The Risk Of Buying Magic: The Gathering On Amazon

i messed up twice and i didn't want to make this video because i would have to admit that i messed up twice but i decided that i should because it's important for people to hear about what can happen when you buy magic the gathering products on amazon to know what your recourse is if something like this happens to you and to hopefully learn from my mistakes several months ago amazon had a deal on modern horizons 2 booster boxes an incredible deal of 220 per draft box at the time at a time when they were selling for about 275 to 300 pretty much everywhere else i caved i wanted them to add to my selection of boosters for future drafts with friends and i bought three boxes of them what i got were incredibly damaged boxes this is nothing new there are frequent reports of getting banged up and otherwise damaged goods from amazon especially when it comes to collectibles but that is when i messed up a second time i opened the box that they arrived in kind of shifted the inside packaging around saw that they looked pretty banged up groaned and shoved the box in my closet without any further inspection i know right i get what i deserve and as embarrassing as it is for me to admit i then went and messed up again i should have returned those boxes immediately dealt with it and returned it and not accepted anything but booster boxes in good condition well that's not what i did i didn't even look that closely at them again i just kind of shoved it in my closet and that i thought was kind of the end of that i'm gonna just draft with these anyway it's annoying but whatever right well it wasn't until about a month later when i started seeing a lot of videos like this one which was posted on reddit and many others that were on other forms of social media customers were reporting that they had received repacked or otherwise fake booster boxes from amazon in this case the boxes had been resealed and the packs inside slit open so as to remove the rares and i kept seeing this again and again that's when i went back and looked at my box still sitting in the closet and really saw just how bad the boxes i had received were again i i get it this is the risk you take when you order from amazon i really avoided making this video kept saying i didn't want to do it but i've also had incidents in the past where i didn't make a video about an issue relating to magic the gathering because i felt i was too late or that everyone already knew about the issue and it ended up being something that i regretted so eventually i just figured as embarrassing as it is i'd take these boxes out open them up to see if they've been repacked and talk with you about the risk that you run either way when you order magic the gathering products off of amazon [Music] before i open these up i want to be very clear the lesson is never accept less than what you deserve what you paid for if your boxes arrive damaged demand a refund i feel had i done this within my window of opportunity i could have been granted one however because of the way amazon works while i might have been refunded or sent acceptable replacement boxes that doesn't mean these would have been removed from the amazon marketplace in fact they likely would have just been sent to the next person who ordered some modern horizons draft booster boxes off of amazon it's even possible that they were returned because of the bad condition they were in and that's how i ended up getting them i'll link this and a few other articles in the description but because of the way amazon marketplace works all products essentially go in the same bin to be sold without distinction so the official wizards of the coast boxes are put in the same bin as the boxes you or i might sell on amazon the returns are put in there as well this creates a magic card launderer's dream buy a box open it up take out the rares reseal even sloppily hey can claim it arrived that way return it for a refund someone else gets the dud box even if nothing nefarious is going on the truth of the matter is that amazon workers just aren't going to know or even care about the condition a product like this should be in they may not know to handle it with care boxes are going to get tossed around shoved around shrink wrap will inevitably rip get pulled boxes will become damaged and it's possible that this is all that happened to my boxes we'll find out on that in a second but please as much as i dislike amazon as a company the point of this video isn't to say never ever buy off amazon i get it sometimes you do i did but when you do what i really want to drive home is that you should never ever accept damaged boxes always demand a refund maybe they're repacked maybe they're just damaged but either way the rule should be return them demand a refund be vigilant don't be careless as i was all right let's open these up i took extra care with my video during openings so that it was a continuous shot here is that video now all right here we are so i received these three boxes when modern horizons 2 was released and already i i'm very embarrassed about this of course but i did not give a lot of care and attention to them i kind of opened up the box from amazon i saw that they looked messed up i did not think of returning them which should have been the immediate thing that i did and i kind of just shoved the box literally that they were in kind of to the side as these had been purchased to draft later and i had a million things going on and again very embarrassed about this so here are the boxes and the way i'm going to be doing this because of the i believe important nature of this video is i don't want any cuts or interruptions to this i have a camera set up here where you can see the boxes this is the most uh uh worst of them obviously as you can see it's literally opened uh i have no way to prove that this is how it arrived from amazon but beyond that we'll see if anything if anything i want to open this up and have it not be repacked or resealed to simply just be highlighting the terrible condition you can receive boxes in from amazon although i guess that still doesn't prove i bought it from amazon but nonetheless this is how it arrived uh there's a mess there and one of the things that actually leads me to think that this doesn't have repacked cards in it though i mean i could see that someone could slip them in and out is that this other box that i'm gonna be opening which is completely sealed here uh has the same little mark there and i've heard from people that are more familiar with amazon and such that they just take terrible care sometimes of the product or things are returned which obviously again i should have returned these and i hope if nothing else everyone will be very scrutinous of what they buy on amazon and if it doesn't arrive in pristine condition they will uh return it pardon that i'm working without a script here so i will have some uh's and um's so that's the only really problem here that i see is this mark and then for this box it's got this very weird i hope the camera's picking up warning in advance i have both of these cameras on auto focus since my head is going to be moving around and uh i don't want to cut when i zoom in to see the individual packs i don't want to cut this camera so i'm just going to zoom in and have the autofocus take care of it so if it freaks out at any point but there's this really awful like just textured thing about this on the side it looks just atrocious and i don't know if somebody like slices with a razor i don't know the full process of thievery and slit it out and repacked it and slid it in and maybe vacuum sealed it would create that or again much more likely just terrible conditions terrible terrible conditions with amazon which by itself is significant and i in no way am discounting that the videos which i will have shown before this of other people opening resealed product are not legitimate and i think it's a real concern uh which is what prompted this video so i think we should start with the worst of the three just awful now this also this is the thing this has that same feeling to it these did all arrive in the same shipment but who knows what that means so here we go what a waste in either way it's just very disappointing okay so opening this box up with the tear on the top right away that looks really nice and clean there um i don't even know i don't even know that i need to zoom in as i'm doing this i'm looking at my little viewfinder well it's sealed i mean these look sealed geez now i don't want to waste opening these these look sealed they look neat i started to open it without even scrutinizing it which actually is a good sign uh so yeah we got our commons our ugly sorry i really hate that treatment uh well there's a mythic first pack so there you go and uh rare i mean i already am pretty convinced these are legitimate packs so i feel like i'm going to say this box looks fine and maybe what i'm gonna do for this video is i'm not gonna change the uh zoom in but i'm going to right now speed it up go through the box and stop if i see anything suspicious because i want to get through this i already feel pretty confident about the remaining boxes but i feel committed to this so here we go [Music] okay marsh flats it's the one fetchland i got like crazy in the uh booster box game for modern horizons i still seem to only get them i got more cheered up from the marsh flats than the ragavon [Music] oh triple [Music] all right i think i feel better in a way i i feel bad that i wasted that box and apologies that that was such an inelegant display but i didn't feel that this should be a fun video which is a terrible approach to a video for someone who makes videos for fun but i want to not open those other two because if that one that was so obviously ripped open and packs could have just been slid in and out was real and it really was i'll show a close-up of all the cards real quick instead of just wasting these and ripping them open i'm gonna give them away to you uh i need a minute to think about it so i'm gonna think about it and film the other parts about how best uh to do the giveaway and here's a quick look at the cards close but there is no doubt in my mind obviously from uh uh what we opened in this box that this was just terrible treatment by amazon of its product and uh these boxes are not pretty but if that box was real i feel confident these other two are i could rip them open i just i more than anything feel this is an unfun way for you to experience the box opening i could make it a fun way for you to experience it but i think it'd be more fun for me to just give them away and i feel like that's my penance that i have to pay for buying off of amazon and so maybe i can try and at least get a little bit of joy out of a really stupid thing i did and then another stupid thing i did not checking my product more carefully and being attentive and all that stuff so we'll turn it into a good thing and that that'll make me feel a little bit better [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] one of the fastest growing places to purchase magic the gathering sealed products is on amazon and i've always urged players to support local game stores but as my own actions indicate it's hard to argue with some of the unbelievably good deals on products that seem to pop up on amazon from time to time while i am against amazon in general as a corporation and am again in favor of local game stores i recognize that many magic the gathering players do not have a local game store and that even for those that do there's a certain point where you cannot ignore significant savings especially in this economy if it's 50 bucks or more at the nearest store yeah i can't blame you for going with amazon hopefully people are not blaming me too severely i really just wanted some boxes to have for future drafts with friends i feel very confident these boxes are fine i really would have been too depressed to just i was looking at them and the idea of just ripping them open and wasting all of those draft packs i don't even want to add up if that one box i opened was worth it or not i don't care that isn't the point of this video i'm gonna give these two away to you because that makes me happy it's like some kind of way of saving all of this so i i can only pin one comment on youtube so what i'm gonna do is i'm going to send one to a randomly selected patron at any level as a thank you it'll be sent to a patron who is already supporting the channel so this is not being used as a call for new patrons uh honestly as in case you haven't told by the fact that i've said it about 15 times already i'm super embarrassed about all of this and i just want to walk away hearing that someone had fun with these uh the other box i'll send to one of you watching this at random just leave a comment i'll pin one to the top in i don't know a week one week i don't care what you say or if you're subscribed and i don't know do i wish i had spent the money at my local i wish i had returned them that's the point of this video whether it's repacks that you might be getting or just a messed up box just return it you shouldn't be getting that from amazon and you have the right to return it and maybe if we're all returning it maybe if that's the new magic the gathering motto for buying on amazon that's the new way that we behave as customers is we don't accept it unless it's 100 perfect it's messed up it's banged up we return it i know it is unreasonable to cut such a huge company out entirely but at least maybe hopefully this video can illuminate some of the risks of buying magic the gathering products from amazon [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Tolarian Community College

Views: 175,442

Rating: 4.9357529 out of 5

Keywords: magic the gathering, wizards of the coast, tolarian community college, card games, tabletop, geek, nerd

Id: PFl8i6tcIw4

Length: 21min 9sec (1269 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/psychotwilight]

Something darkly hilarious about the box Prof chooses to use as an example for how risky amazon purchases can be having a borderless ragavan and a mirari’s wake in the first few packs. It doesn’t take away from the message of the video, though- return that shit if it’s busted up and love your lgs if you’re able.

[u/Magical_mango]

Let's be honest, the real risk with buying from Amazon is supporting their standards of international ruthlessness and devaluation of human lives

[u/BisquickNinja]

Did it once and the group that sold it to me took ZERO responsibility.

So several hundred dollars wasted on commons. I just won't do it anymore and will only buy from boxes that I can see.

[u/Saxophobia1275]

You know the professor could have easily bought product until he got one of the “more common than you’d think” repacked boxes and just used that for the video but I appreciate him not manipulating it like that.

[u/chaneg]

A streamer recently opened a Pokemon box ordered off Amazon and got scammed. There is probably a better article out there, but this is the one that my Google newsfeed pushed onto me:

https://www.dexerto.com/pokemon/twitch-streamers-pokemon-card-pack-opening-ends-in-disaster-after-amazon-scam-1670589/

Twitch clip from the above link:

https://clips.twitch.tv/SmellyAthleticKeyboardWutFace-TxD7oSIPGr5X5qRW

[u/bakakubi]

I love supporting my LGS, and haven't bought any MTG products on amazon, ever. My only gripe is that even though I'm in a good area with plenty of LGS to choose from, many of them have fallen to price gouging, and basically treating their customer base like shit.

Like, I get it, you have to make money. But it you're trying to rip me off, then I'm not buying shit from you. I'll just stop playing the game all together. I like paper product, but I sure as hell play a lot more on Arena nowadays cause I don't have to hit up multiple stores just to hope I get a fair price.

Edit: I do want to note that there are still good LGS out there, and that is where my money goes. It just sucks that many of them are gone either due to horrible decision making on the owners' end or many decided to pursue short term profits instead of the longevity of their stores. I know the pandemic hasn't been helping, but you can't always use that excuse, especially when you over charge like crazy.

[u/madalienmonk]

The risk of getting low priced goods with the top cards in the set! Noted!

[u/vapenasheyall]

Opening repacks is quite rare if buying from Amazon, especially if buying new boxes. I have bought around 100 boxes from Amazon at this point, both old and new, and never ran into a repack. I also have friends who have bought boxes from Amazon and they never had and repack issues either.

The only issue I have ran into is a busted up collectors booster box. None of the cards were damaged inside but Amazon still let me keep the box and sent me a new box as replacement.

Amazon also no longer accepts returns of any kind for cards which only helps to negate any damaged boxes being sent back out, or repacks from making it to others. I recently forgot to cancel a preorder for 2 collector boxes and asked to send them back. Instead of having me send them back, Amazon let me keep the boxes and then issued a full refund.

In the end, repacks are not what you should be concerned about, it’s damaged boxes but they replace them no questions asked so the process is really quick and easy to receive a non damaged box if you are unhappy with what you received.

[u/A_Human_Probably_]

While there was no meddling with these boxes, just poor care for the product, you should still avoid purchasing from them at all costs. Because the more you buy from them, the more you're helping them drive all the other options out of business. I'm not saying people who buy from Amazon are bad, but Amazon definitely is, and you always have a choice.