What has been your wildest Minimate buying experience?

[Navaan]

I've had one of the craziest experiences ever buying Minimates today.

 

So this is 'first world problems,' but this is in my head just due to the utter audacity of this whole thing...

 

About a week ago I saw a really good deal on ebay and I ordered it with high hopes and excitement.

 

I got the box today, and as I took it from the post, I lifted the box, and I was so surprised as the box felt completely empty. It was too light and as I shook the box, I couldn't hear anything.

 

So I came back to my apartment and grabbed my phone, and recorded a video of me showing that the box was completely sealed and then opening it, and you could see that there was nothing inside. 

 

I then reached out to the guy trying to figure out what could have possibly happened and he tried to deny that I could ever have possibly received an empty box. Sent him the video and he still refused to believe it. He accused me of opening the box and then trying to reseal it to defraud him, so I sent him a video showing that none of the tape had any debris from the cardboard box, proving that it could not have been opened prior.

 

The guy kept insisting I was trying to accuse him of fraud when I told him that I just believed a innocent mistake happened. A wild one, but an innocent mistake.

 

This has been one of the most odd and wild interactions I have ever had on the internet.

 

I'm currently waiting for him to check over the weekend to ensure that he didn't misplace the inventory, or if he has something else to offer in its stead, but he still comes across like he doesn't believe me. I admit I was and am still a little heated about this, but I'm trying to be reasonable. Some of my friends think the guy is trying to screw me over, but I'm hopeful, it's just a simple mistake.

 

Anyhow, has anyone else had weird situations come from a Minimate sale?

[cylonchaney]

Sounds like you're doing it right. Don't jump to the assumption that it's a scam though it does look a fair bit that way. How could he accidentally send an empty box? And a postal worker risking their job to steal some Mates seems unlikely. Seller scamming you seems the most likely explanation.

I'm going to sell off my collection when I retire in the next couple of years. This is my biggest concern of selling on eBay. Well the same thing but scammy buyers.

Hopefully it works out for you. But I'm not optimistic.

Here's a weird situation with a positive angle to it. Quite a while back, I had someone from this board send me a Unification Spock that was on my wishlist for a while. He wouldn't take anything in trade or money. Said he was doing it for the "toy karma". I've never forgotten that and try to pay it forward sometimes in various ways.

If it turns out you've been scammed, I hope some "toy karma" comes your way to balance things.  

[luke314pi]

We had a customer once who insisted that she return her order unopened because there was a pin-size hole in the box, and that she was terrified that someone injected poison gas into her box and that if she opened it, she would die.

I told her she could absolutely return it. When it arrived back, I opened it myself...

Happy to report I survived. 😄

[cylonchaney]

Or you unknowingly have superpowers including resistance to poison gas.

[Padrino]

1 hour ago, cylonchaney said:

Or you unknowingly have superpowers including resistance to poison gas.

This 👆

[Navaan]

5 hours ago, luke314pi said:

We had a customer once who insisted that she return her order unopened because there was a pin-size hole in the box, and that she was terrified that someone injected poison gas into her box and that if she opened it, she would die.

I told her she could absolutely return it. When it arrived back, I opened it myself...

Happy to report I survived. 😄

That is wild. I have to think you have some crazy stories. 

6 hours ago, cylonchaney said:

Sounds like you're doing it right. Don't jump to the assumption that it's a scam though it does look a fair bit that way. How could he accidentally send an empty box? And a postal worker risking their job to steal some Mates seems unlikely. Seller scamming you seems the most likely explanation.

I'm going to sell off my collection when I retire in the next couple of years. This is my biggest concern of selling on eBay. Well the same thing but scammy buyers.

Hopefully it works out for you. But I'm not optimistic.

Here's a weird situation with a positive angle to it. Quite a while back, I had someone from this board send me a Unification Spock that was on my wishlist for a while. He wouldn't take anything in trade or money. Said he was doing it for the "toy karma". I've never forgotten that and try to pay it forward sometimes in various ways.

If it turns out you've been scammed, I hope some "toy karma" comes your way to balance things.  

It would feel... weird? To try and scam on $30 bucks for this one, and they have 20K sales and 100% feedback atm. We'll see what happens and update, but I am hoping it was a 'I am tired/distracted/stressed/overworked' and a goofy, goofy, GOOFY mistake.

I got this guy I buy a lot of minimates from over in Illinois, super nice. Been buying from him for over a decade, now; he has sent me the wrong minimates plenty of times, missed ones, sent extras once, etc. Things can happen. This one is WILD, but things can happen. I dunno.

[buttheadsmate]

1. No pins but I have a fair size collection of box-cutters  from various parts of the USA which have been inadvertently included with my Minimates .

2. As a 'packaged Minimate' collector I once dared myself to open a sealed Wave 6 Marvel Iron Man Stealth/ Ghost Rider package that had arrived with numerous other early packaged Minimate from an US ebay sale .  I had other sealed W6 Marvel IMS/GR packs but I decided that I would 'just once walk on the wild side '.  I carefully,  precisely, meticulously peeled back the adhesive tape from the package in such a way that neither I nor anybody else would know ,in the future, whether the package was MIB,NMIB ,or whatever , apart from me . Once opened I could admire my new acquisitions in their full glory & then return them to their 'home' where they could ,once more, be at peace .  This all happened about 20 years ago & that moment was ,I believed, going to be similar to how Howard Carter & Lord Carnarvon must have felt as they first gazed upon Tutankhamen . I opened the flap on the end of the package ,nervously taking care that the card packaging didn't crease ......I slid out the transparent tray ........

Spoiler

....& found absolutely Fuck all because the tray was empty .   

That is 100% honestly true .

Spoiler

.........& as far as I know I could be the proud possessor of the largest collection of empty Minimate packages in the whole world.

 

Edited July 3 by buttheadsmate
sp.

[cylonchaney]

28 minutes ago, buttheadsmate said:

1. No pins but I have a fair size collection of box-cutters  from various parts of the USA which have been inadvertently included with my Minimates .

2. As a 'packaged Minimate' collector I once dared myself to open a sealed Wave 6 Marvel Iron Man Stealth/ Ghost Rider package that had arrived with numerous other early packaged Minimate from an US ebay sale .  I had other sealed W6 Marvel IMS/GR packs but I decided that I would 'just once walk on the wild side '.  I carefully,  precisely, meticulously peeled back the adhesive tape from the package in such a way that neither I nor anybody else would know ,in the future, whether the package was MIB,NMIB ,or whatever , apart from me . Once opened I could admire my new acquisitions in their full glory & then return them to their 'home' where they could ,once more, be at peace .  This all happened about 20 years ago & that moment was ,I believed, going to be similar to how Howard Carter & Lord Carnarvon must have felt as they first gazed upon Tutankhamen . I opened the flap on the end of the package ,nervously taking care that the card packaging didn't crease ......I slid out the transparent tray ........

  Hide contents

....& found absolutely Fuck all because the tray was empty .   

That is 100% honestly true .

  Hide contents

.........& as far as I know I could be the proud possessor of the largest collection of empty Minimate packages in the whole world.

 

 

And you still gave me a +1 on the feedback thread. You really are too nice!  

Want to do another trade?

[buttheadsmate]

8 minutes ago, cylonchaney said:

 

And you still gave me a +1 on the feedback thread. You really are too nice!  

Want to do another trade?

Yours was the box-cutter with no blade .

[Barry]

So, not a buying experience, but a receiving Minimates experience...

I would get packages directly from the factory in China to approve items—anywhere from unpainted parts, to painted samples, to boxed retail samples. They would often come through without a hitch, but maybe once every four to six months Customs would hold a package because the declared value compared to what was inside the box seemed incorrect to someone. The problem was that the factory would declare it at their value, prior to any company or retail markups. This especially caused a problem for the packaged samples because the Customs officer would Google what they were looking at and then assign a full retail value to it. They thought the "seller" (the factory) was doing the "buyer" (me) a favour by understating the value to save on fees, even though no money was changing hands. It probably didn't help that the box was coming directly from China. This happened for years, but eventually I got a regular at the on-site UPS warehouse area of the backside of the airport who understood that I was working for a company and was approving production samples. When an email came in saying I needed documentation, I would give her a call and she'd sort it out, send everything through, no problems.

So one day I get a "You owe us, your documentation is incorrect, you need to sign all these forms" email. I call up my regular person, but she says I need to come in.  There's a big problem. I get there and stop in at UPS first to talk to her. She says someone at Customs thinks I'm up to something, they will not release the box, so I have to go down to their part of the building to make my case. When I get there, the Customs woman is NOT hearing it. She's already decided I'm pulling a scam. She's cutting me off and clearly not listening. I explain the process: how we get early material to design items, and how they need to be ready for specific release dates so certain retailers can start selling them before a movie comes out. Nope, she's not buying it. She says I'm the importer of the entire production run and I'm trying to avoid import fees, and that this specific box of samples is something I purchased from overseas, again trying to avoid fees. I explain that I don't handle the whole run, just approvals.  The production run would be sent directly to the US, not Canada (where I am). She continues on that I bought these items. My voice is cracking with desperation, 'I didn't BUY these!'. I'm trying to keep cool, but she's ready to charge me thousands to import one box of samples. She tells me I could be facing charges, and so on. Eventually, I'm flanked by two armed officers whom I didn't even see walk over to join us.

I'm keeping as cool as I can, but I'm extremely nervous and frustrated. I say that if they don't let these in, a LOT of people are going to be mad at me. We need to approve these to keep the ball rolling or there are going to be big problems. Deals could fall through. Some of the items are for the Black Widow movie and they need to be on shelves on a certain date. She will not budge. But one of the officers moves slightly at me mentioning Black Widow. He walks off to where the box is and I *believe* he goes through the box.  He comes back and says "Clear him."

The woman asks to speak to him, and they go back to the box. They exchange a words for what seems like ages. They come back back and, with very few words (she's obviously angry), she clears my box with no charges. She slams the last paper on the counter for me to sign.  I scribble something that had a 'B' at the beginning and ask (might've sounded more like a beg though) if I'm able to leave. She bluntly tells me to 'go'. I casually walked out of the office, head held high, trying to look like I'm a big man who won a big fight, smug grin on my face, but as soon as I was out of the office door, I bolt down the hall, burst out the front doors, and scramble through the parking lot to my car.  I drove out of there as fast as I could before someone changed their mind.

As to what happened there, all I can figure is that the Black Widow movie was public knowledge at that point, but there was no material released from it.  No trailers, no posters, nothing. I can only speculate, but I assume that he had SOME kind of knowledge of this fact, and was surprised to see what he was looking at, and that might have confirmed that what I was saying was true.

Next time I had the boiler plate customs email, I called my UPS contact and she cleared it, just like she always could before.  I never had another Customs problem after that, thankfully. That was enough for one career.

[Liney]

Technically not a buying story, but...

Navaan recently sent me a small padded envelope with a few bits in (very kindly free of charge), and for reasons neither of us can work out- he was charged his duty fees, and then UK customs also decided it warranted a further £23/$30 customs charge slapped on it before delivery, which was more than the value listed on the label.

[Navaan]

17 hours ago, buttheadsmate said:

1. No pins but I have a fair size collection of box-cutters  from various parts of the USA which have been inadvertently included with my Minimates .

2. As a 'packaged Minimate' collector I once dared myself to open a sealed Wave 6 Marvel Iron Man Stealth/ Ghost Rider package that had arrived with numerous other early packaged Minimate from an US ebay sale .  I had other sealed W6 Marvel IMS/GR packs but I decided that I would 'just once walk on the wild side '.  I carefully,  precisely, meticulously peeled back the adhesive tape from the package in such a way that neither I nor anybody else would know ,in the future, whether the package was MIB,NMIB ,or whatever , apart from me . Once opened I could admire my new acquisitions in their full glory & then return them to their 'home' where they could ,once more, be at peace .  This all happened about 20 years ago & that moment was ,I believed, going to be similar to how Howard Carter & Lord Carnarvon must have felt as they first gazed upon Tutankhamen . I opened the flap on the end of the package ,nervously taking care that the card packaging didn't crease ......I slid out the transparent tray ........

  Reveal hidden contents

....& found absolutely Fuck all because the tray was empty .   

That is 100% honestly true .

  Hide contents

.........& as far as I know I could be the proud possessor of the largest collection of empty Minimate packages in the whole world.

 

See, this is a genuine fear of mine. I have had people send me stuff re-packs of Minimates on eBay. This would infuriate me!

8 hours ago, Barry said:

So, not a buying experience, but a receiving Minimates experience...

I would get packages directly from the factory in China to approve items—anywhere from unpainted parts, to painted samples, to boxed retail samples. They would often come through without a hitch, but maybe once every four to six months Customs would hold a package because the declared value compared to what was inside the box seemed incorrect to someone. The problem was that the factory would declare it at their value, prior to any company or retail markups. This especially caused a problem for the packaged samples because the Customs officer would Google what they were looking at and then assign a full retail value to it. They thought the "seller" (the factory) was doing the "buyer" (me) a favour by understating the value to save on fees, even though no money was changing hands. It probably didn't help that the box was coming directly from China. This happened for years, but eventually I got a regular at the on-site UPS warehouse area of the backside of the airport who understood that I was working for a company and was approving production samples. When an email came in saying I needed documentation, I would give her a call and she'd sort it out, send everything through, no problems.

So one day I get a "You owe us, your documentation is incorrect, you need to sign all these forms" email. I call up my regular person, but she says I need to come in.  There's a big problem. I get there and stop in at UPS first to talk to her. She says someone at Customs thinks I'm up to something, they will not release the box, so I have to go down to their part of the building to make my case. When I get there, the Customs woman is NOT hearing it. She's already decided I'm pulling a scam. She's cutting me off and clearly not listening. I explain the process: how we get early material to design items, and how they need to be ready for specific release dates so certain retailers can start selling them before a movie comes out. Nope, she's not buying it. She says I'm the importer of the entire production run and I'm trying to avoid import fees, and that this specific box of samples is something I purchased from overseas, again trying to avoid fees. I explain that I don't handle the whole run, just approvals.  The production run would be sent directly to the US, not Canada (where I am). She continues on that I bought these items. My voice is cracking with desperation, 'I didn't BUY these!'. I'm trying to keep cool, but she's ready to charge me thousands to import one box of samples. She tells me I could be facing charges, and so on. Eventually, I'm flanked by two armed officers whom I didn't even see walk over to join us.

I'm keeping as cool as I can, but I'm extremely nervous and frustrated. I say that if they don't let these in, a LOT of people are going to be mad at me. We need to approve these to keep the ball rolling or there are going to be big problems. Deals could fall through. Some of the items are for the Black Widow movie and they need to be on shelves on a certain date. She will not budge. But one of the officers moves slightly at me mentioning Black Widow. He walks off to where the box is and I *believe* he goes through the box.  He comes back and says "Clear him."

The woman asks to speak to him, and they go back to the box. They exchange a words for what seems like ages. They come back back and, with very few words (she's obviously angry), she clears my box with no charges. She slams the last paper on the counter for me to sign.  I scribble something that had a 'B' at the beginning and ask (might've sounded more like a beg though) if I'm able to leave. She bluntly tells me to 'go'. I casually walked out of the office, head held high, trying to look like I'm a big man who won a big fight, smug grin on my face, but as soon as I was out of the office door, I bolt down the hall, burst out the front doors, and scramble through the parking lot to my car.  I drove out of there as fast as I could before someone changed their mind.

As to what happened there, all I can figure is that the Black Widow movie was public knowledge at that point, but there was no material released from it.  No trailers, no posters, nothing. I can only speculate, but I assume that he had SOME kind of knowledge of this fact, and was surprised to see what he was looking at, and that might have confirmed that what I was saying was true.

Next time I had the boiler plate customs email, I called my UPS contact and she cleared it, just like she always could before.  I never had another Customs problem after that, thankfully. That was enough for one career.

This is wild. Cool of the officer to check and help clear you. I have to wonder if the studio or DST could have sued or filed any kind of complaint for- not false arrest, but like, false mail interference or something or another. I dunno, I would just hope that kind of bull-headed nonsense would get its recourse.

[buttheadsmate]

15 hours ago, Barry said:

So, not a buying experience, but a receiving Minimates experience...

I would get packages directly from the factory in China to approve items—anywhere from unpainted parts, to painted samples, to boxed retail samples. They would often come through without a hitch, but maybe once every four to six months Customs would hold a package because the declared value compared to what was inside the box seemed incorrect to someone. The problem was that the factory would declare it at their value, prior to any company or retail markups. This especially caused a problem for the packaged samples because the Customs officer would Google what they were looking at and then assign a full retail value to it. They thought the "seller" (the factory) was doing the "buyer" (me) a favour by understating the value to save on fees, even though no money was changing hands. It probably didn't help that the box was coming directly from China. This happened for years, but eventually I got a regular at the on-site UPS warehouse area of the backside of the airport who understood that I was working for a company and was approving production samples. When an email came in saying I needed documentation, I would give her a call and she'd sort it out, send everything through, no problems.

So one day I get a "You owe us, your documentation is incorrect, you need to sign all these forms" email. I call up my regular person, but she says I need to come in.  There's a big problem. I get there and stop in at UPS first to talk to her. She says someone at Customs thinks I'm up to something, they will not release the box, so I have to go down to their part of the building to make my case. When I get there, the Customs woman is NOT hearing it. She's already decided I'm pulling a scam. She's cutting me off and clearly not listening. I explain the process: how we get early material to design items, and how they need to be ready for specific release dates so certain retailers can start selling them before a movie comes out. Nope, she's not buying it. She says I'm the importer of the entire production run and I'm trying to avoid import fees, and that this specific box of samples is something I purchased from overseas, again trying to avoid fees. I explain that I don't handle the whole run, just approvals.  The production run would be sent directly to the US, not Canada (where I am). She continues on that I bought these items. My voice is cracking with desperation, 'I didn't BUY these!'. I'm trying to keep cool, but she's ready to charge me thousands to import one box of samples. She tells me I could be facing charges, and so on. Eventually, I'm flanked by two armed officers whom I didn't even see walk over to join us.

I'm keeping as cool as I can, but I'm extremely nervous and frustrated. I say that if they don't let these in, a LOT of people are going to be mad at me. We need to approve these to keep the ball rolling or there are going to be big problems. Deals could fall through. Some of the items are for the Black Widow movie and they need to be on shelves on a certain date. She will not budge. But one of the officers moves slightly at me mentioning Black Widow. He walks off to where the box is and I *believe* he goes through the box.  He comes back and says "Clear him."

The woman asks to speak to him, and they go back to the box. They exchange a words for what seems like ages. They come back back and, with very few words (she's obviously angry), she clears my box with no charges. She slams the last paper on the counter for me to sign.  I scribble something that had a 'B' at the beginning and ask (might've sounded more like a beg though) if I'm able to leave. She bluntly tells me to 'go'. I casually walked out of the office, head held high, trying to look like I'm a big man who won a big fight, smug grin on my face, but as soon as I was out of the office door, I bolt down the hall, burst out the front doors, and scramble through the parking lot to my car.  I drove out of there as fast as I could before someone changed their mind.

As to what happened there, all I can figure is that the Black Widow movie was public knowledge at that point, but there was no material released from it.  No trailers, no posters, nothing. I can only speculate, but I assume that he had SOME kind of knowledge of this fact, and was surprised to see what he was looking at, and that might have confirmed that what I was saying was true.

Next time I had the boiler plate customs email, I called my UPS contact and she cleared it, just like she always could before.  I never had another Customs problem after that, thankfully. That was enough for one career.

Amazing story Barry . There is much I could say* about Customs charges & although I am a law-abiding-type I have done my utmost to avoid them with a fairly clear conscience . I would also add that US ebay has recently become a haven for "odd" taxes that seem to be randomly charged rather than uniformly charged , it has almost killed my US ebay purchasing.

* I once had a large Minimate consignment from the US impounded by UK customs . I'd accept that this consignment might have implied to 'the powers that be' that I was something other than a 'collector' .......I am just a collector.  I can deal with 'authority' (when I have to) & I wrote several missives to 'them' ,one of them pointing out that my alter ego 'buttheadsmate' was actually a leading.... authority  ....on toys & Minimates especially .  I needed these toys for review etc.  I'll keep this short .....'they' swallowed it , I paid a small fee & my consignment was eventually released for eventual delivery .   When it arrived 'someone' had written in large black letters on the address slip 'BUTHEADSMATE [sic] MMMV OK '   For emphasis I had never mentioned the MMMV to them !

-butheadsmate ,a leading authority 

 

[Barry]

On 7/3/2026 at 7:55 PM, Navaan said:

See, this is a genuine fear of mine. I have had people send me stuff re-packs of Minimates on eBay. This would infuriate me!

This is wild. Cool of the officer to check and help clear you. I have to wonder if the studio or DST could have sued or filed any kind of complaint for- not false arrest, but like, false mail interference or something or another. I dunno, I would just hope that kind of bull-headed nonsense would get its recourse.

I'm thinking that if it had been kept, it would have escalated.  I'm not really sure to what extent, but there seems to be some weird drive from that one person to stop this package from entering the country.  The big problem was she kept on that they had value, but seemed to not understand that the factory value is MUCH lower than retail value.  One thing I found after was to say "Parts for pre-release review - no commercial value", which might have helped out.  That and for eBay - "Second Hand, Used ...", which lets them know there's some possible depreciation in value.

 

On 7/4/2026 at 3:57 AM, buttheadsmate said:

'someone' had written in large black letters on the address slip 'BUTHEADSMATE [sic] MMMV OK '   For emphasis I had never mentioned the MMMV to them !

 

That's amazing!

They do indeed check things out online.  Which, from my situation, is my only real advice to anyone (here or elsewhere) when claiming items on customs forms.  I know it isn't fun, but put the actual value.  The less believable it is, more obscure the item is, the more likely they will not believe you.  And if that item is obscure and they can't find an exact match on a retail website, they will assign it a value based on their best reasonable guess on what the item is.  That is what you'll get charged on, plus their fees and such.  So, if a Minimates 2pk pack retails for $9.99, you write it's worth $2, they will clearly know that each of those figures are worth more than $1 a piece.  They will look it up and maybe find a 4pk running at $29.99 and say "yup, that's those toys!" and charge you for the $29.99 instead.

[Navaan]

An update on mine-

 

Guy was innocent.

 

I talked to the USPS, and they confirmed the box got to them UNSEALED. Unsealed and empty. Per their rules, they resealed it and delivered it.

 

I have the name and clerk number of the woman who did so.

 

Best guess then is that either it came unsealed, and everything fell out on one of the conveyor belts, or someone somewhere saw it was unsealed and stole everything, and then just sent it on its way, but the guy absolutely shipped it correctly.

[cylonchaney]

On 7/6/2026 at 12:06 PM, Navaan said:

An update on mine-

 

Guy was innocent.

 

I talked to the USPS, and they confirmed the box got to them UNSEALED. Unsealed and empty. Per their rules, they resealed it and delivered it.

 

I have the name and clerk number of the woman who did so.

 

Best guess then is that either it came unsealed, and everything fell out on one of the conveyor belts, or someone somewhere saw it was unsealed and stole everything, and then just sent it on its way, but the guy absolutely shipped it correctly.

So, is there any compensation? Or just FY Navan?