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Bought 4 of the $100 Sears gift cards for $85 each. Used the $100 eBay gift card purchased yesterday for $80 to pay for it. Earned $27.20 in eBay Bucks. After all is said and done, I paid $292.80 out-of-pocket for $400 worth of gift cards to use at Kmart/Sears. Great deal I think. Especially combining with their surprise points and coupons.

Seriously guys, after a certain point, no feedback = good feedback

Speaking of traps - I recall picking up a big set in store and the girl at the register fumbles and dropped the box, barely dinging up a corner. Not enough for me to care. Her eyes lit up and looked at me-"Oops sorry. Are you going to resell this?"

To be honest, in my ESL ears "please leave pos. feedback" sounds like a demand. And followed by "and I will do the same for you" makes it more so. I can totally see how this gets read as "You must leave positive feedback, or else ...". I'd recommend you change it to "I see the item(s) have arrived. If you are satisfied with your purchase, please rate us using Ebay feedback. If there is anything less than satisfactory, please contact us before leaving feedback". Plus ... I never make my feedback dependent on the buyer's behavior. I submit positive feedback as soon as the payment is made and I ship the item. If they turn out to be douchebags, I'll just block them after the one sale.

Not sure if this just happened: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MJ8ETLM? Friends Hot Balloon for $15.99

+1 on the edit, but it would eat me alive from the inside to have left positive feedback for some lame scam artist. In my mind the buyer has NOT fulfilled all requirements for positive feedback until they graciously accept the item they bought OR handle a complaint / issue reasonably. Getting their feedback first is the closest reasonable guarantee of that, so until eBay balances out the scale a bit, that's how I roll. Initial payment is so easily reversed, it's not much of an obligation at all, really. Besides, common sense dictates a natural back-and-forth process: Buyer pays (" I want this"), Seller ships ("Cool, here you go"), buyer receives and leaves feedback ("Thanks I'm good"), seller reciprocates ("Great me too").

Dumpster is the name of the van of one of their employees. He runs a successful Ebay store.

As I've said before, it's not just a matter of being upset over someone taking an image that you spent time creating. When someone posts an auction using the same custom photo your listing has, your listing instantly becomes suspect in the eyes of buyers. For instance, last Christmas, one of my listings was selling like hotcakes. Then, some lazy individual decided to steal not only my photo, but also closely mimicked my title and description, and my sales for that listing slowed to a crawl. I only realized what was going on after finding the thief's listing. When a buyer sees two virtually-identical listings using the same custom photos, from completely different sellers, hundreds or thousands of miles apart, they start questioning who really has the item in their possession and move on to another seller. So, many times actual money is being lost here, and in that case, of course I'm going to take the 10 minutes to have a thief's offending auction pulled.

All for $75+ shipping.

Sometimes when things don't go well with a transaction (due to a seller being new, or while having good intentions, shows poor judgment), I feel it is much more reasonable to not leave a feedback, than it would be to leave a negative or neutral (and damage their reputation).

For all the talk of Amazon being ruthless for 3P sellers, I'm amazed that they let some people continue selling

did he also take your picture and put it on the wall next to the others?

Great, something else for Harrison to die in.

Town Hall Expansion by Jason Skaare

This would probably go in a thread of delivery excellence, but since we don't have one, here we go. I feel weird for being that guy, but I just filed my 3rd complaint with FedEx over my delivery driver. She is not my driver 100% of the time, but she delivers often enough that I know it's her when she drops off a package. It started just before holidays when Toysrus.com had their LEGO storage bin sale. I receive the 2 boxes and both reeked of cigarette smoke. I mean horrible... Since then, even when I met her outside, she has reeked of smoke and so have the packages. Yes, it's cardboard and the smoke permeates through easily. They drive FedEx delivery vans and she is obviously smoking inside the cab along with the packages. It's terrible and I have to unbox these in the garage and sometimes I have to wipe down the LEGO boxes and let them air out. It started out where I wrote FedEx twice. The first time the message must not have been passed along, so I escalated. She must have finally received the message. Since then, believe it or not, she has been dousing the packages with horrible smelling perfume. Now I have packages that reek with a mixture of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume. It is pungent and you can smell them from several feet away. I just filed another complaint this weekend after I received my cigfume covered box, which inside was my Ghostbuster's Headquarters. It would make a huge difference if she would just exit the vehicle when smoking and not smoke while driving around.

And now if you spend it on clearance/sale Lego, the discount will be even sweeter

Those of you who picked up TRU gift cards yesterday with the $20 off $100 ebay promotion, here are some quick prices of Star Wars sets if you price match Fred Meyer's current 20% off: Poe's X-Wing 75102 - $63.99 - $51.19 Millennium Falcon 75105 - $119.99 - $95.99 Rey's Speeder 75099 - $15.99 - $12.79 Microfighters - $7.99 - $6.39 Death Star Final Duel 75093 - $63.99 - $51.19 Imperial Shuttle Tydirium 75094 - $79.99 - $63.99 Tie Advannced Prototype 75082 - $31.99 - $25.59 Obi-Wan's Jedi Interceptor 75135 - $19.99 - $15.99

I just spent 30 min on one Powerseller reporting his listings. The "custom" lego are in lego category and not lego. It is search manipulation and not allowed. Everyone that reads this should report at least one listing today

Feel free to use my pictures people if you are in a bind...

What normal LEGO enthusiast cares about box condition? That's a gotcha right there. Damaging boxes before shipment is a trap.

Darth Raichu is on point. You only need feeding if you are starting out and trying to build it (or going for a record?). No feedback is good feedback. As a seller, I get between 25-40% of feedback from buyers and that drops down to 0 for guest accounts (rough estimate of 33% so far this year). I leave feedback in batches to everyone, with form replies, unless you make a weird request or message in which case that buyer has to wait. I am much more particular about leaving feedback as a buyer. If something is noticeably off, BUT I am still "content" then I will not leave feedback but if the seller then asks about it and something is off, you can expect low values from me. If there is a problem with the item (missing, damage, etc) and the seller makes an attempt to fix it, then I am much more likely to leave 5 star feedback, even with the problem because I appreciate the effort. Of course, if you package items correctly or expertly, then you get great feedback from me.

I don't see what the problem is, If they reek of cigarettes and perfume then it sounds like they had a good time

That would annoy me to no end. I sure hope the letters work for you in the end.

Definitely a salty buyer. I think it's jut the way you have that statement written. I know what your intent is, but the way it's written it could be taken the way your buyer took it. You may want to lead with a "Ive received notice that your package has arrived. Ive left you positive feedback. Once you have an opportunity to look over your purchase I hope you'll do the same for me."

This conversation comes up about every six months or so and it's the same every time. Some people care, others don't. If you care, take the time to render them unusable to other eBayers. If you don't (like me), don't waste your time. Once you upload your pictures to eBay, whether you believe you own the copyright to them or not, eBay is entitled to use them however they want. Other eBayers are not. That's the right you give up - that eBay themselves may reuse the photo. In theory they must ask you to do that otherwise they are not free to use your picture to advertise your listing in new and semi-creative ways. But I'll say this, and I mean no disrespect, but for those of you that do care and worry about it... I wish I had that much free time. I also think eBay has better things to do than deal with the pitiful few who use other people's custom photos.

If I were so lazy that I had to steal other sellers' photos (especially your peers at BP), I wouldn't go advertising that fact like it's some badge of honor. I find photo thieves often are oblivious to intellectual property laws, as evidenced in this thread and in my experiences dealing with them firsthand. If I catch anyone using my photos on eBay, the auction gets taken down. What goes around comes around.

Ebay's Image & Text policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/image-text.html You should be sure you have permission from the rights owner or creator before you use the following: Stock photos and text Information from product packaging It's usually OK to use information such as measurements, weight, or other item specifications that are necessary to describe the item that you simply can't say any other way. However, you should avoid using any other text from product packaging unless you have permission from the owner to do so. Other eBay Users photos or descriptions Photos and text copied from websites Scans from catalogs or advertisements *All rights/Image property of randrace* I'm merely trying to show the ease in which just about any photo can be easily altered,no harm intended.Please ask for deletion if you so desire.I take my own photos for Ebay.

This is not correct, at least in the US. Straight from the horse's mouth: http://copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#register

This is not how copyright works. You own the copyright to images you create for your listings. If you don't opt-in to eBay's catalog submissions policy, use of your images is 100% copyright infringement, clear and simple. To actually sue over it, you'd need to register the copyright. But that can be done after an infringement; since the infringement most likely occurs online the DMCA still lets you recover court costs in such a case. tl;dr it isn't hard to make your own pictures, stealing them makes you a thief, and while you are extremely unlikely to be held financially liable for those thefts, if you are you will be rendered bankrupt.

A local regular customer of mine who works part time at TRU every year during the holidays shed some light on why some stores have this in stock and some don't. Apparently, some select stores recently had a Nexo Knights build event. These stores were sent two Slave I's to display during the event, and then they were to be sold afterwards. I'm not sure if they will be restocked once sold, but I'm leaning towards no. It appears to have just been a marketing ploy by Lego to get this beautiful set out in front of people. Dad brings Junior to TRU for the Nexo Knights build event, and while he is waiting he spots the Slave I. Now Dad is hooked on Lego too. I'm not sure on the accuracy of this information, so take it for what it's worth, but it seems plausible. TRU has never stocked large exclusives regularly, so why now all of a sudden? I don't attend any build events, so can anyone who attended the Nexo Knight event confirm if they also had the Slave I in their store, and vice versa? My local store does not have any, and no space or tags allocated for it. The store 25 miles away does. This is where my customer works. They had the event, and they received two. He bought one. I'm hoping the other one lasts until Thursday.

You better tell us where did you spot Slave I? http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/14338-truth-tactics/#comment-466670

It's not cool, you just aren't allowed to get upset so much about it

They can't even price match Walmart.com most of the time. You might get lucky with a printed ad and a Fred Meyer nearby.

Getting my teeth into it as we speak, great build so far, you'll definitely enjoy it!!

Built two more sets today. The first one was 41110 Birthday Party. The build was quite simple and I could complete almost everything without instruction booklet. The set didn't use any stickers at all (yes!). My favourite part are probably the string lights. The invitation tile is nice as is the printed box lid that comes in different variations in the latest Friends and Disney Princess sets. My second build of the day was 41173 Elvendale School of Dragons. Maybe it's just me but Friends sets seem to be more straightforward than Elves sets. The blue hue used here looks great and should be used more often. After its completion I added some other Elves buildings to the scene to see what it looks like. With the sets released so far you can already have a nice small village with inn, market, castle, bakery and so on.

So many sets to hate, so little time.

Chain wide, here's what's on sale for 20% off. http://www.toysrus.com/search/index.jsp?s=A-UnitRank&kw=031316lego20&kwCatId=&keywords=031316lego20&sr=1&origkw=031316lego20&page=1 http://www.toysrus.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=031316legoelves&keywords=031316legoelves&origkw=031316legoelves&sr=1&ppg=96 http://www.toysrus.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=031316legofire&keywords=031316legofire&origkw=031316legofire&sr=1&ppg=96

Saw a sign at Toys R Us today: $83.99 for NJ City of Stiix (20% off) ...with that price tag ending in x.99, I bet the 20% coupon will also stack (didn't think of it at the time)... + an airjitsu, + a batmobile poly, for $67.19 ? ... hmmmm... Does anyone know... is this $83.99 a local sale... or chain-wide?

Received a $20 back in surprise points on $20 purchase mailer from Kmart over the weekend. Kmart relaxing the "hot buy" standards has been very helpful.

Isn't it the best? I do love discounted Sears/Kmart gift cards with Surprise Points and coupons. It doesn't get much better than that.

Use the 20% off eBay gc I got yesterday to buy the 15% off Sears gc with 8% eBay bucks back? Gc inception.

Earn those 8% eBay bucks: Get a $100 Sears Gift Card for only $85 - Email delivery http://m.ebay.com/itm/Get-a-100-Sears-Gift-Card-for-only-85-Email-delivery-/281961219243?nav=SEARCH

Im located in Northern New England - about as far from Fred Meyer as possible and I got my local TRU to price match. YMMV but worth a shot. I just argued that it specifically lists FM in their price match policy. The store manager couldn't really argue.

I have been on eBay long enough to see lazy sellers proudly displayed my pictures on their listings, watermark and all :crazy:

And so it begins . . . .

For the 2x VIP we picked up a few exclusives from LEGO Shop at Home (Sandcrawler, Slave 1, Ewok Village, Palace Cinema & the Ninjago Temple). We were thinking of doubling down on a few more exclusives this week, but always in motion is the future and always in motion is the Lego budget... usually in a downward sort of spiral.

Back in the late 1990's to mid 2000's Ebay was an absolute riot. The number of fraudulent transactions was ridiculous. It was basically an unregulated wasteland of sellers and buyers with absolutely NO way getting any recourse for any wrong doing whatsoever. Paypal was non existent, eventually barely existed, and eventually bought out by Ebay. On the same front the Ebay fees were significantly less as was the paypal fees. I want to say that I was only paying 6-7% in fees TOTAL between Ebay and Paypal back then. Very easy to turn a profit. Plus Shipping and Handling was cheaper as well. I think a flat rate USPS envelope was only 3.25 USD if I remember right. Ebay used to be significantly in favor of the Seller. Seller's with high feedback rating would basically be able to ignore any small fry because if you had 10,000 + feedback, one negative wasn't going to hurt you. The feedback was simply based off your total number and there was no calculated percentage as there is in today's Ebay market. Seller's could basically hold buyer's hostage over the threat of a seller leaving a buyer negative feedback. It today's ebay climate, as a seller you basically have to do whatever it takes to make the buyer happy or you could get negative feedback, unlike before, there was always the threat of being left negative feedback as a buyer if you gave the seller negative feedback. Kind of like an eye for an eye thing. There was also no Ebay Money Back Guarantee, and probably over half the transactions were done with money orders..... You can only imagine how that went. Total Disaster again. If the item wasn't as described or never came, there was pretty much no way to get your money back unless you paid via paypal with a credit card and not your bank account. If you paid with your bank account you were screwed. Why were you screwed you ask? Because back then paypal only allotted you a total 3 transactions up to $200 dollars a piece in protection for a grand total of $600 dollars in protection per calendar year!!! That's all you were protected if you either used paypal funds or bank account funds!!! $600 dollars!! And on top of that they charged you $25 dollars per transaction to get your money back!!! So only $525 dollars of true protection!! Per calendar year!! How do I know this? BECAUSE PAYPAL SCREWED ME!! I bought a couple thousand dollars of lego's from someone with a flawless rating, whose account must have been hijacked. I used a variety of funds between paypal funds, my CC, and my bank account. When the transactions went bad, I charged back as much as I could from my CC, went to my bank, and then complained with Paypal. Well my CC was easy, they refunded everything I had with them. My bank gave me back the cash after I filled out a ton of paper work. Paypal gave me back $525 dollars, but I still lost a ton. Oh but wait, then paypal took everything my bank took from paypal RIGHT BACK OUT OF MY BANK ACCOUNT without any email or anything, after my bank already pulled the money from Paypal. Paypal literally just took my money for merchandise that was never delivered. Keep in mind that everytime you checked out with paypal back then they basically put up a screen about how safe paypal was and how it was just as safe as a credit card if you used paypal funds, instead of a credit card. TOTAL FALSE ADVERTISING!!!! I was LIVID but there was not much I could do. A couple years went by, and in 2008 I randomly get a post card for a class action lawsuit against Paypal due to their false advertising about the safety of using Paypal funds to pay. I go to the website. Download some paperwork, fill it all out, listing all the transactions that paypal lost me money on, etc. and mail it back. 3 years later, I randomly get a check for a couple thousand dollars in the mail for the class action lawsuit. It ended up being more than I actually lost. Lesson here. Don't ignore those class action lawsuits. While ebay fees and paypal fees are crazy high these days, at least there is some protection. Before Ebay offered NO PROTECTION at all and Paypal offered a minimal amount of protection, masking themselves as credit card level protection. Ebay over the years has continually decreased the rights of sellers and placed it all in the hands of the buyers to the point that sellers now have to protect themselves from chargebacks at all costs. The fraudulent seller's are definitely getting trickier. One seller recently tried to claim he sent me a large camera lens, and it was delivered to an address (obviously not mine as I never received it) in my zip code. He never responded to my emails and I guess never responded to ebays as he disappeared. But it states delivered inside mailbox. A camera lens of this size would not be able to fit in my mailbox if it was even delivered to my mailbox. So he basically sent an envelope to a random address in my zipcode for proof of delivery. Either way, any package over 750 dollars must be signed for by someone or you are not protected as a seller on Ebay so they automatically decided in my favor because of that. The point is that fraudulent sellers are getting creative. On any high end merchandise I buy on Ebay I always video tape opening the box for proof in case I get sent a bag of rocks.

Buyer: the DVD you sent me doesn't work Me: it was sealed Buyer: "crickets"

Here's a recent exchange with a would be buyer: February 22 (regarding a 13oz bunch of bricks) THEM: How did the Shipping calculator jump from 3. 54 to 6. 45? I haven't moved since last night and neither did USPS increase rates overnite!...It's one thing to have a temporarily sale, very nice in facy... but to make it up in SHIPPING FEES increase?? Was about to hit BIN, but now... rethinking the idea.... ME: I use calculated shipping. I had this listed as a 8oz shipment, which is not accurate. I bumped it up to 16oz to be on the safe side until I can weigh these bricks. I dropped the purchase price accordingly. Thanks for looking, R THEM: Alrighty then... will keep watching it until you get your final accurate weight & shipping cost :). Those bricks are light, I buy A LOT of them! [NAME REDACTED] March 2 (regarding a minifigure) THEM: Hi! If this doesn't sell as listed.... I'd offer 4.00 for it. Instant PP payment. Thanks! ME: Sounds good to me. I changed the listing to 'best offer.' Send your $4 offer, and it will be accepted automatically. Thanks for writing! Cheers, R THEM: You must have me blocked for whatever.... reason. Says you're not accepting any offer from me. Oh well... No idea what I did, but OK... whatever. ME: Oh hi, I remember you. You sent me a message about shipping for another item a while back. You message landed as impolite and I decided to play it safe and not do business with you. No hard feelings. Have a good one. R I blocked this buyer after their first message because my Negative Feedback Senses were tingling. I just looked and they left over 20 negative in the last year including 6 to a well known bricks & pieces seller who had the nerve to charge $2.95 for a few ounces of LEGO. I didn't used to be so liberal with the blocking; but now, if anything seems off, I block first, ask questions later. EDIT: I suspected I might get a spirited reply from my blocked seller. It just arrived: Ahhh yes... I remember you too now.... and if I had earlier, would never have contacted you, LOL! You're the one who kept changed shipping and item price over and over and could not decide what to list for. So I bought from that same item from another... and definitely more dependable... seller. The impolite message must be this last one "Alrighty then... will keep watching it until you get your final accurate weight & shipping cost :). Those bricks are light, I buy A LOT of them! [NAME REDACTED]". That is terrible!! So very rude and totally impolite!!. Look at all the nasty words... I should be banned for life for such a rude and abusive message! Sure don't blame you for blocking me!!! I will now try to survive this crushing blow, LOL! and as usual... buy from another... dependable.... seller.Thanks for the laughs... Oh... no reply necessary, or desired.... It won't be read if you do...I assure you