Toy Aisle Trolls > Star Sores

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 AT poeghostal.com. Also, please note: I’m deliberately being over-the-top with my condemnation of these people.

Today’s Toy Aisle Trolls comes courtesy of Poester Zach, who came across these examples of holiday season horribleness at a Walmart (of course) in Roswell, Georgia.

He writes:

“So on my recent trip to my Roswell, GA Walmart, I discovered some pretty awful Toy Aisle Troll handy work. Attached are photos of: the Walmart exclusive AT-ST replaced with last year’s Target exclusive AT-ST from the Endor battlepack; the Walmart exclusive Dewback and Sandtrooper replaced with a POTF2 Dewback and a Force Unleashed Trooper; and a Galactic Heroes 2-pack replaced with some older Galactic Heroes figures.

It just amazes me how the boxes have pretty clear photos of what’s supposed to be inside. The Dewback and Sandtrooper, for example…anyone with eyes should be able to see that the swapped figures look nothing like what’s in the picture on the box, especially the Force Unleashed trooper.

The AT-ST is slightly more understandable that it might slip past a customer service employee, but when put next to the real AT-STs it’s painfully obvious.

And the Galactic Heroes 2-pack…sigh, I mean the figures are on top of each other, they pulled out the card inserts that show the characters and they stapled the damn package together (the back of the bubble isn’t even taped down).

Star Wars seems to get hit by these cretins the most; I see at least 4-5 of these repackaged frauds in the SW sections at most of my local stores. Something really needs to be done about this. It’s become an epidemic and hurts all toy collectors and toy companies, all so some weasel can rip Walmart or Target off for a few bucks. I understand that Hasbro keeps releasing fantastic updates of old figures, but these losers have to bite the bullet like everyone else if they want the new versions.

I’d be more than willing to offer my help in recognizing frauds to local stores…I’d love to catch one of these turds in the act. They need to offer some sort of toy education to the customer service reps, because this is getting ridiculous. Or, you know, at least recognizing that a package that’s been stapled back together is probably not kosher…”

I was going to refer to this as an example of Scroogeism, but that’s not fair to Mr. Scrooge, who even before his transformation was never a thief–just a sociopathic miser. The guy who did this is just an ass whose actions, and most likely physical appearance, make all good children cry tears of bitter regret for their lost innocence.

Karmic Payback: He has to watch all three Star Wars prequels in a row with this guy talking the whole way through.