Selling Toys - Horror Stories & "Happy" Customers

Alt said:
There's solutions and precautions to that, but you seem resolute, so I'll ADHD tangent instead and tell you the closest I've ever come to being stabbed, including military service and bartending/bouncing was in a Wal-Mart parking lot over the Warlock Legends wave by a guy who followed me from checkout to my car.
Click to expand...
I feel like I don't need to KEEP apologizing for this. At some point it's just water under the bridge.
 
I believe it. I've seen so much shit between working TRU and Software Etc and just being a nerd.

I think I've told this before, but:

I was killing time at Walmart before a doctor's appointment, and I happened to find the entire Warlock wave. Really wanted Warlock and most of those figures, so I scooped them into my arms and walked towards checkout. Didn't even care about checking anything else at that point.

As I was approaching self-checkout I saw someone come into the entrance on that side. It was a tall skinny goatee guy wearing JNCO jeans with a wallet chain. It was almost like the inverse Darth Vader the way his pant legs flowed and the chain swung. He glances at me, then takes a full sprint to the toy aisle.

I proceed to self-checkout, and as I'm bagging everything I feel my own disturbance in the force and turned to see the dude walking up to me.

He asks me if I'm buying everything. Yeah.

He then asks if I will go to the service counter with him so they can scan the UPC to check the bag. Now I'm nice like Jesus, and I understand the toy struggle, so I figured I could do that.

And as we walk over, he explains that he had been here in the morning when they unboxed it, but he hadn't cashed his disability check yet (I'm not shaming anyone, I get my own benefits, this is just his story) and had to go to the bank to physically cash it. And of course by the time he returned, there I am.

Not really my problem, but clearly I was supposed to take pity.

But I'm helping him get the scan so that's my good deed. Except the woman at customer service looks at him. Looks at me and says," I already told him we only have one case. I put it up this morning myself."

I looked at the dude and said, "Good luck."

I still had 30 minutes to kill, so I called my friend up to share my enthusiasm with finding the wave. We are talking and as I get to my car, it's a nice sunny day, so I put the toys in the car, the but stayed outside on the phone to bask.

And then I see the dude coming up from the Walmart entrance.

I told my friend to just stay on the line and listen because I think I'm about to get shot over X-Men.

The dude is as polite as can be, and he does allow space as he approaches me. He explains that he's had a rough life and his favorite X-Man is Cyclops as they are both orphans. He really wanted Cyclops. He wants to know if he can just buy it off me.

Now the answer is hell no, but he's kind of exhausted me and I like being sassy so, I told him "I'm sorry, I have the Phoenix, and they need to be together as they're a couple."

He nods, very understanding. He gets me.

He then pivots and tells me that his other favorite character is Colossus because he's so strong and resilient and inspires him and keeps him going in his life. Would I perhaps part with that Colossus?

I said, No. Because I have Kitty, right?

And again, that sad nod of understanding.

And then he brightens up and asks me if I would exchange contact info with him, because perhaps while I'm out hunting I could look for him and he could look for me. We could be toy friends.

And then he stepped closer, really encroaching in my space, and he did have a good inch on my 6'3 broad self. Even tall, it is an uncomfortable feeling, right, when someone overshadows you.

Women will often say that they only entertain a man and take the number or give their number because they're afraid of getting raped or murdered. And I understand them. That's how I felt when this dude wanted to be toy friends. His words.

Toy friends.

So I said, I will take your information.

And then he gave me his Gmail. And he told me his name.

Logan Creed.

And that's when I heard my friend on the phone choke. Telepathically, neither of us could believe it.

You're really telling me your name is Logan. Creed.

And I said like Wolverine and Sabertooth and he goes oh I guess I never thought of it.

And then he left me. And I got to keep my toys and I wasn't injured or anything.
 
And if you ever doubt me, if you ever think this story is a word of a lie.

* Reaches into coat pocket and throws this on the campfire*

Look at that name on my Marketplace follower list. Oh it's different by one letter. But a lot of people do that these days.
a89b78d0fc6dfb5d58cc78207822d91d.jpg


Sent from my Pixel 8 Pro using Tapatalk
 
RicksNerdLife said:
Reminds me somewhat of a story I posted to my Facebook a few years back, where a dude was trying to snag a figure from me.
Click to expand...
Had something a liiittle similar happen at Target a few years ago. Hell, I don't even remember what figure it was now, but I remember at the time I was after it something fierce, and it had been hard to find (some sort of exclusive, I think? I wanna say something NECA related). I remember I was already having a pretty shit day and figured I'd check out the toy section to cheer myself up. I'm the type of person that knows exactly what I'm looking for and what it looks like, so I can usually see even from afar if it's on the pegs or not. And, sure enough, there it was. It was tunnel vision, angel chorus, the whole shebang. There wasn't really anyone else around, but I still power walked over to the aisle and picked it up. Made me so happy- it made everything that had happened that day worth it. And as I'm looking it over, I felt something slam into me. I mean slam, and hard. Enough to make my head snap to the side. Had to use my free hand to stop myself from falling, and as I did so, I felt the figure leave my hand. At first I thought I'd dropped it, but it wasn't on the ground, and as everything sorta cleared, I realized that this dude had slammed his cart into me and grabbed the figure and ran. By the time it took me to process what happened, he was out of there, and I was so shocked that I didn't even try to chase him (not to mention my hip freaking hurt from, you know, having a cart smashed into it). Had it been me nowadays, I probably would've ended up on the news, but me being me back then, and the shit day I'd had, I just slumped out of there defeated.

Another time, something similar happened, where, like out of a movie, as I was literally reaching for the figure on the pegs, some kid ran by and snagged it and power walked away. It was like a Looney Tunes moment, like the frickin' Roadrunner had just sped by and told me to go "Meep Meep" myself. Another moment where it took me a second to realize what happened, and I was honestly kinda amused. Don't think the item in question was quite as pressing, so it didn't matter as much.

These nerds be frickin' crazy out here.
 
Nowadays me would absolutely fight them. 😅 Even if I ended up hurting myself more than them. Not that nerds everywhere aren't cutthroat, but I've noticed that New York nerds are a whole other breed.


In my Pettiness of the Day moment, I had someone message me on ebay this morning, asking- and I quote "I want to buy this item. Can you give me a discount?" Mind you, it's already priced quite fairly, I think. But I'm just having one of those mornings, and I knew exactly what kind of person I was dealing with. Wanted to see if ebay would let me send them a 1 cent discount, and sure enough. Yes, ebay, I know I'm more likely to sell it if I send a higher discount. He messaged back asking if I made a mistake. I've yet to answer.
 
I've never had anything happen like it before or since. Wish I could remember what figure it was, to know if it was even worth it. I'm sure I ended up getting whatever it was in the end, but man, talk about overdramatic. I can only hope the guy pulled it on the wrong person and got what was coming to him.

All the JNCO talk takes me back. I was never cool enough (or old enough) to rock them back in the 90's, but man did I think they were cool. I did have a single pair of normal jeans that had a tiny little version of the chain on the side, and you couldn't even talk to me when I was wearing them- I felt like the coolest kid in school. Ever since my Mom has been reclaiming the lost years of her youth, she's been getting a lot of the punk clothes she used to want to wear but wasn't able to, and has amassed a pretty solid selection of Tripp pants. She even got my sister and niece into them. I know they're not the same as JNCO, but I've always considered them part of the same.... not species, per se, but genus. It's a level of cool I will never be.
 
Right now the majority of what I'm moving is McFarlane with a couple Hasbro.

So of course someone inquires on a Catwoman listing if I have specific anime characters from figuarts.

What the f*** man. Do I f****** look like big bad toy store. Did you discover me in a Cave of Wonders to serve your every need?
 
No one's ever rammed me with their cart in a fit of nerd rage thankfully. I've had the usual neckbeards circling the aisle I was on like vultures trying to see if I'd take something they wanted or uproot a basedeck and check below, but most are non confrontational. I did witness two overweight middle aged men rolling around on the floor of a Target over some release day Pokemon cards though. Thankfully I was just there to buy some BTAS Animated McFarlane figures so it was neither my circus nor my monkeys.
 
RichardSimmonsRobot said:
No one's ever rammed me with their cart in a fit of nerd rage thankfully. I've had the usual neckbeards circling the aisle I was on like vultures trying to see if I'd take something they wanted or uproot a basedeck and check below, but most are non confrontational. I did witness two overweight middle aged men rolling around on the floor of a Target over some release day Pokemon cards though. Thankfully I was just there to buy some BTAS Animated McFarlane figures so it was neither my circus nor my monkeys.
Click to expand...
Those Pokemon guys can get pretty brutal. It's funny. I go through spurts of when I buy some and even at new release drops here I've never seen an actual fight.
 
These stories are nuts! Grown ass men fighting over toys lol! The worst I've seen is hot wheel guys literally knocking each other over to get to their 99 cent cars.

The worst I've experienced is a guy putting his finger in my face and aggressively yelling at me to "wait my turn" when he was rifling through the Star Wars figures and talking on his cellphone. This was back when TRU had huge displays of figures, and I wasn't reaching anywhere near the pegs he was rifling through, but I guess he figured he makes the rules on buying toys.

This dude was a tough looking stocky angry guy, and I'm a average joe - however I have quite a few years of martial arts and weapons training and I'm a ccw holder. I have no fear for myself and most likely could have taken this dude apart. It was one of those moments where you have to tell yourself these are just stupid toys and not worth getting worked up over and I just walked away, which ultimately sucks because if just reinforces this assholes crappy behavior.
 
I've probably seen at least a half dozen videos of those Pokemon nerds getting into fights. Honestly, even though action figure nerds can be- and are- pretty dang bad, it's the trading card nerds that have been causing the most trouble here recently. My boyfriend used to be big into the Star Wars Topps cards- mostly just for the autographs and sketches (the Star Wars cards themselves used to be the hot ticket problem item, and caused a couple card stores near us to stop carrying them altogether), but he's been slowly driven out of the hobby by all the other collectors. Used to be pretty easy to find and access, but more and more places- if they carry cards at all- keep them behind the customer service desk so nerds can't get at them because of all the Pokemon problems lately. We talked with the manager at our favorite local Target, and they said they had too many people stealing or fighting over them. Grown men who would bolt to the trading card section as soon as the doors opened and get into arguments or fights with one another. Kids would get pushed out of the way for these guys to get at them; they even had a guy threaten an employee one time because some online site said they had them in stock, but they didn't. I feel like that used to be the Funko fans. Every fandom has its extremists, of course, but to the general public, all us nerds are the same, so it makes all of us look bad.
 
When the PlayStation 2 launched at midnight, the Walmart my dormmate wanted to camp at had two employees with forklifts warding off the charging crowd when the clock turned.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top