The Energon Pub

Sledge wrote:

Nekoman wrote:You act as if he IS stealing them. He’s not, some guy in china is, Ryan paid for it so what’s the problem? It’s not his fault Hasbro cant have some security in their own darn facilities. If they have a problem with it they should A: notify the site or B: Tone up security or move the plants to somewhere safer. And so far I haven’t herd of Hasbro doing either.

And like you said, the galleries are almost free advertising, I’d say if they wanted to do something about it they’d be doing more harm than good.

Doesn't matter who's stealing them, Hasbro lose money. Which is surely the argument against knockoffs?

Well, to be fair, Hasbro wouldn't lose any money on knockoffs of unavailable merchandise like the Dinobots or Mirage.

I'm not reading all the posts here, But are they realy doing a good job at this.

Here's one of many KO auctions that seem to no longer have KO or REISSUE in the title or description.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %26otn%3D4

Now I know all of us know it's KO junk, but does someone looking to support someone elses hobby know... ?

And therein lies the problem.

While it's good Hasbro's made the effort, the sellers will just now try to pass things off as genuine things.

Fortunately something like that particular item can be caught out because it's clearly not anything from Hasbro or TT.

However what of the Mirage and Dinobots and the Gnaws etc which DO look like, and are hard to differentiate in auction pictures from genuine figures?

They're going to have a hard time catching them out. And all it will take is for a seller to just keep setting up a new account so there's no record in feedback of the 50 MISB Gnaw's he's sold.

They really do have their work cut out for them.

Well, back in the good old days (last week) when the seller jusr said "Gnaw MISB KO" in the title, there was no problem, people knew what they are getting. Thanks a bunch Ebay, now you make it impossible for the seller to be honest and sell knockoffs as knockoffs!

Burn wrote:And therein lies the problem.

While it's good Hasbro's made the effort, the sellers will just now try to pass things off as genuine things.

Fortunately something like that particular item can be caught out because it's clearly not anything from Hasbro or TT.

However what of the Mirage and Dinobots and the Gnaws etc which DO look like, and are hard to differentiate in auction pictures from genuine figures?

They're going to have a hard time catching them out. And all it will take is for a seller to just keep setting up a new account so there's no record in feedback of the 50 MISB Gnaw's he's sold.

They really do have their work cut out for them.

Well, it could be a task we could take up to report any KO auctions to eBay for removal.

How do we know for sure what's a KO unless he says it's a KO, and in that case, they don't need us to say so! I mean it's odd if someone has several MOSC Bumblebees or Mirages, but it's not impossible.

Liege Evilmus wrote:I'm not reading all the posts here, But are they realy doing a good job at this.

Here's one of many KO auctions that seem to no longer have KO or REISSUE in the title or description.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %26otn%3D4

Now I know all of us know it's KO junk, but does someone looking to support someone elses hobby know... ?

Well, I bought two of those from that seller, well one black and one ghost, and another from a different seller. It could possibly be confused, but the fellow has not had KO or knock off in his lable at all. I am not sure if he ever has. The other seller clearly stated it was a KO. Anyway, I knew this before buying it but I really did want one of these cute figs.
Also, he is selling it at a fairly low price, which would not be the price that MISB sellers would try to start it off at. He also states it's "brand new". I have actually seen that particular ghost figure selling for 50 or so a couple of times. which is pushing it, I think. Especially considering the wholesale of 72 peices of the figure is around 8.75 per individual unit.

Is hasbro going to walk through all the conventions now and tell various dealers they can't sell this or that because it's a knock off? Mind you speaking of knock offs, My husband was showing me some "KO" cars that are made in china. I mean they look like the actual car. I can see a real problem there because some cars are made to withstand all sorts of slag, that could be omitted in the replica.

As for people "supporting" my hobby, I generally give them precise images of what I am looking for.

Scaleface wrote:How do we know for sure what's a KO unless he says it's a KO, and in that case, they don't need us to say so! I mean it's odd if someone has several MOSC Bumblebees or Mirages, but it's not impossible.

Well, "reissue" toys that don't have reissues are obviously KOs.
No sane seller would claim something to be a reissue when it was an older, more valuable product.