customer service and they said they would email me but no response

 

 

Funny thing about this is that I'm out 990 right now because they charged me all three times but cancelled the order!

 

 

Anybody have any reasons why this could happen? has this happened to anyone else? any suggestions?

 

Pretty ticked to be honest!

[newbie77]

35 minutes ago, republicbricks said:

Hi all, 

 

I've purchased 40+ times from shop at home over the years spanning back to 2010. Recently, I tried buying ninjago city for Christmas. 

 

I ordered my set, as happy as could be to get that mega monster of a set to then get this email only 10 minutes later. 

 

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.

 

I got E-13 as the code next to my order as well.

 

I tried purchasing it three times, twice on one card and two times on another. 

All three times order cancelled. my info was correct. 

 

I called Lego customer service and they said they would email me but no response

 

 

Funny thing about this is that I'm out 990 right now because they charged me all three times but cancelled the order!

 

 

Anybody have any reasons why this could happen? has this happened to anyone else? any suggestions?

 

Pretty ticked to be honest!

Your account is flagged by online process for one of multiple checks. First of the initial flag for reselling. I am assuming it’s the IP check. Or credit card check. 

i am assuming, if you don’t have multiple accounts then it’s nothing to worry about. Just tell the cs you only want one and others were just a reaction. They would restore within 72 hours. Better to call during week days than weekend.

But if you have multiple accounts and it’s because of that then make sure not to use any of the other ones. Wait until dust has settled. Otherwise each one will be flagged and all of them will be banned.

[republicbricks]

Update on the situation,

My order is now in the warehouse and looks like it will be shipped tomorrow. No email from lego so I called them and they said it was manually put through. Didn't give me a reason why it was cancelled but happy to now getting this glorious set for Christmas!

God Bless all and have a nice night!

[ichiroll]

Placed one order each on 2 accounts at Lego SAH and got the dreaded E10 email.

Last time I ordered was over Black Friday / Cyber Monday where I placed about 20 orders different sets, all items under the limit.

Do I get to atleast use my leftover VIP points!!?

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by ichiroll

[SLL]

14 minutes ago, ichiroll said:

Placed one order each on 2 accounts at Lego SAH and got the dreaded E10 email.

Last time I ordered was over Black Friday / Cyber Monday where I placed about 20 orders different sets, all items under the limit.

Do I get to atleast use my leftover VIP points!!?

 

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