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Marvel Minimates repackagers


MST3KFan

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Okay, so I head out to search for toys today before the Black Friday insanity weekend here and while I found a few Joe and Transformer related things I was looking for today, which made my day...

One thing, kinda left a sour feeling to it.

I went into my local Toys R Us in search of the newest waves of Marvel Minimates and at first, noticing nothing really seemed to have been stocked lately (even though all the other stores I went to had stocked up their shelves before the weekend I noticed). Ithen headed down the aisle where the Marvel Minimates usually are at and then saw the box for the Molecule Man/Spider-Woman 2-pack on the shelf. Excitedly, I grabbed it off the peg, but the noticed an older 2-pack for Irom Man/War Machine Mark I behind it. The War Machine had been replaced with a Thing minimate.

I then looked at the 2-pack I grabbed to see while Molecule Man was still the same, the Spider-Woman had been replaced with the Jessica Drew Spider-Woman from the earlier TRU New Avengers packs, minus her hairpiece.

Honestly, repackagers make me sick. They have no right to be collectors and should have all their toys/figures/etc taken away and donated to Toys for Tots, where they'll actually get played with. Ugh.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone else has run into this annoying problem in Minimates. I've heard of it with other toylines like G.I.Joe or DC Universe, but never seen it done to Marvel Minimates before.

And yet, my search for the elusive TRU 2-packs of Molecule Man/Spider-Woman and Angel/Warpath continues...

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Wow, this is happening again? I remember a lot of complaints from people when TRU first carried minimates.It seemed like almost every day someone was complaining about re-packagers for a while, not to mention finding empty minimate packages lying around from shoplifters.

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I haven't personally seen this yet – something I attribute to the relative difficulty of pulling that off in the close-quarters of a LCS. However, with their increasing presence at TRU, shenanigans are probably inevitable. One of the managers I talk to said they've become one of the top shoplifted items at his store.

The Minimate packaging has the disadvantages of (1) being a lot easier than most toy packaging to get into without leaving visible damage, and (2) minimal viewable area of the toy itself, making it harder to detect a switch. They're a pretty ripe target.

But, yeah. People who do that are scum.

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This is the first time I've ever heard of this happening with minimates. It truly sucks.... however, let's give a big thumbs up for window packaging. Can you imagine how PO'd you'd be if you bought it, took it home, and THEN found out someone made a switch?

When I first got a set of GB2, I was so excited I didn't realize until I got out to the car that my Egon/Jogger pack had a Peter/Terror Dog set in the box.

And as much as I'd like to, I can't fault toy store employees for not knowing every minuscule detail about every toy they sell, which allows these things to be returned in the first place. Heck, half the time, when you ask for help, they don't even know what minimates are.

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It is a practice I have witnessed frequently with GI Joes. It makes me absolutely sick.

This is stealing toys from children, pure and simple. Some Mom is going to buy the pack for her kid, and the kid not getting the toy his Mom paid her hard earned money for. There is nothing lower than an adult stealing toys or candy from children.

The person doing it in my area is a GI Joe customizer. The repacks frequently have older GI Joes damaged from customization attempts. Feet cut off, heads swapped, poorly painted parts, pieces missing, etc.

I don't believe in violence, but if I ever caught the loser doing this I would give him a serious beating. I hope the Minimate repacker isn't a member of this forum.

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I run into this all the time with Joes, and even MLs sometimes. These people deserve to be shot.

If you're going to steal something, just steal it. Call a spade a spade. You get what you want for free and other people don't have to deal with your crap. At least then there's half a chance of you getting caught. When people repackage stuff they can use the excuse of "Oh, it was like that when I got it, that's why I'm returning it" and not get in trouble.

Which do you think is worse? TRU, Target or Walmart?

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I run into this all the time with Joes, and even MLs sometimes. These people deserve to be shot.

If you're going to steal something, just steal it. Call a spade a spade. You get what you want for free and other people don't have to deal with your crap. At least then there's half a chance of you getting caught. When people repackage stuff they can use the excuse of "Oh, it was like that when I got it, that's why I'm returning it" and not get in trouble.

Which do you think is worse? TRU, Target or Walmart?

From what I generally hear it's Wal-Mart where the worst of it happens. It's just really sad that people do this. Minimates are even cheaper then G.I.Joes and yet someone repackages them even!? Geez.

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I haven't seen any repacked recently but back in the day I bought a set or two from TRU for fodder and found COMPLETELY different minimates on the inside then on the outside (don't even remember whom, I think I got a BD Daredevil Instead of a BD Spider-man and some other such switched) although I have seen some boxes torn to shreds recently like someone wanted to steal them then gave up and found a box with Wave 4 Wolverine and Sabretooth only without Wolverine.

Some of the weirder 'return repacks' I've seen:

-A Toy-Biz "X3" (or whatever the offical name for their "X-Men Classics to tie into X3 while not being based on X3" line was called) White Jim Lee Storm being replaced a 5 in version of the character. The figure didn't fit at all and the box was held together with tape.

-a box of four matchbox cars: three of the cars were replaced with poor quality plastic cars and one of the cars was replaced with 3 or 4 little green army men. (at first I thought it was a cute idea for them sell some army men with cars, but then I realized someone had just stolen the real product and replaced it with crap.)

-Someone replaced a Pixar CARS' car with a random mini-motorcycle.... Seriously? The line has like 80000 Lightning McQueen Variants, there's no way you don't have at least 12 similar looking Lightnings if you collect enough cars you ever say "gee, I want this figure and ticket, but I just don't have the THREE DOLLARS for it" at least grab one of those before you chose to stick a random motorcycle into the box so some grandparent doesn't buy it thinking "I don't remember a motorcycle in the movie, but Jimmy doesn't have this one!" only to find they spent $3.00 on a $1 hot wheels.

-A Lightray/Orion DCUC 2-pack: Lightray was replaced with a Hasbro ML Black Knight and Orion with a DCD Shazam! They didn't fit in the box at all and the box itself was DESTROYED... so TRU marked it down 3 dollars! (etiquette question: I really wanted to steal the head off that Shazam since it was better sculpted then the DCUC one, but ultimately thought better of it... would that have made me just as bad as the guy who made the swap or is that a no harm no foul situation since it might desuade a stupider person from buying it thinking it a "rare factory error set!" if one of the figures had no head)

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This is the first time I've ever heard of this happening with minimates. It truly sucks....

I buy all my toys from my LCS - moslty because the department stores here often dno't carry them. As Lobsterman said, this sounds like the sort of thing that can only be gotten away with a large, understaffed toy shops :whistling:

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This was really popular a few years ago, but disappeared for a while. It seems to be making a comeback. We've got one that frequents the Wal-Mart and Target near me. He thinks he's funny I guess. I don't know.

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as someone who works, for Walmart, as part of ASDA over here in the UK, i have to say i really enjoy when people try to return stuff like that. i don't know about america but over here, we have to check everything!!! and make sure all the parts are returned.

i personally love refusing to take stuff back, even when u explain the policy thye still don't get it.

but ye repackers suck, whats the point. its a waste of time, effort and money!

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I run into this all the time with Joes, and even MLs sometimes. These people deserve to be shot.

If you're going to steal something, just steal it. Call a spade a spade. You get what you want for free and other people don't have to deal with your crap. At least then there's half a chance of you getting caught. When people repackage stuff they can use the excuse of "Oh, it was like that when I got it, that's why I'm returning it" and not get in trouble.

Which do you think is worse? TRU, Target or Walmart?

Well at least at toysrus when I show someone at the service desk something like this that I find on the floor, they actulaly put it in the damaged bin and I don't find it on the floor. Target and Walmart don't give a crap. A target by me still has a DCUC Cyborg with the sonic arm piece cut out of the front of the packaging. I brought it to the service desk since there was no line and said told them what's up with it. A week later it was back in the toy aisle.

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i kind ran into a repackager last night,i was at TRU looking at battle star galactica waves and i noticed the leoben starbuck two pack,i pick it up and see starbucks hair was replaced with a dudes black hair i thought it was strange and saw if there was anymore but nothing

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I haven't seen this with minimates but I've seen this with other toylines. There was a DC Universe Classics two pack which was supposed to have Orion and Lightray but it had a DC Direct Alex Ross Justice figure and a Marvel LEgends Black Knight figure. Really? The idiot taking that toy back didn't even look at the package to see what was on there.

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I haven't seen this with minimates but I've seen this with other toylines. There was a DC Universe Classics two pack which was supposed to have Orion and Lightray but it had a DC Direct Alex Ross Justice figure and a Marvel LEgends Black Knight figure. Really? The idiot taking that toy back didn't even look at the package to see what was on there.

.... either we go to the same TRU or several people pulled that switch.

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I went to TRU the Saturday after Black Friday and saw three Super Hero Squad repackaged toys. One had a pair of claw arms(?) instead of the Vulture, the other had Iron Man instead of Tigra, and the third had a Han Solo with one arm instead of Electro.

Coincidentally, the store manager was passing by, so I took the 3 packages and told him that these shouldn't be on the shelves since they were clearly repackaged. He stared at them for awhile and thanked me. Then, he went to the Star Wars aisle and set them down near the Galactic Heroes. I cut him some slack since the TRU was like a war zone this weekend. I just hope they took it into consideration. I could just imagine some kid having this on their holiday wishlist and their parents picking them up without a close inspection. :(

Not to encourage the person who did it, but I was impressed since the packages were repacked pretty cleanly, and the cardback was free of any damage from the tape. I couldn't find a tear or damage to the package to point out to the manager. The claw arms even had the clear rubber bands that held them in place! This person was like the Michelangelo of repackaging. Since I don't collect these, are the packages easy to open? Minimate gremlins are more ruthless at some TRUs. They just steal the figure out of the package. I mean, where's the art in that?

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