On January 17th I purchased 5 copies of Loyal Retainers form MTGFanatic. I paid within minutes of my purchase (attachment 3).
There had been recent hype about these cards and their impact in Legacy survival of the fittest decks. I was very intrigued and started shopping. They were available on the internet for prices between 40 and 65 dollars across 3 languages (English, Japanese, Chinese). This was across numerous websites.
After my purchase I anxiously awaited my cards.
Nine days later I got an email :
“Hello, This is Chris Tremblay from MtgFanatic.com. I am writing to you regarding your order for Loyal Retainers. This item was not listed at the correct price, so I am unable to ship these items at this time. I have refunded your paypal account for your total. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Chris Tremblay President MtgFanatic.com, Inc.”
First off, what he did was wrong on multiple levels. Not shipping cards for 9 days? Not responding to an order for 9 days? And what is debatable, his not honoring a sale with a “wrong price”.
However, I will illustrate that Chris Tremblay consciously decided not to honor my order and instead keep the items and raise their price by 119 dollars.
The first attachment shows the completed eBay auctions of the past month for loyal retainers.
This attachment clearly shows that the price for retains at and before January 13th was approximately 33 dollars each. This is BELOW the listed price at MTGFanatic, as expected, as eBay is cheaper than online vendors. Assuming 33 dollars for an ebay Loyal Retainers is correct, one would guess that online vendors would be selling them for 40 – 55 dollars. Maybe more if the online store is notoriously expensive.
That was EXACTLY the case for MTGfanatic and other online websites.
Then, as eBay shows, starting January 21st the price skyrockets. In just the span of a few days Loyal Retainers doubles/triples in price.
From my perspective this is good. I had placed an order 2 DAYS earlier. One would expect that my items would actually have been shipped in these two days. At bare minimum packaged.
Instead, nothing.
I got an email NINE days later saying that my order could not be shipped because the price was wrong.
I speculate that MTGFanatic does not ship items promptly, and as a result of this bad habit he noticed that the price had increased since my purchase. And as such, he made an unethical and dubious business decision to keep the items for his store and refund my money.
I will also show additional evidence that is largely irrelevant because it is too old, but it is still valuable. Using the http://www.archive.org/I looked up how much MTGFanatic had Loyal Retainers listed for at earlier dates.
From here (http://web.archive.org/web/*/mtgfanatic.com ) one can see all of their older archived websites. Looking at March of 2008 we can see that the price for a Loyal Retainers was $15.99.
I accept that this information is unfortunately too old, but it still provides a basement and a starting point for timelines. Essentially, that this is proof that the card was in fact fairly cheap within the last few years, and that MTGFanatic did not have it listed at a HIGHER price in previous history. They now have 17 in stock for $159.99.
To summarize:
1)MTGfanatic had Loyal Retainers listed at market average
2)I make an order and pay for it on January 17th
3)MTGfanatic does not ship my order in a timely manner
4)During this time, but after my purchase, Loyal Retainers doubled/tripled in price
5)MTGfanatic remands my order.
6) Emails me 9 days later (26th) saying their price was wrong, refunds money. Relists the same cards for +119 dollars
In all honesty, I don’t think the burden of proof should be on me to show anything. However, I felt obligated to get this information out here so that other consumers can consciously stay away from MTGFanatic.com
If there are any flaws in the information I put out here, please feel free to critique it. I could be missing an angle that somehow exonerates Chris Tremblay, but I don’t think so.
Thank you for reading. Vote if you would like, please be honest.
Yes, a lot of MTG stores are doing this nowadays. Yes it's dishonest and deceitful and makes me want to go burn their houses down.
The only think you can really do is spread the word so people don't buy from them, and (I think) file a report at the Federal Trade Commission.
It is probably well within their TOS, sadly, or they wouldn't take that risk. I wish stores would just be honest with you, though.
I'd almost rather get this email.
"Sorry, we're not letting a 150 dollar card go for 40."
It blows that online magic purchases no longer reward you at all for getting in under the wire. If anything, we get punished for being faster to adapt than the stores.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
I would say it is deceitful. This appears to be a common trend with a few certain stores anymore.
All you can really do is get the word out there in places like this. I'd also probably write a complaint back and link to this thread so he can either defend himself or potentially be shamed into thinking twice about doing this in the future.
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Standard: BRG Jund Midrange GRB //// B Vampire Aggro B //// WRU Patriot Control URW
Extended: RGW Zoo WGR
Legacy: RUG Canadian Thresh GUR
This seems like it is happening more and more these days. Cards rise from pennies to tens to hundreds of dollars overnight. I think many dealers are not shipping orders to see if your order is a trend where perhaps they are getting ripped off. It stinks that card prices increase as they do when they become useful and apparently this is the store's only defense. I wonder what we would do if the roles were reversed.
I wish we could get this thread stickied around the forums. I've had issues with them in the past on sale orders, where I had to call them several times after my sale had been recieved (thanks to delivery confirmation) before they decided to send me my money. I will absolutely never deal with them again, and I encourage anyone who uses our forums here to stay away as well. The only real way of getting back at them, as far as I can see, is not giving them business.
In all fairness most people aren't going to take such a large profit loss and I notice MTG fanatic seems to update there prices infrequently. Although yes its wrong they are just doing the same thing as 90% of stores and ebay sellers do.
They haven't directly jipped or sent damaged cards out labeled mint like some stores do.
They haven't directly jipped or sent damaged cards out labeled mint like some stores do.
Not according to people over at mtgthesource.com
As to your "profit loss" comment. They have sold zero at their current price. They had sold 10+ at their lower price. I did not major in economics but that looks like profit loss to me.
Cool, could you give me the link? I'm intrested in this because MTG Fanatic is trying to advertize in my area by sponsoring tournaments with gift cards and stuff.
I take back my previous statement then, although being dishonest and canceling orders has gotten common enough that I'm willing to ignore it ACTUAL scamming of any sort shouldn't be tolerated.
I had the same thing happen to me with Gathering Ground. Picked up 4x dream halls, ancient tomb, show and tell - heard no confirmation of shipping for 7 days, then the order got rescinded because cards were not in stock. Now they've tripled the price and suddenly the cards are in stock.
Lame, but it's more annoying that they tie up your money. If you say you'll ship in 24 hours, ship in 24 hours.
Honestly, I think it's a shortcut for not doing enough work. If these owners did their jobs correctly and tracked tournaments, legacy unbanned lists, SCG 5k results, they'd be able to pull cards until they figured out the correct price.
MTG Fanatic has lost my business as well. They have failed to ship in a timely manner, if at all, and also did not send me payment for cards I sold to them until I had emailed them for weeks. Good thing I used Delivery Confirmation; they seem to "not receive" orders or "lose track of cards" an awful lot for a company that deals in cards. In my (and others') experience, they have absolutely atrocious customer service, and very suspicious practices.
If I ran a similar shop nowadays, I'd adopt a policy of shipping out "not more than a playset per order of any cards that are only sparcely in stock." This price-jumping of older cards happens far too often, recently, to just let the first person who happens to have teh info and teh ca$h cash in on the whole revenue.
Last week, in Germany Cloudstone Curio became hyped quite a bit due to a combination of renewed demand (spurted by success of the Extended Elves deck) and some unforeseen method of market manipulation (assumedly done by some unknown private person who intended to sell their own copies for a premium by turning all other offers at the same place 'invisible' for the better period of a day). All available fix-priced stock got emptied from the German market in the wake of that manipulation, then got re-listed within a price range of 300% to 1000% of the previous prices (and usually not by the same vendors).
And that happened to a card which should actually be quite available due to it's rather recent printing in a standalone set. What would you do, if you ran a shop? Why ship out more than four copies to a single person?
(I concede that not delivering at all is another problem, though. ;))
It sounds like one or 2 of the vendors got togeather and bought out the rest.
I was talking to a guy who runs a small to medium sized card store (talking about his online component) and his website is set up to only allow purchases of certain numbers of cards (like your 4 each) idea per user unless you call in during business hours (or request a callback). I suppose you could always say "my brother and I are both playing this deck and so we need 8" but it keeps you from wiping out his stock.
Far too many stores still don't keep thier inventory seperate so every card they have is online. If I walk into the store they just sell it to me, but by the time they get to your order in the AM they are sold out.
Now when that happens the store should do it's best to obtain cards for you. That's what I've always done on shortages is to run out and try to buy/trade for the cards I'm short. If I can get them but they are going to take 2 weeks, I would give you the option of accepting the new cards or a refund, and the last thing I'd do is try to pass that cost to the buyer. That's just poor business.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Most stores are pretty worthless at keeping their inventory up to date. They rely on speculators to accurately determine the correct price for their cards? Anyone who tries to clean out their stock of a certain card will obviously "forget" to ship out the card and raise the price accordingly.
I wish QuietSpeculation would more frequently update their Hall of Shame. If all the stories about these underhanded doings, especially those done by the same store, they'll start losing substantial business.
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Wow... I can't believe this. If it were me, I'd go after them for all they were worth. Isn't there a contract on Ebay, that if you purchase an item, they are required to send it for that price if they have it?
There was no mistake on the matter at hand in what they did to you, and shops do this all the time. Try flipping the situation around were you are the dealer....what would you do? refund the money with some lame excuse {they don't care about their rep} or would you send out the products question that have tripled in value?
All they see is profit and nothing else. Now if you say "hey I would just do the right thing and ship out their products and cut my loss" than you stand alone in the hellbent world.
They don't care about you {sorry to say that bud} or anyone else. Because the bottomline is they'll get those extra greenbacks regardless of the few members that have stated they won't buy from them now because of this thread.....nomatter what, someone will go to them because that's how the system works.
Did they screw you? ofcourse! Will it happen again good member? it probably already has to someone else! Will this ever change as a ethic? Hell no because this world isn't based on kindness and sharing the hype.
Sorry for what happened to you, but don't let it get to you....just get faster at your insight on finding cards you think will gain you a profit, and then order them 2 months in advance {like my buddy buying what, almost 100 grindstones prehype off a rumor @ dealer prices} before anyone else finds out...by that time they should have the goods shipped, and you should be rolling around in the cash {I know he did...lots of paper cuts....what I made a funny}....because they are right now on the those LR regardless if they sit in their shops for a few extra days now!
S.M.
I used to have this happen to me all the time back when I played. Right before Protean Hulk became the broken Legacy deck a few years back, I bought every Hulk Shuffle and Cut had in stock for 2$ (or 3, can't remember), just to have them shoot up into the double digits and have them tell me they were out of stock.
I've even had this happen at the card shop I went too for many many years. I bought playsets of Swords of Fire and Ice and Light and Shadow before regionals from the store (who would hand them too me at regionals), for him to tell me the price was 17$ a piece instead of 9 for Fire and Ice, and 12 a piece instead of 5 for Light and Shadow AT THE REGIONALS. Safe to say I was pissed off.
i'm not surprised that this store sounds fishy, they are promoting at gamelot in san antonio where gamelot will display and sell cards for them, and mtgfanatic will give out $10 gift cards and half a box of boosters for top 8.
while its nice to have price support for once at my local game store, i don't know how long this can last.
i'm not surprised that this store sounds fishy, they are promoting at gamelot in san antonio where gamelot will display and sell cards for them, and mtgfanatic will give out $10 gift cards and half a box of boosters for top 8.
while its nice to have price support for once at my local game store, i don't know how long this can last.
Who are you? I'm from gamelot and have been trying to figure out whose who on this site.
Already know gaiacradle and a couple of others.
Anyway it'll last for a while, the gift cards do work as I redeemed mine for stuff, its just they overprice just about everything standard.
MTGFanatic looks like a magic card shop, but they do not appear to be in the selling of magic cards business. Still all 17 of their loyal retainers are in stock.
There had been recent hype about these cards and their impact in Legacy survival of the fittest decks. I was very intrigued and started shopping. They were available on the internet for prices between 40 and 65 dollars across 3 languages (English, Japanese, Chinese). This was across numerous websites.
After my purchase I anxiously awaited my cards.
Nine days later I got an email :
“Hello,
This is Chris Tremblay from MtgFanatic.com. I am writing to you regarding your order for Loyal Retainers. This item was not listed at the correct price, so I am unable to ship these items at this time. I have refunded your paypal account for your total. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Chris Tremblay
President
MtgFanatic.com, Inc.”
First off, what he did was wrong on multiple levels. Not shipping cards for 9 days? Not responding to an order for 9 days? And what is debatable, his not honoring a sale with a “wrong price”.
However, I will illustrate that Chris Tremblay consciously decided not to honor my order and instead keep the items and raise their price by 119 dollars.
The first attachment shows the completed eBay auctions of the past month for loyal retainers.
This attachment clearly shows that the price for retains at and before January 13th was approximately 33 dollars each. This is BELOW the listed price at MTGFanatic, as expected, as eBay is cheaper than online vendors. Assuming 33 dollars for an ebay Loyal Retainers is correct, one would guess that online vendors would be selling them for 40 – 55 dollars. Maybe more if the online store is notoriously expensive.
That was EXACTLY the case for MTGfanatic and other online websites.
Then, as eBay shows, starting January 21st the price skyrockets. In just the span of a few days Loyal Retainers doubles/triples in price.
From my perspective this is good. I had placed an order 2 DAYS earlier. One would expect that my items would actually have been shipped in these two days. At bare minimum packaged.
Instead, nothing.
I got an email NINE days later saying that my order could not be shipped because the price was wrong.
I speculate that MTGFanatic does not ship items promptly, and as a result of this bad habit he noticed that the price had increased since my purchase. And as such, he made an unethical and dubious business decision to keep the items for his store and refund my money.
I will also show additional evidence that is largely irrelevant because it is too old, but it is still valuable. Using the http://www.archive.org/I looked up how much MTGFanatic had Loyal Retainers listed for at earlier dates.
From here (http://web.archive.org/web/*/mtgfanatic.com ) one can see all of their older archived websites. Looking at March of 2008 we can see that the price for a Loyal Retainers was $15.99.
I accept that this information is unfortunately too old, but it still provides a basement and a starting point for timelines. Essentially, that this is proof that the card was in fact fairly cheap within the last few years, and that MTGFanatic did not have it listed at a HIGHER price in previous history. They now have 17 in stock for $159.99.
To summarize:
1)MTGfanatic had Loyal Retainers listed at market average
2)I make an order and pay for it on January 17th
3)MTGfanatic does not ship my order in a timely manner
4)During this time, but after my purchase, Loyal Retainers doubled/tripled in price
5)MTGfanatic remands my order.
6) Emails me 9 days later (26th) saying their price was wrong, refunds money. Relists the same cards for +119 dollars
In all honesty, I don’t think the burden of proof should be on me to show anything. However, I felt obligated to get this information out here so that other consumers can consciously stay away from MTGFanatic.com
If there are any flaws in the information I put out here, please feel free to critique it. I could be missing an angle that somehow exonerates Chris Tremblay, but I don’t think so.
Thank you for reading. Vote if you would like, please be honest.
AVOID MTG Fanatic ! Remands Orders and Re-lists cards for more money!
The only think you can really do is spread the word so people don't buy from them, and (I think) file a report at the Federal Trade Commission.
I'd almost rather get this email.
"Sorry, we're not letting a 150 dollar card go for 40."
It blows that online magic purchases no longer reward you at all for getting in under the wire. If anything, we get punished for being faster to adapt than the stores.
All you can really do is get the word out there in places like this. I'd also probably write a complaint back and link to this thread so he can either defend himself or potentially be shamed into thinking twice about doing this in the future.
BRG Jund Midrange GRB //// B Vampire Aggro B //// WRU Patriot Control URW
Extended:
RGW Zoo WGR
Legacy:
RUG Canadian Thresh GUR
EDH:
U Arcum Dagsson U //// WB Teysa, Orzhov Scion BW //// UR Jhoira of the Ghitu RU
Special thanks to spiderboy4 of High~Light Studios for the banner
They haven't directly jipped or sent damaged cards out labeled mint like some stores do.
Not according to people over at mtgthesource.com
As to your "profit loss" comment. They have sold zero at their current price. They had sold 10+ at their lower price. I did not major in economics but that looks like profit loss to me.
AVOID MTG Fanatic ! Remands Orders and Re-lists cards for more money!
Cool, could you give me the link? I'm intrested in this because MTG Fanatic is trying to advertize in my area by sponsoring tournaments with gift cards and stuff.
I take back my previous statement then, although being dishonest and canceling orders has gotten common enough that I'm willing to ignore it ACTUAL scamming of any sort shouldn't be tolerated.
Generally pages at 11 and on talk about the store periodically.
AVOID MTG Fanatic ! Remands Orders and Re-lists cards for more money!
Thanks.
Lame, but it's more annoying that they tie up your money. If you say you'll ship in 24 hours, ship in 24 hours.
Honestly, I think it's a shortcut for not doing enough work. If these owners did their jobs correctly and tracked tournaments, legacy unbanned lists, SCG 5k results, they'd be able to pull cards until they figured out the correct price.
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It would be fun to order like $1000 worth of cards from them, then say "Actually, ya know what, the price was wrong, so I'm not buying them now."
-Day[9]
It sounds like one or 2 of the vendors got togeather and bought out the rest.
I was talking to a guy who runs a small to medium sized card store (talking about his online component) and his website is set up to only allow purchases of certain numbers of cards (like your 4 each) idea per user unless you call in during business hours (or request a callback). I suppose you could always say "my brother and I are both playing this deck and so we need 8" but it keeps you from wiping out his stock.
Far too many stores still don't keep thier inventory seperate so every card they have is online. If I walk into the store they just sell it to me, but by the time they get to your order in the AM they are sold out.
Now when that happens the store should do it's best to obtain cards for you. That's what I've always done on shortages is to run out and try to buy/trade for the cards I'm short. If I can get them but they are going to take 2 weeks, I would give you the option of accepting the new cards or a refund, and the last thing I'd do is try to pass that cost to the buyer. That's just poor business.
I wish QuietSpeculation would more frequently update their Hall of Shame. If all the stories about these underhanded doings, especially those done by the same store, they'll start losing substantial business.
Thanks to a_passer_bye for an incredible signature banner!
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All they see is profit and nothing else. Now if you say "hey I would just do the right thing and ship out their products and cut my loss" than you stand alone in the hellbent world.
They don't care about you {sorry to say that bud} or anyone else. Because the bottomline is they'll get those extra greenbacks regardless of the few members that have stated they won't buy from them now because of this thread.....nomatter what, someone will go to them because that's how the system works.
Did they screw you? ofcourse! Will it happen again good member? it probably already has to someone else! Will this ever change as a ethic? Hell no because this world isn't based on kindness and sharing the hype.
Sorry for what happened to you, but don't let it get to you....just get faster at your insight on finding cards you think will gain you a profit, and then order them 2 months in advance {like my buddy buying what, almost 100 grindstones prehype off a rumor @ dealer prices} before anyone else finds out...by that time they should have the goods shipped, and you should be rolling around in the cash {I know he did...lots of paper cuts....what I made a funny}....because they are right now on the those LR regardless if they sit in their shops for a few extra days now!
S.M.
I've even had this happen at the card shop I went too for many many years. I bought playsets of Swords of Fire and Ice and Light and Shadow before regionals from the store (who would hand them too me at regionals), for him to tell me the price was 17$ a piece instead of 9 for Fire and Ice, and 12 a piece instead of 5 for Light and Shadow AT THE REGIONALS. Safe to say I was pissed off.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=218820
while its nice to have price support for once at my local game store, i don't know how long this can last.
…( `\(o),,_/` ¯ : o : : : o `-, …. Beyond the hard times from now
have/want: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/trading-post/details/80-quattros-trade-thread
Who are you? I'm from gamelot and have been trying to figure out whose who on this site.
Already know gaiacradle and a couple of others.
Anyway it'll last for a while, the gift cards do work as I redeemed mine for stuff, its just they overprice just about everything standard.
AVOID MTG Fanatic ! Remands Orders and Re-lists cards for more money!