[mmahoney]

Had the pleasure of visiting my Meijer around noon on Saturday, the time the card lady is usually there, to find her and some product this time.  Last time I went her box had been opened and emptied in the back storage area but not this time.  Also putting up signs limiting purchase to 1 of each type per person.  Picked up a Bowman Chrome Mega blaster.  Some young shark was there face timing with a friend about what was on the shelves getting coached on what to buy.

Fast forward to Sunday when I had to go back for groceries.  Swung by the card aisle and it was cleared out except for Gallery which I already had bought what I wanted.  Just then a girl comes walking up with 4 Topps Chrome hanger packs.  I asked her where they came from and she said they were quarantine returns and had been sitting in back.  Yes, I immediately said they were repacks but we both looked and couldn't tell for sure.  I had to take my allotment of 1 just to see.  Opened them up outside and as suspected, they were repacks.  All inside packs had been opened.  I walked back in and got my refund.  I went back and got the other 3 packs and the customer service lady opened them and all repacked.

Too me these people are much worse than the flippers.

Not sure anyone has noticed but it on the couple of Facebook groups I started following for fun I have noticed a lot of people dumping cards.  Maybe when they start taking losses for the overpriced blasters they had to have it will come to an end.

[theo60collector]

Apparently Walmart (at least in Canada) will no longer be accepting returns on sports cards. The whole taking everything of the shelves in retail shops is at an all time worst

[kerryandbeth]

How does a person pull crap like that and still sleep at night! Let alone have family and friends who respect them or at least tolerate them. They might as well bring a gun next time and admit they are nothing but a thug.

[rjcj2017]

This will be the next wave for these great new collectors that we are welcoming into the hobby.

If you've already recently broken into the hobby on a scammer level by hoarding and price gouging, you have no moral compass that will stop you from re-sealing packs, either.

What will be hilarious is when the sharks start gobbling up product that other sharks have already gobbled up, opened, re-sealed and returned to the store.

You see, they think they're so clever with their little network, texting each other about which store to loiter in and which card distributor to stalk next, and where they can commit their next act of unemployment fraud.

What these criminals don't realize is that in any seedy underbelly of society, there's always someone willing to sink to a lower level than the rest to get ahead.

Again, I've said it a thousand times ... these price gougers and uninformed idiots that buy this stuff deserve each other and everything they have coming to them, like re-sealed packs.

Me? I don't have to worry about it. I never get there on time to even find re-sealed stuff.

And, I've decided to stop buying hockey because 1) I pulled a really nice Young Guns card last week that I've been chasing all season and 2) I don't want to support one sport or company when others are not supporting me by controlling this BS.

So yeah, I'm just going to keep trading away here on Beckett and picking up the occasional single.

[rjcj2017]

Apparently Walmart (at least in Canada) will no longer be accepting returns on sports cards.  The whole taking everything of the shelves in retail shops is at an all time worst

Wow, even in Canada ... folks up there are usually very considerate and polite, sad to think it's happening there, too.

[dimarco73]

No different then when shop owners would open and reseal wax packs. Or pick through the vending boxes. Same game just different packaging.

[mmahoney]

Saw this one in a facebook group. Daughter works for the company that stocks the cards. When she had her setup done and took picture she then loaded up the cart for her father to purchase all the cards. No telling how many stores she stocks. Is there an end in sight?

[rjcj2017]

Saw this one in a facebook group.  Daughter works for the company that stocks the cards.  When she had her setup done and took picture she then loaded up the cart for her father to purchase all the cards.  No telling how many stores she stocks.  Is there an end in sight?

Yeah, one of my buddies on here saw a few months back where a lady was doing the same thing with her boyfriend.

He would just follow her from store to store and buy everything up.

Chances are the DB Network that is now also loitering in the store would not let him get away with that.

Then again, they are all spineless losers, so he probably can still walk right up to the front and take what he wants.

(Even though, you know, they've been waiting there six hours.)

I mean, as I've said a thousand times, the card lady in my area usually stocks stuff in the middle of the day.

I'm half an hour away at my JOB in the middle of the day, so I can't compete.

But man, I would give anything to get there right as she was unpacking boxes, so I could just walk right up front and grab everything.

(I wouldn't buy it all. I'd hide some of it in every department in the store. Yeah, I know, the employees would have to put it all back or the sharks would actually have to go find it themselves, but remember ... I didn't create this problem, and these stores and the card companies should collectively work together to stop it. They won't, but they should.)

I'm pretty sure she stocked yesterday because there were a couple of new gravity feeders of Absolute Football - empty, of course, all 96 packs or whatever.

Well, at least in addition to the moldy hockey there were a couple of blasters of Garbage Pail Kids.

(Being sarcastic there)

But to answer your question, some things definitely need to happen for this to end:

- Once it is safe to do so, the country needs to open back up ASAP so people can get off unemployment and go back to work and school, and stop chasing cards ... seriously, it's literally criminal what they are doing right now - loitering, stalking, unemployment fraud (they're supposed to be looking for jobs with my tax money, not hoarding the cards I want to buy with the money I earned at a JOB).

- Seriously, how hard is it to, instead of having the security guard stand next to the in-store Starbuck's all day, have him stand next to the card aisle instead and tell the loiterers they have 10 minutes and then they have to leave? I mean, I don't think I've ever spent more than 5 minutes in the card aisle ... I see it, I grab it, I go. This would not only eliminate the Doosh Bag Network but also its subsidiary branch, the Doosh Bag Pack Searchers.

- The awesome "new collectors" need to stop supporting the Doosh Bag Network by buying marked-up retail. Although early results show that they are all extremely gullible and stupid, hopefully some of the "smarter" ones will realize retail is supposed to be an appetizer, not a main dish ... the value is just not there.

- If at least two of these things happen, hopefully within the next year or so even the Doosh Bags will get tired of waiting endless hours in the stores, especially if they see their margins dwindle because the "new collectors" finally figure out that a blaster of Mosaic basketball is not worth $185 ... it's a marginal investment at $19.99, at best.

- The good news is, there is already dissension in the ranks of the DBN ... I was in the toy aisle last night looking for holiday gifts and saw these two guys that were well over Pokemon collecting age. They were looking at some of the Pokemon tins and were really upset that some of them looked like they had been re-sealed ... yeah ... you read it correctly ... re-sealed Pokemon. Meaning, some of the dooshier members of the DBN have now sunk low enough to re-seal the stuff they hoard, meaning the higher functioning DBNers now run the risk of hoarding re-sealed product and passing it on to the "new collectors," who will hopefully start demanding refunds and gumming up the DBN's supply chain or, even better, walking away from it altogether.

- There is no honor among thieves. The DBN will eventually implode from within once they realize they can't trust each other.

Anyway, yeah, lame.

[bonds20001]

I have had no success at my Target the last 3 months..got lucky once..but tried to buy 5 different boxes and has told that i can only have 2..the sign is still there..but the shelf is empty.  I put my boxes back..how many people are waiting?  None, they are not getting to the shelf now..they are being bought up before they hit the shelves..visited 3 times a weeks and nothing but cobwebs and old Hockey stuff

Sad..but I hear the same thing happens at bread lines in South America and Russia..so cards vs bread..guess I will choose cards..

[kerryandbeth]

I would be willing to let my PC go from $55k to zero value just to see all those people hoarding product and trying to make a fast buck go down! Not cool to take away someone else's hobby.

By the way, 2020 Bowman Platinum will be the next item to be hoarded and crazy priced in the secondary market. But, the base cards are an ugly design and just duplicates the same prospects as Bowman. Let's hope these get stuck with them, too.