MISB Scam?

[Aloysius]

I was wondering if anyone ever got burned from buying an MSIB set, eventually opening it up, and finding that pieces are missing or perhaps even the directions. I'm sure theres got to be at least one or two people in the world that have done so, only to find a few baggies of enlighten blocks or something. I understand that it could possibly be LEGO's fault but from what I heard its pretty rare. Im just trying to imagine getting some really nice MISB set, sitting there looking at it, and trying to keep myself from cutting it open to make sure everything is there and I didnt get ripped off. Even worse, what if you ended up selling it and got an irate phone call a few days later..

[Bonaparte]

I'll move this to the general Lego forum since it doesn't seem to be Pirate related.

[Mirandir]

The only way I can think of to make sure a set is MISB whitout opening it is to check it's weight. However to do that you'll need an identical set complete with box and all to compare with.

[Aloysius]

I'll move this to the general Lego forum since it doesn't seem to be Pirate related.

oops, sorry about that. 8-|

[Brickadier General]

Considering that Lego replaces missing parts at no charge, there's really nothing to worry about. :-) Of course, if it's an older set with an older obsolete part missing, you're probably out of luck.

[CP5670]

I might have had it happen once at some point. Can't remember. It's very rare though, and typically involves some common plate or something.

On the other hand, if you're talking about MISB sets bought off ebay, I have been ripped on that twice. One set had an undone seal and was missing a bag (seller ignored my emails, and I only found out after leaving feedback) and another was advertised as unopened but was used (this seller was much better and gave me half price off it). This is out of over 150 things I've bought there though.

[voltio]

I actually sold a "compromised" set over BL recently, a 6209 Slave I. I purchased it on clearance at Kmart, and thought it was fine...but then my customer informed me that someone had removed the minifigures and some of the rare parts! Needless to say, I gave them a full refund.

What baffled me, though, was that the seals were nearly perfect; there was no way to see the problem short of weighing or opening the box. :'-(

[xenologer]

Well once I bought a MISB AquaRaiders Aquadozer, to find that the two chain pieces it uses had a damaged mould.

The ends of the chain with the studs, were like 1.5 plates tall somehow.

And the TLC Service department couldnt do anything for me since it was so old.

(and I'll bet chains are pretty expensive)

And once a supposedly new MasterBuilders Mars Mission, to find it had no seals or anything to indicate being new (or maybe for this odd series bricks dont come in the usual sealed plastic baggies?) there was a missing 1*2grille...

Nothing bad enough to complain about though.

My philosophy anyway, is that I'm not going to ever buy a 400$ MISB set just to put it on my display shelf in mint condition. I open and play with everything. Most my purchases are really for some now-rare part I wanted, not the MISB-ness of the set itself(thos this is prefferable since the bricks wont be scratched or worn).

So I kinda avoid all this high tension stuff, its a toy right? Have fun.

Edited March 18, 2008 by xenologer

[adik_sa_lego]

the worst thing that happened to me was when i got a really bent 6x1 studless white plate inside an MISB Ferrari F1 Pit Stop. it was like it was folded, had to |"unfold" it. it worked out fine but there is a noticeable mark where it got bent.

[natelite]

for old sets, it's quite easy since you get to see the contents inside.

for new sets, you can either rattle it. the sound of loose bricks in bags is different from the sound of loose bricks in box. if you have lots of loose bricks in box sound then it most likely indicate the bags were opened.

for new sets not glue sealed (i.e. the sticker type), you can also peer into the box opening (the slip for resealing).

for new sets that are glue-sealed, you just gotta inspect the seals carefully to make sure they aren't opened. that is in addition to the shake, rattle and roll test. you can tell quite easily.

[jedikermit]

I've only had it happen once--with the first B-Wing set, the box was sealed, but one bag of parts was missing. LEGO was very nice and very quick in replacing it--it was no problem.

[Brickmaster]

I am sorry to bump this thread; But I didn't want to create an entire new thread when there was already one created pertaining to the subject.

I was a recent victim of the MISB scam. But I didn't buy it online, not from a garage sale, nowhere, but a retail store! Target to be exact.

I bought the set, box, seals, seemed perfect. Even the box shaking sounded like lego's, so I thought. Nothing suspicious.

So I bought it and went home, opened it, to find Megablocks. What?.. I was obviously confused and abit mad, so I went right back and tried to return it, after telling them the situation. They didn't allow me to get a new one untill I came back with my dad. Me being younger probably made them abit cautious of the situation.

Once my dad came, they did give me a new set, but this I never expected from a retail store. How did this happen? I've heard it happening to multiple people, but how do they get away with it? Is there any way to stop it?

I know you can track transaction with credit and such, and everything has a certain item number. Couldn't they find who the fraudulent returner was? And is this atall possible with cash even?

I was very disappointed and surprised. First time anything like this has happened to me.

[Donut]

How did this happen? I've heard it happening to multiple people, but how do they get away with it? Is there any way to stop it?

I am sorry to hear about your inconvenience with Target, but I am glad it got resolved. I personally had never encountered this type of situation though I have read news and other fan's encounter with this type of problem. One interesting and rather disturbing event was when a man got away stealing $200,000 of LEGO by switching the bar-codes. Unfortunately there are people out there who give us LEGO fans a bad image. The loss of one LEGO set won't hurt Target financially though I am hoping that if more people find these fraudulent sets, Target might be prompted to start an investigation.

Edited July 8, 2008 by Donut

[AFOL SF]

I have not been a victim yet (knock on wood!) and I hope it won't happen but there is always that possibility. Here's a couple of experiences I've had at a Target store: (1) I had to return a StarWars Gungan Sub set one time because after paying full price, it went on sale a week later. Naturally, I want the difference of what I paid back. Guess what this Target employee helping me out did after asking me if there's anything wrong with the set? She ripped opened the box just to make sure that I was returning the real thing/with Legos inside. And where do you think that opened box of Lego will end up? In a trash bin no consumer will ever see (according to a friend of mine who works there). (2) Not Lego-related but here it is anyways... I bought an iPod at the same Target store. The box was 'sealed' and looks brand new. When I got home and opened it, surprise! It does contain an iPod that was an older model and used! How could that happen? Eventhough I went back to have it exchanged, talked to the manager about my experience, I was out of luck due to the fact that it's hard to convince that I didn't switch iPods... it's basically my word against theirs. The bottomline is, there are a lot of wicked people out there and most of the time (if not all the time), it's us who pays for this wickedness.

There was this other guy who got caught 'stealing' Lego sets in several Target stores. His modus operandi was buy one set at a Target store, then go to a different Target store, with his receipt and the Target bag in his pocket. Pick up the same item and walk out the door. He has the receipt to show in case he gets checked in the door. You're probably wondering how this guy got away for a long time before being caught. It only took a security guy less than a minute to scrutinize the receipt, because in it shows the location of the store and time of purchase (date is always printed).

[Athos]

I bought what appeared to be a MISB set from Walmart, only to get it home and find out someone had opened it, filled it with trash and a bunch of knock-off brand bricks, then resealed it. My first indication that something was wrong was that it sounded a bit off, though not enough to really rouse my suspicion, especially since it was still MISB, with now visible sign of tampering. What really tipped me off, was when I tried to open it. The glue they used to reseal the box was much stronger than Lego uses.

I had to fight with Walmart about returning it, but eventually got my money back.

Steve

[Brickmaster]

(1) I had to return a StarWars Gungan Sub set one time because after paying full price, it went on sale a week later. Naturally, I want the difference of what I paid back. Guess what this Target employee helping me out did after asking me if there's anything wrong with the set? She ripped opened the box just to make sure that I was returning the real thing/with Legos inside.

That seems somewhat rediculous, there wasn't anything suspicious atall? This can't be a common procedure for any retail store.. can it?

[AFOL SF]

That seems somewhat rediculous, there wasn't anything suspicious atall? This can't be a common procedure for any retail store.. can it?

I do not believe this is a store policy. It all depends on the employee what he/she wants to do (whether to inspect each return or not) and how far to go as far as checking is concerned. I was also surprised that she had to do that, considering it was a very nice box. That could also have triggered her suspicion.

[DarkYamiDragon]

This happened to me a couple weeks ago.

I bought the Indiana Jones Temple Escape set off of eBay. It was my first eBay purchase, and of course, I was a little worried. When I got the set a couple days later, it still was MISB but the box was torn up, someone had written on it with Sharpie markers, it was in really bad condition.

When I finally opened it up, none of the pieces were bagged, there were no instructions, no minifigs, none of the hard to find parts, they even took the sticker sheet!

The worst part is that the eBay user I bought this set from suddenly deleted their account, so there's no way to get a refund.

But strangely, they forgot to take the fedora. It was still in there.

[CP5670]

I just had this happen today. I got a supposedly MISB 6549 Roadblock Runners set off ebay (it was part of a lot with two other sets, 6190 and 6856), which turned out to have a bag of random megablocks in it with nothing else. The box was pretty smashed up and there was no attempt made to reseal it. Hopefully the seller will be cooperative.

The 6190 set was also opened and was missing a rare minifig too (obviously ripped from the parts tray), but it has a lot of other unique parts that are in the sealed bags so I'll probably hold on it if the seller lets me only return the other one.

A real pity too. This would have been an excellent deal if everything was as it's supposed to be.

This is the first time I've run into this issue though in almost 200 ebay and Bricklink purchases, so it doesn't seem to be that common.

Edited July 11, 2008 by CP5670

[shislerocco]

I bought what appeared to be a MISB set from Walmart, only to get it home and find out someone had opened it, filled it with trash and a bunch of knock-off brand bricks, then resealed it. My first indication that something was wrong was that it sounded a bit off, though not enough to really rouse my suspicion, especially since it was still MISB, with now visible sign of tampering. What really tipped me off, was when I tried to open it. The glue they used to reseal the box was much stronger than Lego uses.

I had to fight with Walmart about returning it, but eventually got my money back.

Steve

i looked all over the internet and didnt find to many topics about this.

i was recently taken by this scam from a box of star wars lego i bought at walmart. some of the star wars boxes i do not bother to open cause i collect and they are worth more unopen. i opened this one because it was a double and i enjoy building. Opened it last night to find bag 1 had a small opening in it. poured that bag out and noticed from the instructions that it was no where near enough pieces to make the first step. i was so infuriated.

I bought another set at this same walmart at the same time. i guess i better open it to check if it is junk also. i cant believe anyone does this. if i was a little kid i would be even more upset im sure.

[Henchmen4Hire]

Yeah, it's pretty easy to open boxes without any signs of tampering. Buy the box, take what you want, glue it back together, and return it.

At the Walmart in Van Nuys, OMG, either they have jerk-off little kids coming every day or one big jerk-off ripping us all off because all the LEGO boxes were opened and even some of the action figures had been switched out of their packages replaced with other crappy toys.

[fff]

Guys, you frighten me...

I got good deals on ebay in the past... and i remember this fear of "will all the bags be in?" and what i did it was simple, open the seals, check and reseal with my own tape. I havent done with all the sets, but Whatever one day i resell or i open, I know that if i havent checked before i cant claim later...

But if you buy from sellers that usually trade with LEGO, 99,999% of the times the deal is right, and of course there are always thieves and unscrupulous people... let's cross fingers so never cross our path.

Be a little paranoid make us being in constant alarm, and it is not bad unless it is obsessive

[ziljin]

I remember reading a topic about how a guy bought a set and instead of the second half of his set he got a bag from the Mountain troll fortress or something.

[shislerocco]

Yeah, it's pretty easy to open boxes without any signs of tampering. Buy the box, take what you want, glue it back together, and return it.

At the Walmart in Van Nuys, OMG, either they have jerk-off little kids coming every day or one big jerk-off ripping us all off because all the LEGO boxes were opened and even some of the action figures had been switched out of their packages replaced with other crappy toys.

These boxes are not even glued. just tape. after i opened the set i tried to see if i could peal off the tape without ruining the box and it didnt seem to possible.

it is just a real shame that people do this. it only raises the prices of the legos for the rest of us. as it is i will not pay full price for legos i wait until they go on sale.

out of fear i opened up one of my larger sets last night that i purchased at the same walmart to make sure i had all the pieces. luckily it seemed everything was there.

[NickyBlade]

This happened to me with a PSP Go... there was a damaged Go in the box but the serial number did not match the box. I returned it and asked to talk to a manager. He couldn't have cared less. I hate spending money on something that should be new only to find out at home that it's been used.