So, the more I am reading, the more I am learning and now I am worried....

I have spent HUNDREDS of dollars. Literally. But now that I am learning about this whole business of scrappers, and now that I am trading to people OTHER than cast members at WDW what happens if I trade a scrapper? I would never do it on purpose...but how can you be sure? I have seen OBVIOUS scrappers but from what I am reading some of these fake pins are REALLY good knock offs. Should I post pics of the pins beforehand? Or...who does this work exactly??

Use PinPics. If the pin has a fake/scrapper warning, check to see if your pin has any of the tell tale signs. My golden rule, if in doubt, don't trade it to someone else.

That's a great idea! Thank you! I really want to do this "right."

I'd say just do your reading before you trade. Find all the threads with scrapper examples, and look at the huge long reference sheet with pictures on DizPins. You can only do the best you can, and if you're happy to reverse a trade if someone believes the pin to be a scrapper, I'm sure you'll have no problems

dont stress out. Most of us have done the same thing. As for my fam. We started with $500 worth of pins and lanyards. We had been told that its best to trade with CMs. So thats what we did but didnt know about bad pins. Once i found DPF i read as much as i could and talked to as many ppl as i could so i could learn as much as i could. lol so on to the happy part of the story. If you do your home work and study hard. You can learn how to tell what pins are good and what pins are bad. we than went throw our pins and found that half were fake. So we pulled them out and just called it a loss.

There is a guide to scrappers here on dpf. Start with that and than try to come up with a list of things to look for that best works for you. Most of the fake pins will have a few things wrong with them. Now also understand that real disney pins can have things wrong too. But for the most part the real pins will have only one thing wrong. it is rare for a true real pin to have 3-5 things wrong. The flip side of that is most fake pins have more than one thing wrong. so u do your check list and find as many things wrong with the pin as u can. If you find a few things wrong... it is almost always fake... and if its only got one thing wrong it could b a real pin that just got by the QA dept.

Remember its always ok to ask to see a pin b4 u trade. If u do ur quik list and dont think its a good pin. Just say thank you and give the pin back. you dont even have to tell that its fake. sum ppl will ask u why u dont want it.. others dont even care. sorry thats was sp long. hope it helps a little. if u ever have ????s feel free to ask me or other members for help.

thanks everyone! I appreciate the responses!!

Someone mentioned that occationally a person will ask why you are saying no to a pin. Since telling someone flat our. "your pin sucks" is kinda rude, i usually just tell them I think I might have it in my collection already. If a person is persistant, I tell them that i am crazy careful about quality and don't like____ or ____ (fill in the blank) I will, on occatipon with new traders if they seem receptive, have a discussion about scrap and counterfiets, and then usually they get a postit with DPF, Pinpics and my ID so they can get into the community, and have a familiar "face."

mylittletyguy said:

I have spent HUNDREDS of dollars. Literally. But now that I am learning about this whole business of scrappers, and now that I am trading to people OTHER than cast members at WDW what happens if I trade a scrapper? I would never do it on purpose...but how can you be sure? I have seen OBVIOUS scrappers but from what I am reading some of these fake pins are REALLY good knock offs. Should I post pics of the pins beforehand? Or...who does this work exactly??

Click to expand...

I find myself in the same boat as you. Bought a bunch of pins, had extras and traded those. A few of them are undoubtedly scrappers. A few of them I can't actually tell even after carefully studying Pin Pics. Funny thing, Pin Pics had a picture up and it was the fake. A commenter said if you have the pin in the pic, it's a fake.

Personally, I'm starting to suspect that every pin that's not brand new is fake or a scrapper. It's almost not worth trading with a cast member any more, which was half the fun.

I'll add this: you don't always have a chance to inspect a pin before trading. Or maybe you just don't trade unless you can spend 5 minutes inspecting a pin you think you might want?

The real problem is that when my six year old wants to trade for a specific pin, what am I supposed to tell her? You can't trade for that one because it's fake? She doesn't care, it's what she wants. It's absolutely terrible.

I'm undecided on what to do with my scrappers and fakes. I'd trade them to a CM (after all I got them in a trade) but I fear some unsuspecting kid might get it (if they care).

Agogley said:

The real problem is that when my six year old wants to trade for a specific pin, what am I supposed to tell her? You can't trade for that one because it's fake? She doesn't care, it's what she wants. It's absolutely terrible.

Click to expand...

We were just in Disney! In the hotel room my daughter was nearly in tears when I heard her brother explaining to her that five of the pins she'd traded for that day were fakes. I did the only thing I could think of and praised her for getting fakes out of circulation. It made her frown turn upside down and although, between you and me, it bugs the heck out of me to have given up good pins for scrap, she likes them and I'll just tell myself the same thing: it got a few of the scrappers out of circulation and hopefully the good pins she put on lanyards went to newbies or people who appreciated it, anyone but one of the people intentionally trading out fakes for anything real!