Mr Greeble

Stolen figs

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Did you ask in the store about the figures? Some stores take them out and put the away safely to stop people stealing them, so they may all have been in a draw behind the cash desk.

D

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Did you ask in the store about the figures? Some stores take them out and put the away safely to stop people stealing them, so they may all have been in a draw behind the cash desk.

D

And the box and book won't be MISB anymore. Plus with current trend LEGO have minifigs mixed across multiple bags in larger set one would have to open almost all of them to find all of the minifig, there'd be risk of losing a piece or 2 plus dishonest cashier can still pocket them.

I often see books with missing minifig at Walmarts and other stores. It's like they don't care because they still try to sell it as new. Same thing with DVD set like Padawan Menance, I saw a few at Walmart with big ripped out hole where the minifig Han/"Ian" used to be. Of all the DVD with bonus minifig there's only one title that weren't left unguarded: the $50 3D LEGO Movie with Vivitrus minifig, all of the local stores have them protected in spider wrap mostly to prevent people from stealing the disc.

Edited by Lego Otaku

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It would almost be better not to have minifigs in the books, but to instead give them away as polybags with purchases of the books.

But then you could get employees stealing the polybags, or you might end up with fewer minifigs compared to the number of books... there's not really a perfect solution, unfortunately, aside from buying online.

It's a real shame this happens. I can't believe there are LEGO fans out there who are so desperate for these minifigs that they can't buy the book. Don't they realise there are kids out there who are potentially missing out on these figures? Pretty shameful and disgusting.

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I've seen this plenty of times, not just on the books, but sets too. My Mines of Moria set had the minifigs pilfered, but thankfully Lego rose to the occasion and replaced them. I don't think this is the case with book minifigs, unfortunately, but it's the case for sets for sure.

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Stealing is stealing, it's wrong, I have seen it many times as well, esp with the Star Wars book that had Luke with the medal. I know we have a Harry Potter book that still has the figure but it took rummaging around to find one with the figure. The problem is most stores are used to it and plan for it. Sad

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I have noticed this in many of the LEGO books with a free minifig. And it is really prevalent in big box stores like Wal-Mart. As long as buyers are willing to pay high prices for certain rare figs, this will continue. I refuse to pay over $15. for any fig, and usually try to stay around $5 or less. This removes some of their opportunity to sell for high prices.

Often the LEGO boxes have torn ends with holes large enough for fingers to take out whatever they want. Maybe we are moving towards the day of having to shrink wrap all LEGO merchandise.

With all of the credit card program hackings at Home Depot, Target, Chase, etc., there is a huge opportunity for thieves to buy LEGO they sell with stolen credit card numbers. It could be that most of the LEGO sold online was obtained that way. All our cc's have just been changed for the third time in four months. And we just noticed some fraudulent purchases that began in January and repeated each month. Fortunately the amount was low, and we are not liable for it. Please carefully review your cc statements. This is getting quite old.

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This is disgusting. I hate going to book shops and seeing figures stolen from the books.

And the worst part is it doesn't seem to be the adults stealing them. It's children.

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And the worst part is it doesn't seem to be the adults stealing them. It's children.

The worst would be the opposite, at least children aren't totally aware of what they're doing. Adults are.

This is why law punishes adults and not children.

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Or with a (not so) price-cut!

I find a lot of the Brickmaster books with their little bag of parts missing too.

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My walmarts don't seem to care for the condition of the toys they sell, I've seen Luke's ripped from the Star Wars books, halo figs with taped up packaging, little ODST pods snapped open and low priced lego boxes (like the smart car and such), completely in shreds. Next time I'm there I'll see if the Luke's survived.

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After making a quick stop at the local walmart (one of them) to check out the Lego selection they had, it was low, I passed by the books and lo, not a single Luke was there to be found. Some were ripped open, some looked like they bought the book, and returned it sans minifig.

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Sadly, it seems that LEGO theft is all too common, and I see it pretty much every day I'm out at the shops. Reminds me of a time recently in my local bookshop where I saw 3 copies of "The Dark Side" book, and one of them had the Palpatine fig pinched out of it, and a second looked like someone had tried and failed to pilfer it due to it's cape being scruffed up and skewed. I returned a few days later, and the only book that did have the perfect Palpatine in it had now been pinched as well. Out of three books, not one had a mint Palpatine in it. And the bookshop were still trying to sell the incomplete books at full price.

And once I saw a lone Death Star troopers set in my local supermarket. They were selling that particular set at half price, yet obviously for someone that wasn't good enough as the only copy they had left had been ripped open, bags ripped open and all the figs pilfered from it. (and on a related note, not to mention the amount of CMF bags that get ripped open in my area...)

This whole stolen minifigure business is a bit of a shame really, and as I said at the beginning, it's all too common.

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They don't even sell the minifig baggies anymore where I live, probably because of them being torn open, like you said. I have to do an inspection of a lego box before I buy it. If it has been retaped, or clearly opened up, I pass. No need to risk getting a minifigless set.

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You guys live in messed up areas, it seems. I have never, ever experienced any LEGO items being visibly opened in any shops I've been to in my country - in spite of LEGO being absurdly expensive here.

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You guys live in messed up areas, it seems. I have never, ever experienced any LEGO items being visibly opened in any shops I've been to in my country - in spite of LEGO being absurdly expensive here.

I agree, I have never seen this in Finland.

But dishonest people and thieves are everywhere around the world and it ofcourse seem that it is just getting worse and worse when the financial situation also is.

One and maybe only solution would be to seal the books with protection.

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You guys live in messed up areas, it seems. I have never, ever experienced any LEGO items being visibly opened in any shops I've been to in my country - in spite of LEGO being absurdly expensive here.

I agree, and its not just limited to Walmart. Although they are by far the worst.

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Just back from Walmart, saw a dented star wars battle pack and a torn open "construct-o-mech" its plastic innards laying nearby.

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It seems to me that they are going to have to shrink wrap with plastic over every product soon. So we can tell if it has been opened and pilfered. This is indeed sad. It seems that four to six plastic seals per box is not enough protection with all the thieves about. I wonder what per cent of the minifigs for sale on eBay have been stolen this way...

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You guys live in messed up areas, it seems. I have never, ever experienced any LEGO items being visibly opened in any shops I've been to in my country - in spite of LEGO being absurdly expensive here.

I must say I have never seen this here either, and we are a bunch of manerless hicks with low morales. It must be something to do with reselling, the ebay culture. it's an addiction like gambling, you loose your sense of right and wrong, you start stealing, you do anything to boost your profit. I think anyway. Who else would NEED a minifig that bad?

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Shrink wrap would do nothing to stop a box cutter. What book has the Luke in it? Walmart is the easiest store to do anything shady at. The store here has 1 LP person covering the whole super Walmart building. Even easier in the overnight hours when they have no LP in store.

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You'd think making all of the set boxes like the smaller versions with the thumb punch area to open it. They could cut it open somewhere and remove things, but then with tape on the box, it wouldn't be the manufactured way...granted, most people working the return area won't question anything, so it wouldn't matter. Short of requiring ID on all returns (like TRU) it might help catch a few people, but fake IDs are common/easy enough to acquire.

There are a lot of figures I'd love to have that I don't want to buy the set, but I don't see the purpose of stealing the figures just because I can't afford/don't want the full set...but that must just be my moral fiber talking..

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