The cost of these is so stupid high and they only send out by EMS shipping making the cost of these astronomical. But then you know us retailers......just out there to make a buck!! ;)

 

Spencer.

Very good response. :tflaugh

that really sucks spence. i'm glade they havn't forced you to stop selling the replacement bits and wst dinobots though! what really sucks about it is this means there are even fewer trusted retailers for fans to turn to, and if hasbro send a C&D to a3u nothing's stopping them from sending them to other retailers, which would leave us having to deal with shady chinese ebayers. hasbro should Blot or get off the pot, good luck spence, me and my friends are behind ya!

well, if a3u fails to comply hasbro can stop selling them product.

 

I wonder if they even buy directly from Hasbro now (I'd have guessed they use a secondary distributor)?

 

Hey guys! Sorry, have not posted on this board in a while.....a long while it seems.

 

Just thought I would respond to this as the power of Hasbro is much greater than you would expect.

 

We do buy product direct from Hasbro Canada and we also buy some of our product from secondary suppliers as well. I had a good long talk with one of those supplier not too long about about this whole situation and he told me that what Hasbro would do is black list my name and company to all their suppliers, Diamond Comics, Entertainment Earth, and anyone else out there who supplies retailers with product, that includes companies like Wizards of the Coast which is owned by Hasbro! If anyone gets caught selling to me any of thier product they would revoke their supplier to that wholeseller and they would loose their Hasbro account. So even if Iwere spending thousands of dollars a month of toys, no one would be willing to take the chance of loosing their distributorship.

 

Hasbro is a giant in the toy industry and they have a lot of pull. If they wanted to shut me down for good, they would not have too much of a problem doing it.

 

The reason I am being singled out right now is very simple. Someone told on me. Simple as that. Someone wrote in that I was selling them. I am an easy target as I have been vocal about these figures and I sell them as KO product up front instead of trying to hide behind words like reissues or reproduction. I have no problems complying with their wishes but believe me, there is going to be a lot more known to the public before all of this is over. I have a lot of questions regarding these and many other products as well and I am in a perfect position to get some real answers.

 

Also to those who say that copying the original is bad but making other colours is OK, it is still copyright infringement any way you look at it. You are still copying a toy where the mold and functionality is owned by Hasbro. Just changing the colour of it does not make it OK. It is still theft no mater how you look at it.

 

One other thing that was brought up here. Stoping the retailer is not going to stop the product. All Hasbro has done is shut down its most vocal resource about these figures. I have brought all the news for these before they show up and start causing problems for on line shoppers and people spending too much on stuff that people are trying to pass off as legit. I have never had any problems pointing out these for what they are. Very expensive KO figures.

 

And for you who thinks there is nothing but money to be made off these (as someone posted here) just an FYI, I make more profit from selling Takara product to North Americans than I ever did off the KO figures. The cost of these is so stupid high and they only send out by EMS shipping making the cost of these astronomical. But then you know us retailers......just out there to make a buck!! ;)

 

Spencer.

 

 

Strictly from collecting standpoint, I don't find anything wrong with the differently colored KO, but only for the reason that they can't be passed off as an original.

 

So, these KOs even cost you too much money. All the more reason to stop selling them. Perhaps they are cheap when compared to a MISB original but that really doesn't justify the cost of these KOs.

Swoop, Mirage.... the hard to finds. Those two are a big deal to me since they're all I have left to buy in regards to my G1 collection. And diminishing the value in my collection is not something that makes me terribly happy. Nothing like paying 60$ for something and then the price falls to half that a year later because there's cheap Blot being sold in it's place. Additionally, that's not what's happening. Prices are going up on these because of this crap. The KO's go for more than what the originals were going for before they hit the market. That Blot is driving prices up and making buying the real thing more difficult, more costly and more of a risk. And I forgot for a moment who I was speaking to. :tflaugh If there was a king of bootleg I think it would be you. No offense.

 

well, swoop and mirage where always extremely expensive and tough to find in mint cond. i can understand how you feel about your collection, i've just never thought about it that way. i'm always happy when tfs go down in price because it either means that i can afford it, or more people can afford to get into the hobby. that comes off kinda snobby, but it's not meant in that way at all. also, i tend to not keep up on the prices of the more expensive tfs because i couldn't afford them in the first place, then when the ko's came out i just figured, yanno how it goes. i have noticed though that ratbat isn't quite selling as high as he had been previously, or perhaps i'm just checking at the wrong times.

 

And I forgot for a moment who I was speaking to. :tflaugh If there was a king of bootleg I think it would be you. No offense.

 

:eek :rofl

Wasn't there just a big stink about KO's being recalled from Big Lots? I was roaming around one today and they had an entire side of an aisle for TF KO's. Devastator, Insecticons, Defensor, Superion, a random animal combiner (possibly Predaking, but it looked a little strange), and a random dino combiner as well as assorted other knockoffs like a giant Primal Prime and some sort of huge dragon thing I didn't recognize. I picked up Devastator for $8, just to play with him for a while. Never had a Devastator and I don't really collect so I wouldn't be spending the money on finding a real one.

 

Here's a look at the Devastator:

 

He has kind of a gimp leg, but I guess that's to be expected lol.