Right there with you notpicard. I remember picking up the latest figures missing accessories on the cheap side because of someone else. Gibson's and Alco was great at that. The only bummer of it was that the thieves always went for the latest releases (which I wanted/needed) like Baroness and Mutt. But I was from a small town, and the selection was rotten, so I either got incomplete, or I got nothing. But it was still nice to get a discount.

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What's even more disturbing is the price...$24.99 for a $19.00 pack...sheesh !

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You think that is bad, K-mart upped their prices to $31.99 for the same 4 packs that they have had for 6 months.

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That's b/c they're OMFG hard to find rare kthnkx now..

since Hasbro stopped making them over a year ago

It's sad how desperate people, even ADULT collectors, have gotten from doing things like that or using a key to cut into packaging to steal a figure or accessory.

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Well I think I figured out why the GI Joe team changed the name of one of it's vehicles to Ghost Hawk. Found one at the Wal-Mart in Concord where the thing must have been invisible because all I saw in the pack was Lift Ticket.

I guess I could have pointed it out to someone who works there, but this is the same Wal-Mart that has a comic book pack still hanging up with a stolen figure since about Thanksgiving so I have the feeling that no one cares that people are stealing from the store, and they don't care if half stolen toys sit on their shelves.

What's really sad is my local Wal-Mart hasn't even gotten a toy restock since before Christmas and this place gets a restock but then doesn't care about if stuff is in half stolen shape. Not sure which is worth the worthless person who can't shell out the money for the toy or the Wal-Mart for thinking someone is going to spend $16 on just Lift Ticket and an empty box.

Just today I saw a swap done by someone who obviously knows what they are doing. I was at Target and saw one of each of the new 5 packs (Joe and Cobra) just sitting on top of the vehicles on the shelf. No space or shelf tag for them yet, mind you. I open them up and find that Flint, Lady Jaye, and Shipwreck were swapped out for their predecessors, and their gear was missing. I open the Cobra pack and of course the Viper is replaced by the one with crappy wrists and is missing his goggles, and the Baroness ws the first version also. I'm thinking this was done by an employee as they were the only two sets out there and there is not a place for them in the aisle yet. Probably bought them out of the back room, did the swap and returned it - maybe all by himself.

Stuff like this pisses me off more than outright theft. At least with theft most semi-intelligent people will realize the package is damaged and not buy it. Some kid or parent likely won't realize these are "damaged" packs and will buy them.

I saw 4 examples of swapping at my local Target last weekend. First one was a comic pack that had Tunnel Rat and Storm Shadow swapped out for a Dollar General Beachhead and a Gung Ho. The other Joe swap was a beat up ARAH Airborne with no gear swapped for the 25th version. I looked over 2 feet to the Star Wars stuff and the bandit had struck again, with a White Vader and Leia swapped out for a dime a dozen Black Vader and a C3PO. Then in the single packs, there was a Goldie that had been swapped for a PARTIAL R2D2. I took all the swaps to the manager and told her what was going on. Went back to the same Target today and they had restocked the pegs with some stuff that I had never seen, including the Para Viper, the Bazooka Trooper, Zartan with Swamp Skier, and a couple others. All those figures had had the cards and bubbles absolutely mangled (creased really bad across the face and the bubbles crushed) I guess to keep the figures on the shelf.