Stopped by Target tonight and happened to see a painstakingly made figure swap. Someone had removed most of the figures and the Flight Pod from the Ultimate battle pack. They replaced them mostly with older versions of the same:

Blue TB w/ White TB
dark blue CC w/ normal CC
dark camo Stalker w/ regular, minus the jetpack gun.
Hiss Driver w/ AVAC?? This one made no sense
Cobra Soldier w/ Cobra Bazooka trooper minus harness
Short-Fuse w/ Grunt
Destro w/ Spy Troops Destro
Steeler was left alone but his webgear was replaced with someone else's

The swapper did a nice job of retying all the ties and rubber bands, and the figures were all in the same places and poses as the real ones. CC and Trooper were even missing their helmets. But I'll bet they weren't under the packaging.

It amazed me that someone was so cheap that for a couple figures they went through what had to be at least 2 hours of meticulously removing and then replacing. Assuming the swapper actually paid for the replacments, conservatively he repacked $30 dollars of stuff. So what exactly did he save here?

about 32 dollars minus the labor costs.

_________________

Knew this was going to happen. And I keep being iffy on picking up a BMF out of fear that yes, I'd get one that way too.

It sucks when collectors care more about this than Target or Hasbro. That could #(@* up a kid's christmas. Or at least leave the store wondering why it's sitting there unsold.

_________________

Let's just get this inevitable post out of the way now...

"RRRAAAAARRGH! ME HATE FIGURE SWAPPERS AND HOPE THAT THEY ARE ALL KILLED IN AWFUL WAYS AND THAT A EUGENICS PROGRAM IS DEVELOPED THAT WILL REMOVE ALL TRACES OF THEIR GENETIC MAKEUP FROM THE HUMAN RACE!"

Seriously, though, yeah, figure swappers are jerks, and yeah, it sucks a lot to find the card of a figure you're looking for with a worthless figure in its place, but I honestly don't think it's realistic for either Hasbro or Target to be able to deal with these people. Really, let's look at what could be done:

Hasbro's side: *crickets chirping* .....really, short of packing every figure with an explosive dye pack that goes off as soon as you open it, I'm not seeing what they could do. People aren't stealing directly from Hasbro. And with the exception of the comic packs, Hasbro's packaging is pretty good at keeping figures in. Really, acting like this is Hasbro's fault is like having your car stolen and then calling the manufacturer and asking them what they're doing to find it for you.

Retail side: Okay, I know WE know a ton about joes, and that WE could tell which figures should and shouldn't be in the package, but people who DON'T collect joes just see action figures. Think about how many different figures have been released just in the 25th line (to say nothing of the ARAH and new-sculpt eras before, or other 3.75 lines like Star Wars). It's pretty unrealistic to expect someone who works at a retailer to have memorized all of those figures and how they were originally made available. We have a pretty specialized knowledge here. Hell, my wife spends hours a day in the room where I have my collection (it's also our computer room), and I know she wouldn't be able to tell me which figure was which if I pointed to two of them and asked her to name them. Why should a minimum-wage paid 16-year-old whose only interaction with joes is running them across a scanner be able to?

Now, a caveat: I DO think it's stupid when they place figure-swapped packages back on the shelf after it has been brought to their attention. There's nothing they can really do about it at that point, but they should at least throw it on the 'damaged merchandise' pile or something.

Again, figure swapping is wrong, those who participate in it are jerks, and it can be super frustrating, but I don't think pointing fingers at either Hasbro or retailers is appropriate.

_________________

I agree that I don't think figure swapping is Habro's problem and they probably can't do anymore than they already do. Any figure that is not in a blister pack is hard as hell to get out with all the rediculous ties. They pretty much guarantee that you will destroy the package in the process of getting them out. But someone can beat the system by taking their time doing it. I imagine this is a person that has very little money, no job and lots of time on their hands. I can't blame the store for not catching them, espessially with a swap job like that. You can only hope that the flaming [LASER BLAST] known as karma will catch up to them and make them suck it.

_________________

It's royally stupid to do in the day & age of people paying with debit/credit cards, and stores going out of their way to prevent against return fraud (and watch this one get stepped WAY up this year since stores are already hurting, not just for action figures but just about any "gift"). Is it worth it to prosecute? Maybe not, but it is worth it to contact their bank/credit card company and dispute their refund. Which possibly should be an option for stores in these instances.

Besides, it is theft/fraud. Even if it's just toys.

_________________

Yeah, it's theft, but what would be a practical way to stop it? I keep hearing lots of people get very very angry that either hasbro or the retailers aren't doing something to stop figure swappers, but very few feasible ideas of HOW. It's not realistic to expect every retail worker to be a joe (and ever other toy) expert. I suppose you could try the more draconian return policies that software stores have on software (no refunds on open items, exchanges for the same product only), but I don't think even that would be airtight (many swappers are really good at making packages look like they *haven't* been opened).

_________________

Best figure pack in ever!!! - but instead of dye, make it that camo paint that came with the RAH joes. Kids would LOVE it!

I have to support Darko here. I know it's theft but billions are lost in theft at retail yearly. I know it prevents new stuff from getting out on the shelves, but there's nothing to be done.

I saw a figure swapped pack at a TRU being bought by a kid. He didn't care. Generally the target market for the UBP is a kid, who won't notice the difference, because he doesn't care. If a kid got the pack that was returned, he likely wouldn't even notice the differences.

No it's not right, yes it's a crime - but I can't get over the fact that there's like 40 of these threads.

- R

_________________

Correct me if I'm wrong...but Figure Swapping originated with GI Joe collectors. It may have spread to Star Wars and others....but it was the Versus packaging and armybuilding that inspired it.

Is there anything we as Collectors can do to help stop this phenominom? Is there any way we can pool what we see, find out who these people are, and publicly shame them for what they're doing?

_________________

Can we SHINE the light of scrutiny on all the figure swappers, and SHOW them the error of their misbegotten ways? I say we can. Can we TAKE away their x-actos and TAPE, and make them understand that there's a BETTER WAY? I say we CAN. Can we bring the light of proper retail behavior into their lives and show them a reason to RESPECT the multinational corporations that they are VIOLATING? I say we CAN. Can we make them FEEL our pain at not getting the NEWEST toys on the shelves and SHOW them that they are to BLAME? I SAY WE CAN.

But I DOUBT we will. We are LAZY.

Love ya Nova.

_________________

I do agree with most everyone here and share the same sentiment towards figure swappers. To me, swappers are worse than scalpers. At least scalpers buy the items (then sell it for astronomical prices) which is legal - what swappers are doing is stealing plain and simple.

Not only did this person take a considerable amount of time to unpack and repack the items, but it shows that they're highly knowledgeable about G.I. Joe and are collectors like us too! That's pretty disappointing when you think of it, that you share a hobby with guys like this.

Anyways, the common theme I've read so far is that it's not Hasbro's fault. Now I'm not saying it is their fault, but to play devil's advocate here - how many times have we gotten a better version of a character we wanted, packed with other useless crap that we have to buy to get (e.g. Major Bludd)? Why couldn't Hasbro "do it right the first time"? Now I'm a Marketer and I understand the reasons behind variations and repackaging products - but could this possibly be what motivates a swapper?

Hell I'm out & out buying those new 5-packs for G.I. Joe and Cobra with all those minor fixes to our favourite figures (that Hasbro could have/should have done right the first time) - am I happy about spending another $50 on figures I technically own already? Nah, but I suppose that's what distignuishes a swapper from a collector - they'd go that extra mile to spoil it for the rest of us.

_________________

I doubt it, because I don't see anyone admitting to it, so unless you catch someone in the act, and know who they are (and if they even care what you think of them, which seems unlikely) you have nowhere to start. At this point we know that the retailers don't care, and that even if Hasbro does care, they have no power to change it. It's just something we'll have to deal with. Maybe start leaving Post-It notes on packs that have been swapped saying as much? If an employee sees that enough times they may start paying attention, but I dunno. It doesn't happen all that often here, so I'll just live with it.

I might be crazy, but I swear I saw on some toy site that someone actually made a template for a sticker sheet for this.
Each sticker said something to the effect of "The contents of this package have been tampered with and/or no longer contain the original items."

_________________