Archived Trading Cards and Sketchy Guest

[EagleEye]

I don't know the first thing about trading cards and methods, but I have a situation that someone can hopefully help with.

There is a guest that is in our store multiple times per week. She usually visits the trading card section and goes through all of the single packs of baseball cards. She usually just feels the packs, probably trying to find ones that have valuable card in them, but recently she had all of the packs laid out on a shelf and she was rubbing them with what looked like a cloth or tissue.

Does anyone know what she was doing? Multiple guests have come to me and said they don't want to buy anything because she probably bought all the packs with good cards in them.

 

[Ringwraith917]

Never heard of this. I only use Magic cards though. Maybe she's trying to feel some raised printing. Taking an etching of the top card with graphite paper maybe?

 

[RedMan]

She's searching for a pack of cards that has a special card in it. Because packs containing jersey cards have small windows to display the relic, you can feel a slight indentation through the package and even through the other cards. It's not illegal to do this, but it is sorta unethical if you're a serious card trader.

 

[Ringwraith917]

I wouldn't even call it unethical. All the packs are presented for purchase equally. If she is able to find "the good cards" without opening or damaging the packs, that's a flaw in the design of the pack. Shes just being smart and not caring that she looks crazy. One solution would be to hard case all packs. But those are vendor products anyway, we just rent them the space, and keep track of their sales for them. Besides making other guests unhappy it doesn't impact Target much.

 

[RedMan]

That's your opinion and you have a right to it. But serious card traders consider it unethical. AARCaptain asked. I answered.

 

[awbuckit]

What are these "good cards"? Are they worth money or something?

 

[Circle9]

I wouldn't even call it unethical. All the packs are presented for purchase equally. If she is able to find "the good cards" without opening or damaging the packs, that's a flaw in the design of the pack. Shes just being smart and not caring that she looks crazy. One solution would be to hard case all packs. But those are vendor products anyway, we just rent them the space, and keep track of their sales for them. Besides making other guests unhappy it doesn't impact Target much.

Its not necessarily unethical but its still being a greedy ass.

What are these "good cards"? Are they worth money or something?

Oh yeah, they'd be worth money. I'm sure some of these people are doing it to get them for own collections but others are doing it to sell them to other collectors.

 

[see spot save]

There's a guy who comes in every truck day to hunt through the Hot Wheels, sometimes there's two or three of them doing it. They all sit on the floor and methodically go through the bin and pegs looking for the ones they want.

It's kinda funny.

 

[mrknownothing]

She's searching for a pack of cards that has a special card in it. Because packs containing jersey cards have small windows to display the relic, you can feel a slight indentation through the package and even through the other cards. It's not illegal to do this, but it is sorta unethical if you're a serious card trader.

Kinda like those people that bring in their scales so they can find the bonus packs by weighing them? I've never seen a guest do this, but I remember reading about it on here a while back.

 

[redeye58]

Yep, we had several different guys come in at different times using scales & feeling them looking for the 'bonus' pack.
We also have a couple of old guys who come in looking for specific Hot Wheels cars.
They used to harass our SFTMs to get them to bring any out from back but the ETL said HELL no. Not gonna happen.

 

[SoftlinesSquirrel]

I can't speak for the sports cards, but with Magic (and I assume Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc), it's a matter of believing in a system that may or may not actually produce results. As a magic player myself, I'll sometimes feel the outside of three or four different packs (I don't go to crazy after all), and see if they feel thicker or whatever else. Generally, it does nothing as I've pulled cards that are worth $20, and I've pulled bulk rares doing the same thing both times. It's all a matter of illusion. Unless there is a trick, then I wish I knew how to perform it better.

But I consider it no different than when I used to work at a gas station. We'd sell lottery tickets and you'd hear of all sorts of different methods people believed in. The first and last on the roll were winners. Or if the numbers were the same (55, 222, etc). Sometimes it worked, other times not so much.

 

[NitroKing2110]

Yep, we had several different guys come in at different times using scales & feeling them looking for the 'bonus' pack.
We also have a couple of old guys who come in looking for specific Hot Wheels cars.
They used to harass our SFTMs to get them to bring any out from back but the ETL said HELL no. Not gonna happen.

My store seems to get hit very hard by collectors. I've been screamed at because the package I put on hold had dents in it from the spiderwrap (well sorry, they all have that) and he demanded I get a pristine one. From where, down the yellow brick road? I've also had someone take a casepack of hot wheels off my flatbed and bitch at me because he wanted a SEALED casepack. Excuse me, YOU didn't ask for this casepack, the CAFs did. We also had a guest come INTO THE BACKROOM after being told by a SFTM that there were none in the back and he said "well it's important that I get these NOW so I thought I'd check for myself." The BRTL politely told him to get the hell out and he had to be encouraged to leave by AP.

 

[RedMan]

At another job we had to fire a guy who figured out a way to scam the scratch tickets. I won't tell you cause it still works. The State was not happy.

 

[POGguy]

I know some stores in our district that are known to give whole casepacks of HotWheels to some of the collectors. The collectors actually agree to push the product to the shelf in exchange for getting to look through them first.

I'm not a collector so doesn't matter to me. I could see how some people would be upset though.

 

[Leonhart621]

Every Saturday, there's 3 guests who always come in when the store opens and check out the Hot Wheels. They don't bother us like asking to check the back or go through the pallet. If I notice there's casepack/s of Hot Wheels on the pallet, I make sure it's pushed on the floor.

I'm a collector. I'm mainly into action figures (DC, Marvel, TMNT, TWD, videogame related) and Lego (especially the minifigs). I do get looks from other people when buying toys especially when I spend time going through the Lego blind bags by feeling looking for a specific character.

No, I don't sell them in eBay like most of you probably thinking right now. I don't play like making fightsounds or whooshing sounds (except when I'm really, really bored).

 

[commiecorvus]

I'm a collector too but it's books and music.
Every week I go to used books and music stores to look for cool stuff.
Sometimes I buy new stuff if it's special but mostly used.
This involves a lot of shuffling through boxes of stuff one piece at a time.
The folks that work at the stores are used to seeing us coming so it's no big deal.
The know collectors are a little off but they are steady customers.
Caring passionately about something can be pain to those around you who don't get it but anybody else who has that crazy glint in their eye understands.

 

[Quattro]

I've heard about a couple kids who come into my store from time to time, looking for TMNT actions figures with removable masks. To my knowledge, no such thing exists. At least not in our store. You would think after coming up short once or twice, they would figure out that we do not/will not have them. Apparently not.

 

[The Dude Abides]

As a former CCG player I can tell you that (at least in the games I played) there was a slight difference in the feel and weight of booster packs with "foils" in them versus packs without them. If allowed to dig through I could hit with roughly a 75% certainty whether a pack had one of those "ultra rare" cards or not. This is why at card shops they lock the packs in a glass case and do not let the buyer feel the packs ahead of time. However, from the perspective of Target as long as the guest is not damaging the product or stealing the product then it's not a big deal. Is it a violation of card collector ethics? Well yes, but quite frankly most serious collectors know that places like Target, Walmart etc. are going to have their packs picked through.

 

[Retail Girl]

Ugh...we have someone who is going through all of our Minecraft keychain packs at the front lanes. They are slicing them open, leaving the ones they don't like and stealing the rest. We are finding tons of these things lately. People are jerks.

 

[FlowChick]

Psh...should just be happy she doesn't steal them. I came believe people still steal Pokemon Cards in 2015....

 

[FlowChick]

At another job we had to fire a guy who figured out a way to scam the scratch tickets. I won't tell you cause it still works. The State was not happy.

Ctfu. There was this guy in our district who got caught stealing over $25,000 in scratch offs. He was ringing them up and over riding the prices on other employees numbers since he was a supervisor. This is why we got in trouble for cross ringing. Another guy scratched them enough to see if they were winners. Buy all the winners and cash them. His stupid ass cashed them in his uniform. Of course our security guy has friends in the lotto industry and was able to catch these guys quick. Plus it's a federal crime...so all bad.

People are so smart. If only they'd use their brains for something productive. Such as the braniacs who figured out rubbing deoderant on fake money can fool the infamous black money checker pen.

 

[FlowChick]

I can't speak for the sports cards, but with Magic (and I assume Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc), it's a matter of believing in a system that may or may not actually produce results. As a magic player myself, I'll sometimes feel the outside of three or four different packs (I don't go to crazy after all), and see if they feel thicker or whatever else. Generally, it does nothing as I've pulled cards that are worth $20, and I've pulled bulk rares doing the same thing both times. It's all a matter of illusion. Unless there is a trick, then I wish I knew how to perform it better.

But I consider it no different than when I used to work at a gas station. We'd sell lottery tickets and you'd hear of all sorts of different methods people believed in. The first and last on the roll were winners. Or if the numbers were the same (55, 222, etc). Sometimes it worked, other times not so much.

It's just luck. People are dumb. I often wanted to tell these people they'd be better off giving me the money because I'd make better use of it.

 

[Ringwraith917]

With Magic packs the ones containing foils should weigh a tiny bit more. So little that it would be indiscernable without a very precise scale. Even then there's no guarantee that the foil will be a rare/mythic. They've done an excellent job designing packs.

 

[desertcoyote]

I know some stores in our district that are known to give whole casepacks of HotWheels to some of the collectors. The collectors actually agree to push the product to the shelf in exchange for getting to look through them first.

I'm not a collector so doesn't matter to me. I could see how some people would be upset though.

Oh yaeh, we get the Hot Wheels guys come in every truck day and go through our inventory.

 

[PinkZinnia]

I asked the vendor about guests who do this - He said they are looking for special cards - and as long as they don't rip the bags opened, there is no problem with what they are doing.