Toy Aisle Trolls is a feature highlighting acts of vandalism to in-store toy items. If you find a ruined package, a stolen figure, a swapped-out figure, or any other such acts, take a photo (cell phone photos are fine if they’re not blurry) and email them to poe@poeghostal.com.
Submitted by: Mike
I’ve got to give a bit of a story here.
About a year or so ago I saw a figure (Daniel Bryan elite) hanging on the legs and thought it looked pretty cool. Then I saw something weird: he had a championship belt replaced with a much older (hardcore) belt from when Jakks had the license. I inspect the package and see it’s taped back up cleverly. I thought nothing of it.
A few days later, I hit another Wal-Mart up to check the toy aisle and see a basic two pack of the tag champions. I see the package was ripped open at the top and see the same championship placed where the newer belts once were. I figured this action was about on its last legs because those championships came from a long ceased box set featuring Hardcore champions.
But I was wrong. More recently (the last two months or so) I check the aisles for these WWE figures for friends who don’t have them in their area and I notice this trend picking up like wildfire.
This has happened in no less than four different stores (a Toys r Us, a Target, and two Wal-Mart stores) offering these figures around my area.
I can see one or two in the same store and thinking it was a sneaky kid, but in busy stores where there’s always a lot if foot traffic, and with packages sealed up almost like they were professionally done. I have no doubt it was the work of a sad, sad adult that feels obligated to taking accessories and build-a-figure pieces from these packages after purchasing the items and returning them to the stores and making a new round of purchases, thefts, re-seals, and returns.
To me, it’s as petty as one can get. It really says a lot of the character of a person when they steal accessories from the packages of many action figures (in the same line no less) and returns them. They don’t think to themselves that maybe there’s a kid out there that really wants one new figure for their birthday from that somewhat pricey toy line and now they can’t get everything that’s supposed to be included because of some disgustingly petty adult that simply cares about only themselves.
When I was a kid, I used to love WWE figures and half the fun was the belts, weapons, and accessories. I just feel bad for the kids around my area that like these figures probably won’t be able to buy what they like without at least something missing from it because a petty thief wants everything but the figure, and the staff taking the return simply doesn’t know something might be wrong.
J.Lee
I have seen some things but nothing this bad. Stolen belts, CnCs, MU pieces like a Captain Britian head. What ticks me off is some stores that just don’t care. Open merchandise on shelves that you can easily see and it just stays there.
Walmart being the worst offender of this. Just sad really. I will admit to buying one item with a missing CnC piece but I didn’t care about the CnC of the wave.
Big R
Oh the stores care. The person at the counter doesn't care, but there is most definitely someone watching the cameras who does. And when TJ Maxx returns cases and cases of discount toys to them due to the product being incorrect, they care even more. It's just not worth the time and effort to charge a high school kid with shoplift-swapping a single $20 action figure. And this is the vast majority of what's going on. But if they can establish they did it more than once, over a prolonged period… that is the type of crime that brings their insurance down for investigating.
It is incredibly easy for a store like Walmart to review footage of every single toy return, and it is very easy to establish a pattern, even if you're paying cash. And they all do this far, far more than you think. You can't expect a 16-yo girl at the help desk to be up on exactly who DC Comic's Omac is and figure that out from the package, you have to tell them, show them, it takes two seconds of your day and is very easy to do.
Ronnie
Yeah. I remember pointing out some crazy-obvious swaps and getting some major props from floor-workers on it. Most obviously, a Marvel Universe Comic Pack that had Spider-Man instead of Adam Warlock in it, and a Toybiz Wolverine (!) that had been returned in the packaging of a ML Daken. The workers were thankful and in a couple cases (like me pointing out they should keep the Lego minifigs on a higher shelf because little kids were tearing them open) changed things around.
Big R
This is an epidemic where I shop as well. It's simply stealing, and selfish behavior. If you can't afford the $20 toy then please, please stop collecting until your life changes and you can be honest.
There are two scams that people are actively running:
a- First someone will buy a case of toys online from BBTS, EE, or some other retailers. Then, they will go to their local store, and buy up an equal number of figures. A few days later, and they return the "duds" from their case en mass. Thus, they get doubles of the "rare" figures to trade or sell or keep; and the store gets stuck with a huge amount of unmovable stock. This got so bad over the last few years with DCUC almost no one stocks them anymore. How does the guy at the flea market get ten or twenty of the rare hard to find figure? Did you really think WalMart ordered ten cases of DCUC and all that was left was Captain Cold or Samurai? They ordered one and that jerk played them! People are even going so far as to print out barcode stickers to stick over the UPC so they can pull this off still.
b- The open & swap as frequently shown here…
A buddy of mine who works for security for Target on a regional level says they are totally aware that this goes on, and are figuring out ways to fight it. Like keeping video records of some toy return transactions involving cash, and there are a few brazen frequent offenders in our area who do this with other items as well (like swapping video games and movies) that they're actively looking to prosecute.
The Flash III
Amen. I don't care how much you hate Mattel, Hasbro, Toys R Us, etc. or how much you feel you're being overcharged, if you're taking things out of a toy package and then returning it, you are stealing and you should be ashamed of yourself. The fact that it is "only a toy" doesn't make it better; it makes it ten times more pathetic.