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amazon sent a warning letter


river41

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Help Wanted

 

Need buyers to purchase Amazon Lego sets on your Amazon account, within minutes of my text message to you telling you to buy. Will pay $1 to $5 per item. Must live in Blah Blah, Michigan, I will meet you at Blah Blah Park on Tuesday at 6 a.m. to pick up, I will be wearing dark glasses and driving a non-descript Ford without license plates. Call me "Jim".

 

(Basically, once any of us know they're serious about their limits, we can find ways around, under, or through them if we really want to. Amazon and LEGO Shop at Home will only catch the inexperienced, innocent, or arrogant once word gets out they're lowering ban-hammers.)

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Was there any discussion that both Lego LEGO Shop at Home and Amazon were actually correct in determining who was a reseller?

 

I'd be concerned if they were banning someone who just innocently bought 5 sets as gifts for his extended family and doesn't know anything about potential resale value in the future.

 

Otherwise, you reap what you sow aka buying 50 funhouses or using mulitple accounts to load up on Minecraft sets is just really making yourself a big and easy target. 

 

It doesn't matter if they are right or not!  They make the decision and we live with it.  They won't care if you have 50 friends to give Lego gifts to.

 

Right now I am reaping $$$ and the plan is to maintain my ability to do so.

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Right now I am reaping $$$ and the plan is to maintain my ability to do so.

 

And this, in a nutshell, is exactly what all the retailers are trying to slow down and make more inconvenient (they know they can't stop it completely) at their expense, whether it is LEGO's, iPhones, PS4's, Xbox Ones, etc. 

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I find this very interesting, since I often hear people say that resellers are such a "small part of Lego's customers" or some such comment.  If that were really true, these types of bans would be unnecessary.  At any rate, I rarely stockpile any one set in great numbers, but I'm sure some people here will be miffed.

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the only true way around these limits is to get off of your lazy butt and get out to your stores on a regular basis to check for clearance deals. I know there are a few members on here who only buy on the internet. that may no longer be possible, at least if you are looking to buy in bulk. face it people. the only good way to stock up on inventory is the old fashioned way. if we all continue to post our good deals and where / how they were obtained, then it will make things a little easier so we are not all driving around aimlessly wasting time and gas.

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As I said earlier.  Diversify your set and retailer choices.  Buying 20, 30, 40, 50 or more of anything is risky on multiple levels.  There have always been limits.  Multiple accounts is what gets people into trouble.  My issue is when people get suspended for buying within the limits put forth by the retailer...that is just anti-American!   :abe: 

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I find this very interesting, since I often hear people say that resellers are such a "small part of Lego's customers" or some such comment.  If that were really true, these types of bans would be unnecessary.  At any rate, I rarely stockpile any one set in great numbers, but I'm sure some people here will be miffed.

 

Amazon's policy has nothing to do with Lego and nothing to do with resellers.  

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Wow JoshTx I did not know you pose as a model on the side... How did they make you look so.. green and scaly  :P ?  I assume the sharp teeth are naturally yours

 

(it is a joke people... a joke.. )

 

Dude...I'd be "stoked" to look like that. I promise if I did, I'd eat the next fedora wearing hipster I saw, pick my teeth with his tibia, and talk about how awesome the "vintage" taste was.

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I think it has everything to do with resellers, but whatever...

 

You do realize, right, that 40% OF EVERY SINGLE THING that Amazon sells is from their 3rd party resellers?  Are you trying to tell me Amazon wants to discourage reselling???  They embrace it like nobody's business.

 

The only thing Amazon wants, and for that matter TLG as well, is for their products to end up in as many customers hands as possible, as opposed to a few.  The point isn't that they want to sell 1000 items.  The point is that they want to sell 1000 items to 1000 people.  They want 1000 customers, not 10.  It's all about engagement, and keeping happy customers.  If every time a customer comes to your site to buy something it's sold out, they're going to start coming less and less until pretty soon they don't come back at all.  So while they can sell 1000 items to 1 person and still make the same amount of money on those items, they're going to end up with 999 unhappy customers (all who now went to Target.com or Walmart.com instead), some percentage of which aren't going to be coming back to make future purchases.  It's not about the present, it's about the future.  This is Business 101.

 

Many items sell well enough that as these stores get and plan their inventory, they know they're going to sell everything they have.  These are the items they put limits on.  They don't want to sell 1000 units to 10 people over the span of 5 days, they want to keep the items in stock and sell them all to 1000 people over 30 days, keeping current customers happy and hopefully adding new customers, hence the limits.  This is why Amazon has this policy.

 

It's easy to say 'Blasphemy!  They're targeting resellers!'  But they are not.  It's just a side effect of their policy that makes it seem that way.  Correlation does not imply causality.

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I heard target just got the same letter! They bought a whole bunch of orc forges, Sat on them until shop at home lego sold out, then started selling them...stealing all the customers from lego.

AND they are keeping the points...and the jor els! Take that lego! And they clicked through here first...pay the conversion too wood shoe!

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Unlike S@H, Amazon clearly stated purchase limits on their site and expect everyone to follow it. Due to their prices, Amazon is known to put strict limit of purchase on their most popular items. This is NOT unique to purchasing LEGO at Amazon. Just be smart and follow their rules.

Amazon often has the best prices so loosing access to this site is a much severe consequences than loosing access to S@H.

ETA: Also unlike S@H, Amazon usually sends a few warnings before permanent ban so please heed their request.

unless I'm totally seeing things, S@H clearly states limits on every one of the sets sold on their site.
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I heard target just got the same letter! They bought a whole bunch of orc forges, Sat on them until shop at home lego sold out, then started selling them...stealing all the customers from lego.

AND they are keeping the points...and the jor els! Take that lego! And they clicked through here first...pay the conversion too wood shoe!

ROFL - that was great!

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I am banned from buying anything on Amzn. In addition to your name, address, email...they record a MAC Address & IP Address when you login. All of this info is used to identify you. We had 10+ accounts, and would order the max on each account, thus deserved every bit of the ban. Funny, that one can be banned from spending too much $. I've known of users having in excess of 30 accounts.  Obviously, this type of behavior is not recommended.

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I heard target just got the same letter! They bought a whole bunch of orc forges, Sat on them until shop at home lego sold out, then started selling them...stealing all the customers from lego.

AND they are keeping the points...and the jor els! Take that lego! And they clicked through here first...pay the conversion too wood shoe!

 

tumblr_lltzgnHi5F1qzib3wo1_400.jpg

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I am banned from buying anything on Amzn. In addition to your name, address, email...they record a MAC Address & IP Address when you login. All of this info is used to identify you. We had 10+ accounts, and would order the max on each account, thus deserved every bit of the ban. Funny, that one can be banned from spending too much $. I've known of users having in excess of 30 accounts.  Obviously, this type of behavior is not recommended.

 

A simple solution would be to set up a VPN on your home network. It's also super easy to copy and replicate MAC addresses now-a-days. As far as the internet knows, I'm typing this from France right now.

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