[jb43015]

I just received my latest shipment of cards from the fine folks at blowout cards. One box of which was a box of 2008 Upper Deck Football. (24 packs per box,18 cards per pack,1 hit per box). About for to five packs into my rip. I pulled out a redemption card for a Wes Welker Signature Shots (price listing of $40.00 on Beckett.com). I saw that the date for it had well expired but thought with UD still having a football license, I'd take a crack at it and see if the card would still be honored. I had no such luck.I was told online that the card had expired. Which I knew already. Then I went to the email section and expressed my dismay at the fact that I was basically SOL with my redemption card.
Now, I understand that UD and these other card companies can't have warehouses full of old musty mems,autos and auto mems laying around for eons waiting for them to be claimed,but wouldn't the proper and good thing to do be to reward customers with ,at the very least, packs or boxes of cards?
Anyway....So, I started doing Google searches and the like for others that have posted about this problem and was stunned to read so many cases of people getting shafted out of their cards or who are still waiting YEARS later for their redemption cards to be honored. RIDICULOUS! Or even worse,people that wait and wait for their cards and then the company decides to NEVER make the darn thing! Really? What the heck is that? How is that good for business? Before this run-in with the newest redemption cards,my only other experience with a send-away type deal was in '98 Topps when I had to send in to get my Randy Moss RC and I am happy to say it all went off without a hitch.
I don't mean to single out UD,I guess there are other companies having redemption issues as well. But, from what i read UD products are just overrun with redemption cards.
My whole point or thought on the matter is,why bother with the redemption cards? People aren't buying your products to get white plug cards with writing on them telling them to redeem a code on their web site before they can receive their cards. And while I am at it,could you PLEASE stop "congratulating" me for "finding" one of your stupid redemption cards? Trust me, if I had my way,I'd much rather pull an autograph of a lesser talented player from a pack than have to sit and wait while your brain trust decides whether my card is going to be issued or not.
Bottom line,if the redemption thing can't be ran any better than this then I can see why so many people are jumping off the card collecting ship. Its ridiculous for card companies to expect people who have paid their hard earned dollars on their products to sit and wait for a card or cards that may never come to be.

[420ramsfan]

valid point. i totally agree. a few yrs ago i got a box of 01 fleer premium, out of 5 rc i pulled, 4 of them were redemptions. of course it was 8 yrs old so i didnt even try. BTW panini is just as bad.

[bselje]

This happened to me once and I vowed to never buy any boxes that were'nt within their alloted redemption time period. Its not just UD, Panini and Topps refuse to do anything about expired redemption cards (although to their credit, i have heard of a few cases where panini will give you something if its not too far past the cut off date) but Topps and UD - one day past and they wont even talk to you. I know that for a fact as its happened with both companies to me. (the 2nd one was a redemption card someone gave me so I wasn't as upset there)

[joe callahan13]

The card companies have 2 choices: redemptions, or to not include that player in the set. (Because the player is the one who hasn't signed.) Personally, I would rather get a redemption of my favorite player than not have the card even be featured in the set at all. Waiting for a redemption > the card not existing at all.

I also find it somewhat funny that so many people blame the card companies 100% when it is the players who aren't signing. It's not like the card companies like putting redemptions in their product. They know people hate it. But what are they supposed to do when the players don't honor their commitments to sign stuff?

Disclosure: I don't play favorites. I have more than a dozen Josh Hamilton and Arian Foster PC items waiting for redemptions, and I place the blame squarely with them. But again, I don't mind waiting, as it is better than those cards having been excluded from the set in the first place.

[bselje]

To each their own i guess - if it were up to me, the only cards that would be in the set would be ones that, you know - actually exist upon release date.
So in that sense, its the card companies decision to "bait and switch", and thats totally on them.
This is by far my #1 complaint about this hobby - redemption cards. Its like a little kick in the junk every time I pull one. The only ones I try to redeem now are PC guys - the rest I trade for mostly under BV, just to get them out of my sight.

[rjcj2017]

Panini honors expired redemptions.

I recently pulled a Kobe Bryant redemption out of a retail pack of 2010-11 Donruss, contacted customer service about it and had the actual card a week after I pulled it:





But for the most part, yeah, redemptions suck out loud. I currently have like 10 of them sitting in Panini's system.

The problem is, they won't quit using redemptions until we stop buying their products.

[nthnoak]

The card companies have 2 choices: redemptions, or to not include that player in the set. (Because the player is the one who hasn't signed.) Personally, I would rather get a redemption of my favorite player than not have the card even be featured in the set at all. Waiting for a redemption > the card not existing at all.

I also find it somewhat funny that so many people blame the card companies 100% when it is the players who aren't signing. It's not like the card companies like putting redemptions in their product. They know people hate it. But what are they supposed to do when the players don't honor their commitments to sign stuff?

Disclosure: I don't play favorites. I have more than a dozen Josh Hamilton and Arian Foster PC items waiting for redemptions, and I place the blame squarely with them. But again, I don't mind waiting, as it is better than those cards having been excluded from the set in the first place.

I agree with you for the first part but the second part theres a bit more to it. A lot of players dont sign because companies like UD arent paying them. I lost out on a huge pc item because of this. Another thing is I had a dual auto redemption of Starr/Namath from panini. This card had live copies on ebay a month after I redeemed mine. I waited almost a year later to get mine and never did. After numerous calls they simply told me they lost the cards or are still waiting for the athletes to sign. Well they werent waiting for them to sign because Panini kept pumping out both of their autos in their products as live cards. Both of them were in NT this year which released almost 2 years after my elite card was. So it is the company that really screwed me bigtime. Theres just so many different outcomes that can happen with redemptions but in the end it is the companies responsibility. And not honoring expired ones is insane to me. They dont need warehouses to store past redemptions. You could store millions upon millions of cards in a rather small one room building.

[duch2izback]

The card companies have 2 choices: redemptions, or to not include that player in the set. (Because the player is the one who hasn't signed.) Personally, I would rather get a redemption of my favorite player than not have the card even be featured in the set at all. Waiting for a redemption > the card not existing at all.

I also find it somewhat funny that so many people blame the card companies 100% when it is the players who aren't signing. It's not like the card companies like putting redemptions in their product. They know people hate it. But what are they supposed to do when the players don't honor their commitments to sign stuff?

Disclosure: I don't play favorites. I have more than a dozen Josh Hamilton and Arian Foster PC items waiting for redemptions, and I place the blame squarely with them. But again, I don't mind waiting, as it is better than those cards having been excluded from the set in the first place.

I agree with what you have said.....but I ask this question: Why can Panini put out this card:


And not his Contenders rookie? If a sticker auto is fine on here, why not on his main rookie? Same for this guy:



NONE of his rookies are in Contenders, except this one. They are all redemptions. WTH?

[bselje]

WTH?? I didn't realize that card was in packs - as I have 2 Randle Contenders RCs waiting to be redeemed. Maybe the Randle RC's are supposed to be on card?

I agree with what you have said.....but I ask this question: Why can Panini put out this card:


And not his Contenders rookie? If a sticker auto is fine on here, why not on his main rookie? Same for this guy:



NONE of his rookies are in Contenders, except this one. They are all redemptions. WTH?