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So, wait ... you really do have to order all six? Like many I really only want Slipstream and Nemesis Prime.

At BBTS' prices it's almost worth it to buy them from the club directly. Especially since I also like Ultra Mammoth.

So... we are looking at over 300 dollars for a bunch of repaints and a mammoth. How could i ever pass on that deal.

craggy wrote:just looked at the full Ts&Cs...International Orders: they want a photocopy of my credit card, front and back and of photo ID. They can GTFO.

....I noticed I'd have to do this as well, seeing as the last credit card they had a faxed photocopy from me was the one thats details were stolen, and I started getting bogus charges on before I cancelled it....

Then, looking at the shipping breakdown, etc....

Right, for me to get 6 figures, 1 I want soo bad it hurts, the other 2 I was 'meh' about, and the rest I couldn't be arsed about, the cost will work out at:

$82 for International membership;
$285 if I pay upfront; $291 if I go with instalments,
$140~$150 for cheapest shipping, with insurance;

All told, around $520 for 6 figures, (plus all the usual photocopying, postage, blah blah blah, which still shows they have your 'confidential' details on plain paper, AGAIN)

F@@@[<[<[< YOU FUNPUB!!!!! AGAIN!!!!!!!

I' ll get Scourge somehow, and I'll do it through PayPal, or a reasonable eCommerce payment system...


I just hope they have planned to have at least double, maybe treble the amount of Scourges for the secondary market - if they have the ability to 'make to order', at least have the insight to realise that this is the one everyone has been waiting for since RTS G2 Prime came out....

Mkall wrote:

CBratetron wrote:Looking at Breakdown and Slipstream. BBTS price is ridiculous. A $60 paint job?
I'll wait to see what ebay offers but I don't need these figures THAT much.

That's a mistake. On figures like these, eBay will rarely undersell BBTS or other online stores.

At least with BBTS you can put in a preorder and not pay until it arrives, giving you plenty of time to find a better option.

If that's the case, then I'm completely skipping these rip-offs. At least with 3rd party toys I know my $100 is going towards a brand new mold and not a huge markup repaint.

Im willing to do some pretty dastardly things to get a Ultra Mammoth.... Just throwin that out there...

Ok, I'm glad I have a couple of weeks to decide. Ultra Mammoth is just too awesome to pass up on, and I m really looking forward to Breakdown and Slipstream. The majority of the figures seem great.

But I've gotta say that the club has really pissed off a few international subscribers, myself included. Why do they have to send out all 6 individually??? I would be more than happy to wait 6 months to receive all 6 and cut down on postage immensely. Crap move Funpub.

Well i take it that this is only available to members & that you cant preorder individual figures, they really need to overhaul the club. the only one i want is slipstream, out of all of them thats the only really good one in my opinion. nemesis looks cool but i have 2 of that mold already so theres no point in getting an overpriced version.

askillington wrote:So... we are looking at over 300 dollars for a bunch of repaints and a mammoth. How could i ever pass on that deal.

Besides the fact that Ultra Mammoth is a repaint of Big Convoy, I agree with your point. Plus, with how much the secondary market will be asking for him, I take back any thoughts of wanting him now.

And quite honestly, my entire Transformers collection (to date) cost me as much as maybe 2-3 of these sets. Less if bought in the secondary market. But the difference is that my collection is strictly Takara Tomy, not repaints. Just saying.

craggy wrote:just looked at the full Ts&Cs...International Orders: they want a photocopy of my credit card, front and back and of photo ID. They can GTFO.

Makes you wonder why doesn't it?

If they moved to a more updated secure system, then why do they need this sort of identification? How many other online retailers require this sort of information?

Or perhaps this is their way of trying to drive away international orders?

Either way, something doesn't add up there and it's crap like this that drives their credibility down even further when they should be working to build it up.

Megatron Wolf wrote:Well i take it that this is only available to members & that you cant preorder individual figures, they really need to overhaul the club. the only one i want is slipstream, out of all of them thats the only really good one in my opinion. nemesis looks cool but i have 2 of that mold already so theres no point in getting an overpriced version.

And that right there is the marketing genius of this service. People are only going to want 1 or 2 figures, so they can lump in a pile of crap with them and people will have no choice but to pay for something they may not want.

Though I'm sure when the concept was first floated you were suppose to be able to order them separately.

Slipstream looks awesome! Scourge is great too.
Ultra Mammoth? lol, niiice

Burn wrote:And that right there is the marketing genius of this service. People are only going to want 1 or 2 figures, so they can lump in a pile of crap with them and people will have no choice but to pay for something they may not want.

Though I'm sure when the concept was first floated you were suppose to be able to order them separately.

It just doesn't seem to mesh with their statement:

TFCC wrote:We will build as many as you order, so we cannot run out. YOU CAN ORDER AS MANY AS YOU WANT, there is no limit.

If I want to order 5 Scourges, you're actually making me order 5 subscription plans. Although I can see that not reaching a certain ordering mark for other characters will either force cancellation or an even higher price to TFCC to do this.

Crap. BBTS is sold out of Scourge and Slipstream, which are the only ones I really wanted. Wonder if anyone else will carry the figures individually? TFSource does not as of yet.

They're both back in stock, but their price jumped up $10 as a result. Circuit and Jackpot by comparison jumped down by the same amount, making them *cheaper* than buying them from the club.

Did anybody get the confirmation e-mail that was promised or will they start sending those on Monday. I didnt get one. But I did print my reciept with invoice number in case I have to give them a call.

OK, so we're looking at about $100 for Scourge, and then another $100 for the MakeToys armor/trailer for him (in the highly likely event they do a recoulour for Scourge); and this is for a tiny little shrimp?

Now, double that, since I get two of each figure to display in each mode....

Forget it. I'll get a Car Robots or RID Scourge and possibly customize him to enhance his articulation.

The way I see it, the sub has one solid winner (Scourge) two somewhat desirable figures (Breakdown and Slipstream) and three pieces of crap that have no use in my collection (or, apparently, that of many others).

I'd ALMOST do it if not for the Animated Jackpot being in there.

Kung Fu Man wrote:They're both back in stock, but their price jumped up $10 as a result. Circuit and Jackpot by comparison jumped down by the same amount, making them *cheaper* than buying them from the club.

WTF BBTS?? That's a total dick move jacking up the price like that!!

Slipstream & Scourge out of stock again.

Nemesis Destron wrote:

Kung Fu Man wrote:They're both back in stock, but their price jumped up $10 as a result. Circuit and Jackpot by comparison jumped down by the same amount, making them *cheaper* than buying them from the club.

WTF BBTS?? That's a total dick move jacking up the price like that!!

Yeah, WTF, BBTS? Just when I'd forgiven you for the instant markup on Hercules too.

Like most I want Slipstream and Scourge. That's about $200. The club subscription is about $300 and there you at least get Ultra Mammoth too, who's a pretty worthy buy on his own.

Uh, BBTS? I think you need to rethink your prices. Because, as tempted as I am to get the two figures from you the money says it really isn't worth it.

Perhaps it would behoove us to start deluging the fan club with requests for an ample supply of Slipstreams and Scpurges as singles. Obviously they won't confirm that they'll do this until after the closing date on the subscription (to keep the information from negatively impacting scales), but they're simply throwing money away by not making a number of extra Scourges to sell separately.

I'd actually like three total myself (one to display in truck mode, one without and one with the Maketoys armor in robot mode.

Upon heavy consideration: I'll pass. It's just not worth it. I evaluated how much I actually wanted this figure and this is what I found:

Breakdown: The only one I want and have a spot for in my collection.
Scourge: Looks nice, but my SDCC fills the "nemesis" spot and looks great too.
Slipstream: Look nice, Don't really need it.
Circuit:
Jackpot: Originally wanted it as my animated Kick-Off, but it'll not fit in too well with my Animated nor Classics colelction.
Ultra Mammoth: Colours are not working for me, I don't collect Beast Wars.

In conclusion, I don't really need um and I might get Breakdown and Scourge at some point... Oh, and I learnt that I need Big Convoy too... no matter, Big Convoy's just $45.

Unless I magically get $285 before September 9... then I know that's a sign to buy it.

Off to find Big Convoy!

Nemesis Destron wrote:

Kung Fu Man wrote:They're both back in stock, but their price jumped up $10 as a result. Circuit and Jackpot by comparison jumped down by the same amount, making them *cheaper* than buying them from the club.

WTF BBTS?? That's a total dick move jacking up the price like that!!

It's pretty standard BBTS practice actually. I'm not defending them or anything, I'm just surprised when people still get PO'd at it.

I really don't understand the strategy of the service subscription other than it allows TFCC to sell figures that otherwise wouldn't do well selling on their own.

It seems like Slipstream, Scourge, and Breakdown are hot commodities. And Jackpot and Circuit are not that hot. So my question to TFCC - why bother producing figures that are not that interesting to fans? It just seems like their marketing and research regarding what the fans are interested is off the mark 50% of the time.

Personally, I am only interested in Breakdown. To me, it's worth it to buy/preorder the figure from another retailer than to play this silly subscription and membership service fee at TFCC. I am getting more and more annoyed with each news update from TFCC.

What I don't understand is the timing and the limited time offer. There's a huge con going on this month that I'm going to. I budgeted for THAT. I'm not sure paying $300 for this right on the heels of that is a fantastic idea. I didn't expect such a limited time offer to come from TFCC.

.... And I managed to snag a Scourge off BBTS before they went out of stock again. Phew, crisis averted, for now!

The price markup is obviously to cover the 'bath' they'll be taking on Circuit and Jackpot.

Hell, I stuck in a preorder for Breakdown just for the hell of it, mightn't even get it when it comes out, depends on how flush I am at the time next year, after the MPs, FP and TFC stuff coming out..

I've been doing a lot of FunPub bashing here, but it still stands - I'd rather pay well over the odds for Scourge on its own from a reputable retailer (when it's in stock, to boot) rather than shell out over $500 as an international member, hand over photocopies of my personal data, and wait for months for these clowns to (maybe) not screw the pooch on this one.

Hell, if I even wanted the whole lot, I'd prefer to pay over the odds through BBTS, or any other avenue, if my order was likely to be honoured.

ARE YOU LISTENING, HASBRO!?!?

so it is obvious that Slipsteam and Scourge are the carriers of the line,

and the 'sharing' idea may not work, as all parties probably just want those two.

so don't get mad at BBTS just because it signs up for the package, and by the laws of supply and demand, sells the figures individually at different rates, because they realise they would be left with a lot of neo-delic animated musclecars.

If I get the toys I do, If I don't get the option, I won't get too bothered , honestly, My collection is nothing to brag about anyway.