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So you say you would never buy scrappers

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So you say you would never buy scrappers
iamdisneydan

iamdisneydan

The Bald Guy In The Back
DPF Charter Member
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Redondo Beach, CA
OK people. When we mention the term scrapper, some people act like the people buying them should be shot! Sure, some people new to the hobby really dont know better until someone points it out to them. And usually they wont care anyways because they dont want to buy pins at the regular price.

I have to be careful what I say here, (THIS IS NOT A CASE STUDY!) But I decided to spend what little free time I have looking at all of the sellers selling scrapper lots and see who is buying them.

Guess what I noticed. First off, people not near a park rarely buy them as they have nowhere to trade them, and besides, not many people are trading the pins from scrapper lots on pin pics.

Most of the people who purchase these pins are people close to the park, who can unload them easily on lanyrads and work up to better pins, even though 50% or more of the pins on lanyards are scrappers too.

But what I really found interesting is how many names I know from the forum that have not purchased once, but many times. You know who you are. And many of these people are advocates for stopping scrappers. A double standard? Protecting their image?

Sure, they know they cant and would never offer them to a fellow member or someone in the know, but they do buy them. Are they terrible people? Sure they flood the lanyards with scrappers.

I know many people who buy hundreds of dollars of real pins from DSF and WDI but still buy scrappers for trading in the park. Can you honestly say you have not done this. Is it your dirty little secret? Will people think less of you? I have never gotten a scrapper in trade from someone on DPF nor have I ever traded one, but I know they buy them. DO YOU?

I am willing to bet that not one person will admit to it but you know you do.
So I guess the question is have I? What do you think?
 
Well I know I wouldnt ever buy those scrapper lots ,because Im not rich and it really makes me mad when I see a pin I like on a cast members lanyard ,trade for it turn it over ,and its a scrapper.I have since learned to ask them to see the pin first ,but I have lost tons of money trading a legit pin for a scrapper and having to throw it away.So if you are new to trading always remember ask the cast member to see that pin before you trade away your bought legit pin for a scrapper.
 
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lol..u may have in the old days of u just learning. or mayb u have been lucky and never made that mistake.

I have to lots of 20 waiting for me at a friends house that were bought on my behalf. They are the first and only lots i will buy. I am also going to try and get dan or sum other dpf member to dubble check any i think are real out of the lots. All the fakes or Not Real pins.... will go in trash after i cut them up.

Im new and just did ebay to save money. In the end i bet it was just a lesson of what not to do with my money..

thanks for all the good post dan. i am trying to learn fast and all info is helping. I did tell a cm sat that she had a fake. my wife was about to get it. but we did not.
 
I have NEVER bought scrappers. Actually, I've only ever bought one pin off any site (e-Bay), it was an HG of mine, an Auctions pin, I seriously doubt anyone is duplicating it, lol.

My DH and I were talking about this the other night. I said that whether I was an experienced pin trader or not, in my mind, red flags fly for any ad that promises Disney pins at $1 per or whatever, knowing how much Disney pins cost (theoretically you're paying for a pin to get a cast lanyard pin). If it looks too good to be true, etc.

I am lucky that I am in SoCal and can buy directly from Disney (or have friends that would buy from Disney for me, and vice versa). Probably the worst I personally do is put a scrapper back on a CM lanyard if I find out I have one, because I've encountered too much indifference from CMs when I've looked at a pin from their lanyard and not only told them it's a fake or a scrapper, but explained exactly how I know, and they just take it and put it back on their lanyards, i.e., it's still going to be traded to some (unsuspecting) trader. I totally understand that CMs who wear lanyards don't have the time to closely inspect every single pin they trade with a guest, but it annoys me if they don't even give a @#$% if informed they have a piece of junk.

I HATE the scrapper/fake issue. I am glad those creeps got caught and I hope they serve jail time. I never knowingly take scrappers or trade them away (sometimes I'm not sure and if I have it in my trade bag, I tell someone who's interested that it may be a scrapper, I'm not sure). Shame on those people who knowingly do.

Hannette
 
I am sure there are people who buy those lots to use at the parks but would never admit it. I have been reporting several scrapper lots lately on ebay as I am so annoyed with them. I mean really, I am so sick of trying to browse ebay and seeing lot after lot of scrappers! I don't know how many times you have to report them before ebay pulls the listing. I mean they are direct from china (being shipped and sold from AND they usually have about 20 lots of so up with 0% feedback). GRR!! WHY would somebody want to buy that? I have actually never in my 6 years of collecting bought one of those trader lots on ebay. I don't want to take fake pins to the park with me and since I have never collecting hidden mickey pins and such I have never had the use for those lots of pins. Since I do not live near the parks I never really collected anything but Disneyshopping/Disneystore and disney auction pins. Expensive hobby I tell you. I think I have more park pins right now than I have ever had before b/c of buying small collections from a few people. I have run across a couple of scrappers here and there and most of them were tossed in the trash but there are a couple that the boys liked so I let them put them on their pin board in their room for the time being. When I see the countless lots out there being sold I realize that the chances of actually getting a real pin of a cm lanyard is about... 2%. On our last family trip I took about 60 pins to use as traders with the cm's...all from an old collection I bought and spent about 2.75 a pin for (not cheap by any means when you times that by the 60 I took with me). By the second day I was bored to death with what was on the cm lanyards and handed the pin trading off to the kids for the rest of the trip. My 8 year old had a blast with it (he was doing vinyl trading as well) but I had to caution him on several I knew for sure were fakes. When we came home from that trip and I looked them all up I realized about 80% of what we came back with were scrappers! I hope somebody enjoyed the nice old pins we were putting all over the lanyards all week! :(

Ok, vent over. All that to say that absolutely not, I have never and will never buy those darn lots from ebay and I hope they start arresting more people for selling them as it killed the fun of cm trading for me and that used to be my favorite part of every trip!
 
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Before joining DPF I had unknowingly purchased scrapper lots to use as traders. I now know what to look for. Fortunately, I have never traded them as I live too far away from Disney. Instead, I gave them to my kids to play with. They have lost or broken most of them by now.
 
Yes, I have unknowingly done so ! There I said it ! I have officially taken the pin oath :lol: Now I buy from Calvin @ Miami Pins on ebay . $1.10 a pin, but I know they are real .
 
:lol:
I almost bought scrappers as a newbie, but was saved by the seller who apparently thought I wasn't paying enough per pin... & called himself on the scrappers in his lots.


But as I myself spend a lot of time on eBay researching average prices, & even doing some buying, I have a question:
How on earth are you seeing who is buying these lots?
All bids, as well as BIN/Best Offers are anonymous, and only able to be viewed by the seller.
 
Mad_For_Alice said:
But as I myself spend a lot of time on eBay researching average prices, & even doing some buying, I have a question:
How on earth are you seeing who is buying these lots?
All bids, as well as BIN/Best Offers are anonymous, and only able to be viewed by the seller.
Click to expand...

You are supposed to think it is anonymous, but if you are looking through feedback of the sellers or you have an idea of what someone's name might be and look it up in the community area, there are ways around anonymity. Sad, but true.
 
Mad_For_Alice said:
Even looking at the feedback, you can only see a person's country, after going to their eBay profile.
"United States" doesn't tell much about how close you are to a park.
Click to expand...

You can specify you location. Some do, some don't. A lot will put "near the magic" or other things like that which tells you they are near a park.
 
erudolf said:
You can specify you location. Some do, some don't. A lot will put "near the magic" or other things like that which tells you they are near a park.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure that is still only shown if it is on a listing by a seller (on the right under their avatar).
Their profile only has their country of origin listed under their avatar.
So if they are not selling, how can you tell their exact location?
 
I think the real issue is that anyone can see feedback ratings on "anonymous" buyers, both as an auction is ongoing or when a BIN is completed. If you can go and match the feedback rating to someone you know, you can bet it's probably them, since higher feedback ratings are relatively unique.

-JD
 
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Great.... So here's what is going on with me....

I am new to pin trading, and I got sucked into the eBay lots. Are ALL those pins scrappers? I just got a huge lot (bought 500 and split it with a friend) and soon after I read on here that most (all?) of those lots on eBay are counterfeit pins. When I opened the box, there were tons and tons of duplicates I probably got 30-40 different pins in total. I made sure not to buy directly from China, though.....

Is there a chance these are real? How do I know? If they are fake, what do I do with them?? :'( Please help... I feel like a horrible, horrible person for buying them, but I didn't know any better.
 
^^ You can find lots of valuable information on the internet - do a google search on 'fake disney pins' - and there are excellent posts / threads on this forum too :)
 
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When I first started, I unknowingly purchased one... That was before I joined dizpins and DPF. Ironically the rest of the cheap lanyard fodder was from Cast connection or the outlets.
 
Before I knew better I bought 3 lots on ebay. Two of those were scrappers. One lot, lucky me, just happened to be someone who was getting out of collecting and ended up including not just pins, but boxed sets, bags, lanyards and other stuff.

Before writing people off who have made these purchases, try to remember that not everyone is as informed. Also, many people really start getting into collecting after they purchase a scrapper set or two and only later learn that what they did hurts the hobby.
 
Tinker said:
Yes, I have unknowingly done so ! There I said it ! I have officially taken the pin oath :lol: Now I buy from Calvin @ Miami Pins on ebay . $1.10 a pin, but I know they are real .
Click to expand...

And you know this because? $ 1.10 per pin and, regularly selling at this price on ebay and you seriously believe he doesn't at least sell part scrappers?
I haven't dealt with them personally, but I did remember seeing that user name elsewhere before:

http://www.www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=36302934&highlight=miami+pins#post36302934
http://www.www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=38602133&highlight=miami+pins#post38602133
 
imatronaholic said:
- but why would anyone want to search this information out especially someone from this forum - that's the part about this whole post / thread that - should I say - creeps me out :rolleyes: are you like being the dpf police??
Click to expand...

I don't think it is creepy. I personally find it more creepy when someone thinks that because they are hiding behind user names on the internet that they can say one thing here and think that nobody can see or figure out what they are really doing.

I run across, let's say....."interesting" things on ebay all the time. Half of the time it is on accident but sometimes I am looking for the information. We are a very small community and if you participate in it long enough then you are bound to connect some dots. Here are some things I've found in the past along with the reason I found them:

1) Who bought a specific pin because it is one I am looking for - I was looking for this on purpose so that I can get an idea of who might have it and what it might take to get it. Finding difficult pins sometimes requires some detective work.

2) Who bought a pin because I was watching it or looking at a specific seller's feedback - this is mostly on accident. On a couple of occasions I have been watching a pin or ran across some feedback that caught my eye, mainly because of the price tag. When I'm scanning through and see $500, I stop and think "what was that". Then all of a sudden I see who bought it and think to myself "interesting.....this person just posted on the boards claiming to know nothing of this pin's value...." or "interesting....this person just claimed that they paid half the price for this pin but this says different....". Those aren't exactly things I'm looking for, but when I see them, I take note. I think it speaks to their character that they would lie about such a thing when they could just keep their mouth shut.

3) I look at (typically masked) bidders to identify shill bidders or people that are just bidding up an auction with no intention of following through with the sale. I try to avoid bidding on these auctions or am very careful about what I bid because bidding against someone like that can end up costing you money because they are falsely driving up the price. After watching these bidders over time I can sometimes figure out their ID. Keep in mind, the reason I care is because they are bidding on the things I want, not because I just have nothing better to do.

4) Sellers playing pricing games - this I found mainly on accident because I looked at a seller's other items. I then say that they had two of the exact same pin listed, on at $400 and the other at $700. That got me wondering "why?" and the only thing I could come up with is that they were trying to make their lower (still overpriced) item look more appealing. If someone is just surfing, comparing prices, and doesn't know any better they might say "Wow! Others are listed at $700! $400 must be a great deal!!!" Doesn't make much sense to me, but that's all I could think of....

5) It can give you an idea of who you can trust and who is safe to trade with - I rarely do this personally because I typically go for the higher end pins that don't have many scrapper/counterfiet issues, but I can see where it would be benificial. If you can see that someone is buying scrapper lots, do you really want to trade with them? Even if they are laundering them first? By continuing to buy them they are just adding to the problem.

I guess I don't really see the difference between looking at ebay activity and checking references. It is all out there for the public to see, why not use all the information available to make an informed decision? If you were hiring a babysitter, wouldn't you want to look into their background so that you can be sure you can trust your children with them? Or if you are buying a used car, wouldn't you want to know the car's history? This is similar, just on a much smaller scale. Pins as a hobby is not cheap when you do it legitimately. I don't want to deal with untrustworthy people or those that cheat the system because in the end all they are doing is hurting the hobby and those that play by the rules. Couple that with the fact that we are on the internet and you never know if people are who they say they are.....I for one will use every resource I can so that I can protect my self and my purchases. I don't see that as creepy, just being informed and not turning a blind eye to what is really going on.
 
This thread...?

000esh0w
 
Wow I find it difficult to believe that so many of you have not purchased lots when you were just starting out. I for one did purchase a lot when I received them i started looking online and figured out they were fakes and into the garbage they went this is after a trip to WDW I hadnt been back in 9 years and when I got to the park I had NO IDEA that pin trading had exploded the way it did. I had about 100 pins then all from 2000. So I go to the park and trade my real pins for cm hidden mickeys I go home purchase a lot then figure it out. I went thru all the pins I had traded for at the park and over half were fake it was a lesson learned. As far as ebay goes. I purchase pins on ebay I admit it. Almost all are higher priced pins and I only buy from trusted sellers that I deal with over and over. I dont think Ebay is evil it is what it is. Now really calling this post creepy? No most of us who do purchase on ebay research the sellers and come across ppl we know that bid on the pins. Its called doing your homework.
 
Abyssinian28 said:
000esh0w
Click to expand...

+1.
privacy is privacy and it shouldnt matter if your name shows up on feedback or not,why are you going to take all that time to try and bust scrap traders?its not going to stop them.i think thats up there w/stalker status.get over it,ive bought them before i knew better have i bought any since i found out the difference no.will i ever agai,no.but if you buy them knowing what your doing,thanks a lot for putting crap on lanyards for us to get,but are you evil no way.to each their own,remember the real bad guys are those selling them knowing their selling fake product.
 
Tabbikat2219 said:
Wow I find it difficult to believe that so many of you have not purchased lots when you were just starting out.
Click to expand...

I don't know....I think it depends on how you started. I never got sucked into the lots when I started because I started collecting, not trading. The lanyard thing just didn't appeal to me much so when I started I wasn't just looking for pins to trade, I was looking for pins I liked. I was probably collecting for almost two years before I ever got into trading. That's how I avoided it.
 
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