Soooo, I found myself at Target and they have some of the same old figures, but there was a Princess Leia in Boushh Disguise hanging on the pegs, I thought about it for a minute and left it, passing an end cap with another one. I went ahead and kept walking, After I collected the items I came for I decided, what the heck, pick up the Leia. Somewhere in my mind I figured the one on the end cap was the better and it was closer, so I walked back by and grabbed it, not giving it a second look. I checked out and made my way home, just tossing the bag on the kitchen counter when I came through the door. Hours later I decided to open her up and at first glance totally missed the re tapped blister. The thing that seemed off was that the little Battle Game Card was tapped to the insert with a piece of masking tape... huh, that's weird. Oh well.
I pulled the figure form the package and was sort of disappointed about the cut joints on the elbows, the figure was taped and banded like all the other figures I had picked up before, so no worries... but what was the deal with the Battle Game Card??? Oh well time to remove the proof of purchase, wait why is it taped in a hole the same size as the POP? Holy crap I had been had. I immediately logged onto Rebel Scum to do some research, crap they haven't updated their archives with this figure yet, a quick search of the assortment number and I was lead to the figure I had just bought. That threw my first hypothesis right out the window, that the UPC was clipped from another package and replaced so our smooth criminal could gain an extra buck... see I checked my receipt and I did pay a dollar more for this particular figure than what was marked on the shelves... at least I think. That's all a bust now though, why would someone go through the trouble to duplicate the barcode???
I checked over the contents of the package, the figure seems like the one that goes in there, it has the tiny thermal detonator, the helmet, weapon / staff, the stand, dice and the card... something is missing??? THE EXTRA WEAPONS ARE GONE, true I would probably have just tossed them into my extra accessories box, but hey I paid for those!
So this is what I came up with. The pleasant gentleman or lady (but lets face it I do not think a lady would do such a thing) bought this figure, carefully cut the blister on three sides, took out the inner figure tray out and removed the little baggie of weapons and then tapped the card back, since it would be held up by the extra weapons baggie. Then slide the figure tray back, but not before cutting a piece of gloss card stock, poster board or photo paper that had a scanned and printed duplicate of the barcode and placing it back into the hole they cut the original barcode out of. I will add the Xacto skills here are really impressive. Why? I mean really? Because they wanted the extra weapons for the little army of clones they are massing in their sand box? The original barcode will come in handy to mail away for that Rocket Firing Boba Fett so they can sell it on eBay latter because they have already mailed away for twenty of them and plan on getting rich off selling them in the next year or so.
I think I am more amazed at the time and effort in this crime, and lets not mince words it's a crime, fraud. After dissecting this package and examining the work done I have little more to do but toss this persons hard work into the recycle bin and enjoy my hopefully new Princess Leia in Boushh Disguise, and of course blog about it. I do feel a little ripped off and really dismayed from all this. In general most collectors I meet are above this sort of thing, but this does not give me hope for the future of collecting toys or even Star Wars toys for that matter (at least in this area), this person was out to rip off an unsuspecting child or grandparent and they got me. I will admit I was in a hurry and did not pay as close attention as I should have, but really should I have to do that, over a eight dollar toy? Really have we come to that? Looks like Mos Eisly is not the only retched hive of scum and villainy.
