Mattel Disney Pixar Diecast CARS: Don’t Be an Idiot or a Grinch
“Josh F’ found this in the San Jose CA area …
If you see this on the shelves, be sure and report it or if you have a cart, take it up to customer service.
And of course, if someone from the area where the stores were ripped off and some seller has these listed on eBay – clearly you might be dealing with an unethical person so be very careful if buying “OPEN” CARS on eBay especially if they have a few to sell from a set. If they are also selling a Whee Hoo & a Christmas McQueen, that of course is fine to break up a set but if they have just a stock of Santa CARS? Or some other sought after car from a full set? Hummmm….
And of course, they’re really not that bright so why would you deal with an idiot … They drove to a store to buy a $20 item, replaced it with $11.00 worth of Toon singles (with CA tax). They had to spend $5 to buy glue and spend another few bucks and their time driving it back to the store – sweating out the clerk doesn’t notice to call the police or security. Not to mention the gas to drive to the store to buy the Toons. Most Santa CARS loose seem to be listed for selling for around $12 and another few bucks for a loose Whee Hoo mater (who is available as a sealed single for $6.29) so if they can sell it loose … so after eBay fees, Paypal, glue, gas driving back and forth and a drive to the post office, what do they net per set? $10? $15? Yes, you a criminal MASTERMIND. Bwahahaha … how much will bail be when you are arrested for fraud and theft? Be sure to make enough and set it aside for that? This Lego thief bail – $250,000.
Or just look at yourself in the mirror and point to your reflection and say out loud, “I am fully utilizing my entire brain capacity and creative skills and 6-hours plus gas to net $40! I am so smart. S-A-M-R-T!”
“Toyzindahood” also sent along a photo from a few weeks ago … another GENIUS at Target … A $29 set replaced with $22 worth of CARS (with tax) not to mention the drive, expenses, time and “creativity,” spent … what did you do with your extra $7 you netted? Buy a bag of shrimp from the guy at the freeway offramp?
Yes, collecting CARS is not the cheapest hobby in the world but it is a hobby. Don’t sell out YOURSELF for LITERALLY a few dollars. Clearly the people who did these has some brains and even creativity and attention to detail – they made sure to reseal it so it looks good enough for new and glue or twist tie the other CARS back into the box but they should be asking themselves – is this really all they are? That they have decided to enlist their entire brainpower not to mention all their free time for THIS? Really? It’s one thing not to be smart but to choose to be stupid?
What’s your next caper? Punching a police horse and shouting, “There’s no Santa Claus?”
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4 December 2010
31 Comments
It irritates me as much as you all when I see these swaps, but for goodness sakes…Matty is begging for this stuff to happen when they set their price points at 29.99 for 4 cars. I passed on these awesome cars because they are just too darn expensive.
Showed this to my son and he was like 😯
Very sad really..and very ignorants the customer service people at the store!
Thornton, Co
Dec. 4th.
In reading all of these comments, I am thinking–you know, who but car collectors like us, would know the packaging and contents were incorrect? We all know – but not the lay person. They really don’t know or care like we do.
There are some nice cars in those packs!!!!!
Of course you are assuming that they paid full price for the swapped out cars…
Could have gotten the Cars on a sale… or could have found some that “fell off a truck” so to speak… they may have paid nothing at all for the swapped out Cars.
Maybe they have been “collecting” generic cars to to the swap out… Easier to “collect” a car or 2 at a time then to try to “collect” the box set and walk it out the store.
And by “collecting” I mean purchasing with the ‘ole five finger discount.
Maybe the eBay sellers of these “error” packaging did indeed buy them at the store and thought they hit variant gold… maybe an entirely different animal did the swapping.
it has been said here many times… I am always wary of buying loose Cars off any auction site… especially with buy it nows at or below regular retail…
I really hate when they do this…. trash of people… really. Scum of collectors. Here’s the fact… if you can’t afford to buy Cars, then don’t steal them. Buy Food instead of doing this. Such a shame…
Two of these sets are on Ebay so I doubt this is someone replacing cars and returning. It more than likely happened at the factory. Remember the TRU 5-Pack where they replaced Mia & Tia with two Lightning’s not too long ago. I found around 20 of these sets at a local TRU. I doubt someone went through the trouble to buy and return 20 of those. Probably same thing here.
Keep in mind where these things are made. If they can substitute plastic for baby formula and not care if toys have lead paint what’s a few substituted cars in our sets? Think about it.
look down. already posted the link. Did not sell.
When I find these altered sets, before I take it to the service desk, I take out my trusty writing instrument and start writing all over the box. I write this set has been altered and the cars or action figures have been illegally swapped and returned. I make sure no unsuspecting grandparent will buy the product.
Stated many times before that the big box stores do not have any ‘associates’ or mini managers who know anything about the products they are selling.
And to variation collectors-these are NOT variants. Legitimate packaging errors are NOT variants. Cars with mismatched wheels, missing or incorrect decals are NOT variants. These are the products of poor quality control. Buy or bid accordingly!
Steve – marking up any non-purchased product without the consent of the store would equate to vandalism.
Theft, plain and simple… some could happen before they get to the stores… others at the stores.
One of the worst I saw was the Target 4 pack with Revolting… Revolting and one of the Big 3 (McQueen, Chick, King) were in the box… the other 2 had been replaced with non-Cars cars…
I have also reported bad sets to store employees who looked at them and left them on the shelves… the invisible Sidewall Shine Lightyear Launcher with the launcher only.
I will make my own boxed sets for my collection with Cars that I’ve purchased… I have an Apple to add to a 4 pack that now has Tach O Mint, Gask-Its, and Easy Idle – that will complete that Poor Man’s Speedway of the South set… I created team super sets by combining hauler/racer/pitty and crew chief/3 pittys for the HTB, Dinoco, and Leakless sets… and I am going to replace last year’s McQueen with a Snowplow McQueen in this year’s Santa Car 3 pack and turn the Holiday Hotshot McQueen into an ornament for my Cars Christmas tree.
i glad i havn’t seen anything like this around our town. it’s like this is starting to be an ever year event for theses people.
-flop
I thought that these sets were considered “collectible” and, as such, you could not return them – I know TRU used to have that policy – it would actually make sense in these cases.
I was foolish enough to buy (way back when) a Simpsons interactive environment with the incorrect figure in it thinking I had found a variation. So nice to know better now!
Shame on whoever is doing that. Karma’s gonna get you!
I see this all the time with other toy lines that I collect. Nearly every time this is brought to the attention of customer service, they don’t care. Or they pretend they care only to put it back on the shelf the very next day. The odd part is that is seems a lot of people still by the items that were swapped out.
I am a Star Wars collector and several years ago I picked up a new release of a Tie Fighter. It was a closed box with no window. I bought it and took it home but did not get a chance to open it for a week or so. When I sat down and did open it, I was enraged. Instead of a Tie Fighter, there was the sole of a size 12 shoe in the box. My only saving grace to this situation was that my wife worked at the Toys R Us that I bought it at. She took it back and told her boss about it. I got my refund but it still didn’t change the fact of how some scumbag did that. And if it wasn’t for my wife, I would have lost my money or had to return the shoe as-is and not tell the employee so someone else would have gotten stuck with it. That clearly was not an option. I hate these dirt bags that do this stuff.
110614001205
Item location: San Jose, CA, United States
My post is awaiting moderation with the ebay link, so am reposting.
These two same sets were for sale on ebay from San Jose as errors for 70.00. Coincidence? Of course they did not sell. So were they truly errors that were returned to the store after the seller couldn’t make an ebay sale?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ERROR-Disney-Cars-MATER-SAVES-CHRISTMAS-ERROR-/110614001205?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c11bb635
From San Jose California. Did not sell for asking price of 70.00.
Same exact two sets as pictured above. So was this a error pack or no?
Needless to say, I took that Heavy Metal Leakless set to Customer Service. The funny thing is that it still took them a while to understand that I knew what the contents should be and this wasn’t it. Although it does look a little like the garage band version of HMM with a sound engineer. Maybe it’s a chase variant!
E
Whats even funnier Eric, is I saw this about 3 weeks ago and gave it to an employee to take off the floor. She took it and left. Guess it came back out after I left!!!!!!!!!!!
The rear of the box shows which characters should be in there, so it’s not rocket science!
It always makes me sad when I see this and hope that no one who does not know these are the incorrect cars purchases these for their kids. I understand that times are tough and some might not agree with the pricing etc, but if you don’t like it, or can’t afford it then bottom line don’t buy them.
Just as Met stated I mean really is the minimal profit really worth that much hassle and the knowing that you are doing something illegal for a few dollars. I hope that these cases will be few and far between and we can focus on the positive things like Cars Cares and the Pay it Forward.
On more than one occasion at a local Target, I have taken packages just like these to customer service to let them know about the theft/switch. And almost every time, those same sets have reappeared on the shelves as is. I suspect they were eventually bought by some unsuspecting consumer.
I agree it’s very sad that individuals spend all the effort to do this, but it’s just as sad in my book when the stores care nothing about fixing it.
Having worked in TRU years ago… what do you expect a store to do… they have to think of profitability too… Might be the wrong assortment, but it is still 3 Disney Cars items… someone might still buy it. It may still be new to them.
To expect a store trying to fight and reduce shrink to simply write these off to take them off the shelves is unrealistic. Maybe expect them to take a small markdown on the boxes as they have been opened, but often items like this are written off as shrink and thrown away. Direct loss to the store. We were always taught to seek a markdown and save some profit from damaged/returned items.
At one point, the major vendors (Mattel, Hasbro, etc) would come in and authorize returns of product, but not on any large scale. From the photo it looks like there is at least a case or so of swapped out cars.
Lose $80-100 of sellable merchandise simply because the assortment is incorrect?? Can’t fault the store for returning the item to the shelf to try to sell…
As for defacing the item… bad form… not doing the store any favors, just causing them loss. Plus the store could hold you accountable if caught doing it.
As a consumer, I expect the store to correct the issue, if they are made aware of it. Loss like that is part of being a retailer, and is factored into product pricing. I too have worked extensively in retail, and can state that this is indeed poor customer service. Passing a loss onto an unexpecting customer in this form, in my opinion, borders on fraud. They are knowingly selling a product that is not original, yet being sold as such.
If I go into a store to purchase an item, I fully expect to get what I paid for. Say someone swapped out an older version Madden Wii game, and put it in a newer versions package to return it. It’s still a Madden Wii game, right?
It would have been an entirely different story if they marked it down, and marked on the package that it isn’t the original contents… then tried to sell it. What it seems to me more is that you likely have people working there that just don’t care… which all goes back to poor customer service.
I’m not encouraging this type of behavior, but (as someone on CTT posted), Eddie/Rocky is $4.99 and HM MQ is $4.99 leaving the fancy packaging and HM Mater to cost $20.02.
No one would do this if all of the Cars (or at least 90%) in the multi-packs were new, but Mattel puts profits first.
Of course Mattel puts profit first… that’s the primary reason they are as large and successful corporation that they are.
I agree about the ridiculous pricing on some of these sets, but I don’t think we would see any less of this type of thievery if the sets even always contained all new cars. In my opinion, we would likely see MORE of it! The people that do this may be justifying in their own minds that if Mattel didn’t pack them out this way, then they wouldn’t do it. BUT, they are a thief, and no matter how anyone tries to rationalize why people do this, it’s still just plain theft.
I took 2 OPENED packages, with the Cars watch and Cars die cast that WERE in them long gone, to the service desk at TRU last night after finding them laying on the top shelf in the Cars section.
They said when they’re as busy as they were last night they see a lot more packages like that, plain and simple.
Makes you wonder if it was children or adults who stole those items.
Just think about the time and effort involved to do this.
If people like that would spend the same time doing something productive…..???
Very sad to see things like that.
Not that Mattel cares at all, but they should put a picture of the complete contents of the box ON the box to help avoid this problem. Also, shouldn’t they ask for ID when returning items? A little detective work could get to the bottom of this. A little training could go a long way at the customer service center. Especially when they are paying a ton of money for plain clothed security to walk the floor.
Now there’s an idea! Put pictures of the contents on the package! I’m sure there are still people who would try the ol’ switch-and-return, but at least unsuspecting grandparents looking for that set that little Jimmy wanted would have a fighting chance.
I don’t think that asking for ID for returns would help, though, because there would be no way to prove that the person returning the box is the switcher. Since the stores are putting these back on the shelves, the person returning the box could easily be that grandparent who thought they found that set for little Jimmy, only to learn from little Jimmy that the CARS in the box are wrong. As I’ve said before, if you’re going to accuse someone of theft, you’d better be absolutely certain.
If it scans the customer service people rarely look the box over.
Its sad people do this.
…and the SALES CLERK who was handling the RETURNS thought to herself as she looked it over and then accepted it… “Isn’t this big truck suppose to be yellow too, like my hair”? Also my TRU had 3 pack whereas the Rocket Mater was replaced with the BUCK the TOOTH vendor.