Let’s all hate the anonymous scumbag turd who did this.
Paul on RTM tells the tale:
Had to go back to work early Sunday and pick up a flash drive someone left for me and along the way I stopped in at a Wal-Mart, just to have a look around. No new DCUC singles, but what did I see on the bottom shelf? Yes, the fabled DCUC Gotham City 5-pack. I haven’t really wanted the darn thing, but I did sort of want to buy it after seeing it in person. That is until I lifted it up to eye level and immediately saw that Lex Luthor had been replaced by Green Lantern. Not just any Green Lantern, one of the ones with a reversed right forearm. Also, the scalper-scum had added insult to injury by making his own little crude symbol of something that looks like a hand flipping the bird along with the words “GOT FIRST.” I took the five-pack and showed it to a Wal-mart employee and told him what had happened. He acted like he understood, but as I walked away, I saw him head back to the toy department with it….just all-around disgusting.
Ha!
It's annoying, but funny.
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I collected that line.
I'm amazed that someone would go that length. Totally amazed.
Most of us adult collectors have a difficult enough time defending our chosen hobby, but imagine getting a criminal record for it.
It's beyond juvenile. It's just pathetic.
What is wrong with people?
This is obviously despicable, but I just can't help but laugh.
This would make me so angry since I want Lex Luthor so much.
i honestly am laughing more than i am pissed.
i am MORE pissed at wal-mart and their lack even looking at the package.
i HATE it when this happens. at target there was a joe opened and replaced. i told them to take it off the shelf and the next day it was back up. i did this about 3 times till i called the corp office and complained to the right people since i used to work for the corp offices of target.
needless to say that target has REALLY cracked down on returns.
At a Wal-Mart in a pretty dumpy neighborhood, there was a toy package on the shelf for MONTHS where the Joe had been removed and the only thing that remained was his accessories.
Wow, that's amazing.
I just think it's ridiculous that whoever handled that return somehow didn't notice the middle finger logo added onto GL, and they then put it back on the shelf. I work at retail and handle returns, and we NEVER put things back on the shelf that have been opened, there's no need to because we can just send it back and get store credit for it. This is just laziness, plain and simple.
wow never been this upset at a picture before. ASShole.
nerds gone wild!
Back when I was collecting Star Wars, we'd hear tales of this all the time. I can't believe this guy went to all this effort to do that, but I think I have one that tops it.
In 2004, the Star Wars line had an updated Dengar figure that was far superior to the version from 1997. One of my friends saw one when it was new, noticing the package had been tampered with. Apparently, all this scalper wanted was the backpack, which was missing on the first version. What did the guy use to replace the backpack to fool the employees?
A grape.
An honest-to-goodness, part-of-the-stem-was-still-attached grape.
What an amazing amount of effort for so little.
People really are strange…
I doubt this guy was a scalper. Probably just a pissed off nerd who got a defective GL wanted to send a message.
To Scalpers?
To other Collectors?
To Mattel?
To Walmart?
To all of the above?
Well his mission was accomplished and spectacularly I'd say, since we all know about it.
Or maybe this was the special defective F.U. Green Lantern Variant and you should have snapped it up…
Off the scale douchebaggery. He must be a very sad little man. I hope he gets ball cancer.
I hate stuff like this. I once saw a GI Joe DVD pack where someone had ripped out the Lady Jaye. Jerks. At a different store I also found a Red Tornado with broken hips so the legs were detached, but it did have a piece to metamorpho I needed. I thought maybe I could fix it, but they wanted 5 bucks for a busted toy. So I passed. The thing that gets me is that that package was clearly opened and retaped,so that someone had returned it broken and it got put back on the shelf andyway.
Starting to see allot more of this in my neck of the woods. On another forum we call em Slashers! Removing of BAF bits seems to be the BIG thing to do around here! I will have to admit this guys got balls of steel for doing this.
That's bordering on compulsion. There ain't no way on planet earth or beyond that I'm getting nabbed by the cops for stealing toys. That is beyond pathetic.
it is funny to a measure, cuz yes, it took cojones (or possibly being an employee… that would explain why it got back on the shelf) to pull a stunt like this… but it's also epic scale assholio. like EPIC. i know i for one don't collect DCU anymore, but i truly feel for any collector who has sh!t like this happen. it's really indicative of' a pretty major sociopathy. cuz this is "i don't respect the laws of commerce, i don't like or repsect my fellow human, i don't care about the rules." to the guy who did this… i truly hope somebody catches you the next time you're about a scam like this… and i hope that somebody is me.
I've been hitting the Walmarts for a couple weeks now, and the one in the most upscale neighborhood has one of those new G.I. Joe 5 packs, with the flip lid torn off, and five horrible 1990's Joes stuffed into it. No weapons, no helmets, just five non-descript G.I. Joe figures. I almost threw up. I'm dreading Wave 10.
I'm curious, is this actually breaking the law? If the person at the customer service booth didn't inspect the packaging closely enough and accepted this re-sealed package, where does the blame lay? Of course, the person doing this is a no-good cheating SOB. If you want a Lex Luthor, play by the rules and just buy the stupid MFing set and either sell other figures or dump 'em in a good will bin.
No matter how justified this person felt, two wrongs never make a right. Maybe he felt vindicated by screwing over Mattel and Wal-mart for everything. However, the only people he hurt was fellow fans. I'm sure most collectors will inspect the figures within the package meticulously for details/defects and would instantly spot the error. That said, what about on the off chance some parent was buying this for their kid as a gift and didn't know the difference.
Just to clarify, I don't think the guy actually bought the package, swapped the figure and returned it. I think he brought the Green Lantern in with him and did it right there in the toy aisle, without spending a cent.
That probably makes the most sense.
I think anyone pissed at the Wal-Mart people must have never worked retail in their lives and have no right to be upset about it. If you have worked retail, and are still upset, you must be be an alien or only did it for a week before something better came along and the overwork for minimum wage did not erode your soul and infuse you with a core made of pure misanthropy.
@Andrew: Amen to that. I used to work the night crew at Pathmark for years. Having the public talk down to you and treat you like a dipshit can really suck the life out of you.
I think is funny, this kind of crap wouldnt happen if they werent assholes on mattel first.
I don't think you can be pissed at wal-mart and only slighly at Mattel, It's more the fact of how cutthroat toy collectors have gotten that gets to me…
As someone who has worked retail for five years, the store could be blameless until they were informed of what happened and put it back on the shelf anyway, at that point they allowed sheer laziness/stupidity to take the wheel. But heaven forbid logic come into play here….
they deserve it…all the defective dc figures , the gleek crap , the wave 5 mess…etc they've been screwing with us , why not return the favor?
forgot about the upcoming price hike
SUCK IT MATTEL
A few weeks ago I was in a TRU and noticed some ROC G.I. Joe figures which had been returned repackaged with older figures and accessories. I showed the manager, who is a really great guy, and he explained to me that TRU, following some laws that apparently Walmart pushed to get passed, is prosecuting every instance of this as fraud. In fact, it is considered a federal crime. I inquired into it a bit and found out about another TRU which prosecuted a guy for doing this same type of thing, and he ended up with a 20,000 dollar fine for fraud!
You guys up there are truly hilarious.
"balls of steel"
"Or maybe this was the special defective F.U. Green Lantern Variant and you should have snapped it up…"
" What did the guy use to replace the backpack to fool the employees? A grape.An honest-to-goodness"
And this is just classic off the wall shit:
"Off the scale douchebaggery. He must be a very sad little man. I hope he gets ball cancer."
@Santo: so screwing over other fans makes it right because mattel sucks?
@Poe:
You think so? I can't imagine a thief taking the time to place a new figure in the package.
@prftktear:
OF COURSE ITS BREAKING THE LAW. what, seriously? returning a product that is not the product you purchased constitutes fraud, whether or not the customer service employee gives you a refund or not.
as far as this asshole, this is new levels of low. it's one thing to be an uber douche and swap figures because you feel liek for some reason you should get toys for free, it's another thing to shove it in everyone else's face that not only did you get the product first, but you fooled some minimum wage employee so you didn't pay for anything.
i mean, where is this guy going to post his "find" and not be bitched at? "hey dudes not only did i get the 5 pack first, but i totally took a dump on everyone else by returning it with swapped figures plus a little eff you thrown in for good measure".
this guy can be proud that he got his 5 pack first, for he is the first pimply overweight socially inept adult toy collector on his block to own this set, thanks to his lack of a day job that would prevent him from doing nothing but skulking around toy store aisles all day and arguing with the customer service employees over returns.
This is the greatest toy-prank of all time.
xD
Lighten-up people, the toy-community needs more humor, surprisingly.
this is one of those instances where i get mad at how someone could fuck with someone else and get away with it. this, after i'd dropped about 60 bucks on DCUC figures from ebay scum who didnt send me shit and Paypal wont refund me because of some technicality. People like that should have their throats slit
This isn't funny, it's disgusting. How many kids saw that finger? And he's not saying screw you Mattel, he's saying screw you to fellow toy collectors. I really don't get why people think this is cool. Just because you don't like Mattel, doesn't make it okay to commit fraud and act like a jerk to your fellow collectors.
Andrew,I work retail,and I admit sometimes it gets you down,but I'm pretty sure I would notice a goddamn middle finger drawn on the toy.
I'm sorry, but that's hilarious.
I actually ended up benefiting from a situation like this. . . guy had an Eradicator from Wave 5 up on eBay, except it was quite obviously ML Bucky in the package. If you looked closely enough at the pic, though, you could see the CAC bit was still in the package. I didn't give a shit about Eradicator, so I got the bit fairly cheap.
It was still a dick move on the part of whoever did it initially, but it still worked out for me, because it was the last part of Metallo I needed, so win? I guess?
I was musing on how easy it actually is for them to do this not long ago with box sets.
I know because if I find a box set I usually buy up all of them very carefully and cherry pick the best painted figures before resealing the ones I don't choose in package and resealing and returning it.
Or at least I did with the Marvel Legends box sets because of the paint. The DCUC 2-packs it was more about finding figures that weren't warped.
I never took liberties myself but I couldn't help thinking the that it must be so easy to do so. All you have to do is slit the tape and slide the tray out.
That should say "opened them very carefully"
Apparently I can't use the edit feature from my phone.
@americanhyena: More power to you I guess then. Please don't take this the wrong way, but even thats a little morally gray if you ask me. Its one thing to cherry pick from whats on the shelf, but buying up several sets only to re-seal them and return them, eeh… I suppose there is nothing really illegal going on, as long as you're returning the merch as opened/defective.
@PrfktTear:
Except of course for the fact that they weren't really defective and that would be a lot of wasted merchandise.
Meh…the store clerks knew I was doing it and had no problem putting the stuff back on the shelves. Anyone else buying the set got the exact same toys I did in the exact direct-from-the-store condition. So…*shrugs* not feeling to terribly guilty, no.
@Poe:
I gotta call highly unlikely on the guy doing the swap in store for a variety of reasons.
A) The idea that he would have the Green Lantern with him would mean he would either have to be carrying around a doctored Green Lantern figure with him while he went toy shopping OR that he saw the package in store, left to go get the Green Lantern and came back. So either he's a complete wackjob or he's going to leave a super rare, highly sought after item behind in a store to play a prank.
B) Getting that particular figure out of that particular box is not going to be a quick "slash and grab" process. He's got to have a blade with him to get through the tape, THEN get the tray far enough out of the package to get to the center figure, THEN cut through the rubber bands or struggle to get the figure free of them. You'd have to be SUPER ballsy to try that in a crowded store like Walmart.
WHY would you even do that?!
I see it a few different ways. Yes, what he did was dishonest and juvenile, but he also now has a Lex Luthor figure that is only available in a set of 5 figures costing $55 (if you find it at a walmart). Online it's upward of $100+. Lex is the only really unique fig in the set. The Superman and Batman are repaints that are coming out by themselves later. Two Face is a repaint of the DCSH version and Catwoman is not classic Catwoman, but based on a modern video game appearance I believe. So partly I blame Mattel for not just making Lex a carded figure. Next, yes if there is one thing Walmart customer service employees need to be trained in, it's returns like these, but truth is they don't check, wouldn't know, don't care, aren't trained to do so or all of the above. That's managment's fault. Hourly employees shouldn't have to train themselves. Hey I collect these and this doesn't bother me too much. I'd probably laugh if I saw it, because I feel this set is a rip off anyway.
Yeah, the guy is a a-hole, but this has been going on for some time. I remember looking for 12" G.I. Joe figures and finding 12" cheap generic soldiers in their package. I've seen cheap CORPS figures in 3&3/4" Joe sets too. Not just at Walmarts, but at Toys R Us and Target. If I feel bad for anyone in this, it's the collector that got excited when he/she found it at Walmart and got this guy's dumb ass GL with note attached.
@Bman:
Mattel didn't have to put Luthor out as a single and its ridiculous IMO to think they should be "blamed" or punished for not doing it.
He stole the Luthor figure, plain and simple.
And this set isn't a rip-off all things considered, it's actually one of the better box sets as far as contents go, it has two very hard to find figures in Catwoman and Two-Face, the all new Lex Luthor, and the first Superman in DCUC with his normal look, no long hair or red eyes, and a repaint of the Detective Batman in his arguably more popular colors, as opposed to the hard to come by black and gray Batman from DCSH. To say that because Mattel actually put some thought into the lineup and *gasp and swoon* made every figure worthwhile in their own way so almost anyone has something worth having in the boxset is ridiculous. If you think its a ripoff, then you have no right to anything in it, you don't get to steal something because they were so mean and made you want it.
@Valo487: You're right. If you add up what it would cost for DCSH Catwoman and Two Face alone, I bet it'd be more than the cost of this set. Okay, you want Black & Gray Batman? I haven't looked on eBay for a while, but from what I understand he still fetches a tidy sum. Then you've got classic Superman, and Lex Luthor. I think a lot of thought went into this set, and for only about $60.
Does anyone know how many of these 5-packs come per case? I visited my local WM Super Center on the way home around 3.30 in the morning. I was scoping out the paletes, and saw a case of them, but they were at the bottom and the entire palette was shrink wrapped. Needless to say I didn't bother trying to get at it. I sent out a couple texts alerting friends in the area, and from what I've been told they were gone by 2pm the next day — less than 12 hours.
@PrfktTear:
That doesn't mean they didn't put them out, It happened to me as well, I saw them and then went back the next day didn't see it on display; 3 weeks later found them and got it. I think Im going to pull this little stunt, hated the guy for doing it, but Fuck Mattel and Walmart.I'm not going to but the little paper and Ill put in Mullet Supes and Blue Bats, and probably an orion for lex luther….and leave two face and catwoman untouched.