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.

[chinothegeeko]

Any info on Costco bans?

My wife wants me to do multiple orders for the advent calendars.


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Not sure what level you mean by multiple but I’ve ordered 5 orders of 5 for each so 50 sets total. All have shipped


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[DadsAFOL]

Not sure what level you mean by multiple but I’ve ordered 5 orders of 5 for each so 50 sets total. All have shipped


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Math is apparently not your strength. Lol.


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[Bold-Arrow]

2 minutes ago, DadsAFOL said:

Math is apparently not your strength. Lol.


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Now that was funny 😂😂

[RightDwigt]

12 minutes ago, DadsAFOL said:

Math is apparently not your strength. Lol.


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I had to read it a few times to make sense of it. It  makes sense if he means two unique calendars, so 2(5*5) = 50. 

[BrickLover80]

Has anyone ever been banned/blocked at Honey? A couple of weeks ago, I emailed about missing points. Never heard back, except for auto-message right after sending it. Followed up, nothing, not even auto-message. Now, it doesn't show me any exclusive offers anymore. I logged out and created a new account, seeing them again, so it's clearly my account.

And my Vitacost points are still pending. Wonder if I ever get those. 

 

[coelian]

Tried to get two of the santa gwp but got cancelled, think my account may be flagged or something. Last year I lost count of how many dickens I got. 

[Bold-Arrow]

5 minutes ago, coelian said:

. Last year I lost count of how many dickens I got. 

That tend to happen with all that eggnog around these times 

[keymomachine]

21 hours ago, BrickLover80 said:

Has anyone ever been banned/blocked at Honey? A couple of weeks ago, I emailed about missing points. Never heard back, except for auto-message right after sending it. Followed up, nothing, not even auto-message. Now, it doesn't show me any exclusive offers anymore. I logged out and created a new account, seeing them again, so it's clearly my account.

And my Vitacost points are still pending. Wonder if I ever get those. 

 

While I can't speak to your customer service issue, I definitely think they put you in a sort of time-out when you've got a lot of points pending. I'm in time-out right now after just one click on the wizards chess. I was in time-out for a while after a couple Vita-Cost orders as well, but freed up after those points hit my account. Not having any problems with the points not showing up, though.

[keymomachine]

On 11/20/2021 at 10:09 AM, keymomachine said:

While I can't speak to your customer service issue, I definitely think they put you in a sort of time-out when you've got a lot of points pending. I'm in time-out right now after just one click on the wizards chess. I was in time-out for a while after a couple Vita-Cost orders as well, but freed up after those points hit my account. Not having any problems with the points not showing up, though.

Some of my pending points from a J.Crew Factory order have come through, which must have freed up some cap space so I've got exclusive offers again, just nothing I want to buy, really.

[nolanfan34]

On 11/10/2021 at 7:40 AM, brickvoyeur said:

  

 

 

@tyclin Did they provide you a reason yet? Curious if E13 continues to be the death mark. 

So I have not posted on here in a while, as I am not really doing any reselling buying anymore, only personal. I had a couple of cancellations this summer but never bothered calling. Tried to order Seinfeld and Elf House, and use a few VIP points, and got cancellation again. My email is tagged with E13 as well and when I called customer service a couple of times they would not give me an explanation and said the decision is final. 

I've never been a super high volume buyer even back in the day, but did get more than one GWP for sure now and then, I guess if you are only making orders when that stuff is available that must set it off now.

[Thanos75]

Good to see you post. Its been too long buddy.

[nolanfan34]

Sadly it's the dang ban hammer that brought me back to look things up!!! 🙂

[severalads]

On 11/23/2021 at 9:48 PM, nolanfan34 said:

So I have not posted on here in a while, as I am not really doing any reselling buying anymore, only personal. I had a couple of cancellations this summer but never bothered calling. Tried to order Seinfeld and Elf House, and use a few VIP points, and got cancellation again. My email is tagged with E13 as well and when I called customer service a couple of times they would not give me an explanation and said the decision is final. 

I've never been a super high volume buyer even back in the day, but did get more than one GWP for sure now and then, I guess if you are only making orders when that stuff is available that must set it off now.

So SaH are banning for placing repetitive orders with GWP? I thought they stopped banning resellers as long as you stay within limits per item.

I usually place some orders on each day of Black Friday to Cyber Monday deals, especially when there's new set on sale every day

[MrSam]

Hey folks. Has anyone here ever been banned from Zavvi?

Looks like I have 😭

[landphieran]

1 hour ago, MrSam said:

Hey folks. Has anyone here ever been banned from Zavvi?

Looks like I have 😭

What's the ban look like? I placed multiple 2-3K+ orders and was curious if they'd ship.

[flyingpig1]

30 minutes ago, landphieran said:

What's the ban look like? I placed multiple 2-3K+ orders and was curious if they'd ship.

I was roughly 50/50 on my big orders getting canceled last year. 

Shipping packaging quality varied wildly, so be prepared!

[MrSam]

45 minutes ago, landphieran said:

What's the ban look like? I placed multiple 2-3K+ orders and was curious if they'd ship.

To be fair, I pushed it way too far and wasn't remotely careful. I've generally found Zavvi to be a bunch of fools so didn't think they'd notice, let alone care. A decent bunch of orders $1-4K orders over multiple new accounts with the same credit card and address haha. One cashback site had 20% back for new customers...

To be fair, they haven't cancelled everything (yet). But several accounts had their orders cancelled and the full account wiped off existence... 

 

13 minutes ago, flyingpig1 said:

I was roughly 50/50 on my big orders getting canceled last year. 

Shipping packaging quality varied wildly, so be prepared!

Interesting. So they cancelled a random selection, but they still sometimes let you order? That'd be nice.

Edited December 1, 2021 by MrSam

[gmpirate]

Would you did would be considered suspicious activity regardless.

[BRIX23]

Anyone ever have issues with Amazon on personal accounts?  There seem to be a few horror stories out there non-Lego related where people received an email closing their account without warning for exceeding purchase limits.  It's odd to me because some items limited in purchase tell you so if you try to add more in a second order even a few days later, but others do not.  For example, an item I purchased on Dec. 2 was limited to 3 and I bought 2.  Today, 4 days later I can buy 3 without getting any quantity limit warnings.  For this same item I have placed orders for it 3 times Nov. 22 (3), Dec. 2 (2) and today Dec. 6 (2).  However, a set I ordered on Dec. 4 with limit of 3 and I purchased 2 automatically adjusts my cart to 1 saying I was going to exceed quantity limit.  

I guess my question is:  Is it safe to allow the Amazon cart quantity limit warning be your guide or do I need to limit myself from purchasing any sets limited to a low quantity like 3 even spaced out over a few days/weeks?

[Bold-Arrow]

8 minutes ago, BRIX23 said:

Anyone ever have issues with Amazon on personal accounts?  There seem to be a few horror stories out there non-Lego related where people received an email closing their account without warning for exceeding purchase limits.  It's odd to me because some items limited in purchase tell you so if you try to add more in a second order even a few days later, but others do not.  For example, an item I purchased on Dec. 2 was limited to 3 and I bought 2.  Today, 4 days later I can buy 3 without getting any quantity limit warnings.  For this same item I have placed orders for it 3 times Nov. 22 (3), Dec. 2 (2) and today Dec. 6 (2).  However, a set I ordered on Dec. 4 with limit of 3 and I purchased 2 automatically adjusts my cart to 1 saying I was going to exceed quantity limit.  

I guess my question is:  Is it safe to allow the Amazon cart quantity limit warning be your guide or do I need to limit myself from purchasing any sets limited to a low quantity like 3 even spaced out over a few days/weeks?

those ppl most likely have multiple accounts. 

[gmpirate]

50 minutes ago, BRIX23 said:

Anyone ever have issues with Amazon on personal accounts?  There seem to be a few horror stories out there non-Lego related where people received an email closing their account without warning for exceeding purchase limits.  It's odd to me because some items limited in purchase tell you so if you try to add more in a second order even a few days later, but others do not.  For example, an item I purchased on Dec. 2 was limited to 3 and I bought 2.  Today, 4 days later I can buy 3 without getting any quantity limit warnings.  For this same item I have placed orders for it 3 times Nov. 22 (3), Dec. 2 (2) and today Dec. 6 (2).  However, a set I ordered on Dec. 4 with limit of 3 and I purchased 2 automatically adjusts my cart to 1 saying I was going to exceed quantity limit.  

I guess my question is:  Is it safe to allow the Amazon cart quantity limit warning be your guide or do I need to limit myself from purchasing any sets limited to a low quantity like 3 even spaced out over a few days/weeks?

If you have one account order as much as Amazon allows.  Purchase limits change if pricing changes -- hence you are sometimes allowed to order more sooner.

[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.

[Gonkalin]

This is great. Thanks for the thorough breakdown. All I will add is that I was once banned from Lego.com about 7 years ago agter buying $2500 of product in the span of 15 min (in multiple orders...I know now, stupid). The ban lasted about 2ish years and then was magically lifted. Also the ban was not in place inside Lego stores. So it was just a minor inconvenience for me as I lived 10 min from local Lego store that I could go to for exclusives. Everything else is readily available at other online retailers.

[$20 on joe vs dan]

53 minutes ago, TheBrickClique said:

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.

great write up hitting all the main vendors

should always caveat that banning policies are dynamic but the general lessons are consistent

[terrymc4677]

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.

Great post. These have been my experiences as well.

At BestBuy I remember placing multiple orders within minutes of each other when they were blowing out the Chicken Coops for $11. All were for in store pick up, and all went through with no issue. I ended up with around 60 Chicken Coops. I think as long as they have stock they will ship it. Since Lego isn’t their main focus, I’m assuming they don’t care. They just want to move it. Other popular items like game consoles are a different matter, I imagine.

Mods…the OP should be stickied. Good info in there to refer back to without having to search for it.


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