$200,000 Lego Internet scam !!!

[xwingyoda]

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- Agents had to use a 20-foot truck to cart away the evidence from a suspect's house -- mountains of Lego bricks. !!!

Loooooool, thats a lot of evidence to carry away :D

Read this article here

Enjoy ;)

[Kikuichimonji]

That's the guy from Bartering the Brick, right?

[snefroe]

600.000$ worth of lego? :o

[gylman]

Wow. Now I know where all my money went!

:-D

[WesternOutlaw]

I wonder if authorities will allow him to build Lego in prison?

[Vader]

Yeah he could build a spoon to help dig himself a tunnel out :-D

[gylman]

Yeah he could build a spoon to help dig himself a tunnel out :-D

Actually, probably we've finally found a good use for many of the more useless Bionicle parts - tunneling tools!

[JINZONINGEN73]

http://eurobricks.hosting.ipsyn.com/eurofo...t=ST&f=5&t=2907

:|

[Mister Phes]

I remember the good old days when stores used to stick the price on with lables. I sometimes used to swap the lable with a cheaper price lable, then I'd go to the cashier and pay, then say "Are you sure it costs that much" and they always said yes.

But alas, these days its all electronic and they don't use lable anymore. Or if they they do its something that can't be removed easily.

[JINZONINGEN73]

I remember the good old days when stores used to stick the price on with lables. I sometimes used to swap the lable with a cheaper price lable, then I'd go to the cashier and pay, then say "Are you sure it costs that much" and they always said yes.

But alas, these days its all electronic and they don't use lable anymore. Or if they they do its something that can't be removed easily.

I was a bad boy when I was really young.

...used to change the price stickers on Star Wars figures at the supermarket with ones that were less so my brother could afford them.

... ...and hell... they were charging $7.99 for figures everyone else was selling for 2.99 to 4.99.

Even here, 20 years later, I don't feel too bad about it. ;)

[Deinonychus]

Well, since this story hit CNN.com today it has since trickled down to the point where my local newscast even did a piece on it...pretty interesting considering we knew about this days ago

[snefroe]

what strikes me is the amount of money involved... even if it's just 200000$. i don't think i'd be able to find enough sw sets to come even close. In the end, he still must have paid 100000$ for the lego in just a few years time...

[KimT]

Arw man! That's a lot of LEGO. I bet there's gonna be a lot of eyes on the internet trade of LEGO. I hope it isn't the end of Bricklink. They might just shut it down. ... I'll never see those set I ordered from Swanberg... damn damn damn. :'(

KimT

[snefroe]

Arw man! That's a lot of LEGO. I bet there's gonna be a lot of eyes on the internet trade of LEGO. I hope it isn't the end of Bricklink. They might just shut it down. ... I'll never see those set I ordered from Swanberg... damn damn damn. :'(

KimT

i wouldn't worry about bricklink shutting down, they would probably just move to a server some place else. we've had criminals on Ebay as well, but ebay has never been shut down because of that...

so you still haven't receiced your stuff... Did danish post tell you they lost it or did they actually confiscate the lego on behalf of the US?

[JINZONINGEN73]

Arw man! That's a lot of LEGO. I bet there's gonna be a lot of eyes on the internet trade of LEGO. I hope it isn't the end of Bricklink. They might just shut it down. ... I'll never see those set I ordered from Swanberg... damn damn damn.  :'(

KimT

Like I said in the first topic here on this lol:

Washington County Sheriff's Office

Media Information

[KimT]

Arw man! That's a lot of LEGO. I bet there's gonna be a lot of eyes on the internet trade of LEGO. I hope it isn't the end of Bricklink. They might just shut it down. ... I'll never see those set I ordered from Swanberg... damn damn damn.  :'(

KimT

i wouldn't worry about bricklink shutting down, they would probably just move to a server some place else. we've had criminals on Ebay as well, but ebay has never been shut down because of that...

so you still haven't receiced your stuff... Did danish post tell you they lost it or did they actually confiscate the lego on behalf of the US?

Nope the Danish customs "dropped the ball" and returned the goods as they arrived in Denmark. They claim to have send me a letter - but I've recieved none. So the parcel went back and we (Morten and I) started waiting for it to reach the great swindler (Swanberg) - unfortunately it never did - or i might - nut for obvious reasons he can't pick it up and return it. And now it'll probably get confiscated :(

KimT

And yeah thanks Jinzongen - I'll try that number tomorrow - one might just get lucky :oD

[snefroe]

Arw man! That's a lot of LEGO. I bet there's gonna be a lot of eyes on the internet trade of LEGO. I hope it isn't the end of Bricklink. They might just shut it down. ... I'll never see those set I ordered from Swanberg... damn damn damn.

[speaknspell]

Arw man! That's a lot of LEGO. I bet there's gonna be a lot of eyes on the internet trade of LEGO. I hope it isn't the end of Bricklink. They might just shut it down. ... I'll never see those set I ordered from Swanberg... damn damn damn.

[JINZONINGEN73]

Anyways, they were talking on classic-castle about this and and a bricklink post came up and said that they aren't planning on pursuing individual buyers to retain the stolen goods. Can you imagine how much of a pain that would be if they did?

Steve

Lol... that'd be crazy. For one, once the sets are opened, the parts often wind up being dispersed inside bins of thousands.

I don't see where anyone could be seen as an accomplice along with him.

It looks like his methods involved little more than him, his vehicle, gas in his vehicle, and a printer to pop out bogus UPC's.

I wonder, if he'd only stopped right before this last haul... he probably would've never been nailed.

Or even if he hadn't, merely dropping off the load inside his car first before getting busted might've negated good reason for a search warrant to initially be issued , and subsequently then to his house.

The dude got greedy. I just hope noone else was cutting into Lego like he was. Or that copycat thieves try their hand at this awhile.

>__<

[blueandwhite]

I can't see this doing anything to Bricklink.  They've done nothing wrong, and neither has Northstar (where they host their site).  This is all squarely on the back of Swanberg.  what gets me is how he managed to clear $150,000 worth of inventory from only five stores.  It must have been a shelf stocking day or something, because I've never seen enough at my local Target to equal a fifth of that (then multiply by five...you know what I mean).  Anyways, they were talking on classic-castle about this and and a bricklink post came up and said that they aren't planning on pursuing individual buyers to retain the stolen goods.  Can you imagine how much of a pain that would be if they did?

Steve

The article says five states, not stores. Afterall, at $99.99 a piece, you would need to steal 1,500 Millennium Falcons worth of LEGO. No store caries that kind of inventory! Still, it boggles the mind when you think about it. This guy stole over 1000 sets! There's no way that you would be able to track down and recover all of his goods. It would be too cost prohibitive.

Later.

[crispen]

wow! thats amazing! what a cheater.... *rascus* *rascus*

hmmmmmmmm

[Akkhraziel]

The dude got greedy. I just hope noone else was cutting into Lego like he was. Or that copycat thieves try their hand at this awhile.

>__<

Just a note. Assuming that Lego operates in the same way that most other toys operate, his actuions weren't actually hurting Lego too much, for Target had already paid the Lego corporation for them when they ordered them in the first place, which is why Target was so intent on persuing the fraudulent activity. THat said, it can have other stange effects on the supply and demand pipeline, the most notable example being that Target probably restocked those sets heavily in that area as the computer system would have tracked a major demand. Looking at the Target black Friday sales ad, I have to wonder a little bit.

( Black Friday is the colloquial name for the Day after Thanksgiving in America, the major kickoff for the holiday shopping season. Target ran a special sale on the Millenium Falcon Lego set, offering it for $50.00)

All that said, as for how they might have caught him: Target has implemented an inventory database that is tied to the scanners at the front. Quite literally, in some areas, if you check out an item at the front of the store, it keeps tabs on how many should be in inventory. That said, it is likely they use that system to track what a store ought to have made versus what it did make. It would take some effort, but when a store profit margin is off by a large enough degree to get flagged, it could easily happen. Chances are good they were probably checking to make sure an employee wasn't skimming somewhere.

Akkh

[JINZONINGEN73]

It does cut into Lego though. Though target may've paid for them already, like you said... any restocked ones may've gone back up when they were on significant sale, damaging the profit Target registers that validate carrying Lego for profit.

Though this was so high profile, that all should be taken into account now. Hopefully.

There's also that Lego sets which were already paid for by Target had vanished from Target... followed by appearing for sale from outlets that otherwise never needed to be ordered from Lego... and with a probability of reduced cost along with the sheer amount stolen, it had to hit Lego to some extent.

Lord only knows how much he truly had done that hasn't been able to be documented.