COLLECTING THOUGHTS: Swap happens! When you get less than you bargained for at the toy store

Part of being a Transformers collector is regularly looking back to decades gone by, as you might expect. It seems we’re forever remembering something from over three or four decades ago, often whilst looking to apply its relevance to whatever is happening today in the fandom.

Well just today, I was rather randomly reminded of the early 1980s British kid’s TV show, Swap Shop. It was a pretty simple premise, yet somehow managed to capture the attention of an entire generation of children when it was broadcast on the BBC back in the day. The cornerstone of it all was that you could phone in and swap your stuff with other kids elsewhere in the country. There was plenty of other stuff going on too but really, that was the key element of it all, and the one for which the show is most remembered.

Unfortunately what got me thinking back on that was rather less desirable, as it seems as though these days there is a growing phenomenon of people deciding they’re going to swap their old toys for something new completely unbeknownst to the person who is going to end up with them.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS8SoalsCxX/

I am of course referring to any time anyone has bought a toy from a shop and opened it up only to have their hopes dashed upon discovering that some bugger has replaced it with an entirely random (and often vastly inferior) item instead. If you’ve not come across this practice yourself then consider yourself lucky as it’s evidently a growing trend and one that sadly doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon!

Now, I can’t say that I have any particular insight into how this comes to pass, but it strikes me that either people are doing this as a bit of a daring bait and switch actually on the shop premises itself, or more likely they’re purchasing the desired item only to return the packaging containing the swap-out later on. Either way, the practice is frankly disgusting.

https://twitter.com/orionpax5000/status/1430317405264302080?s=20

I’ve heard about this happening a fair few times before, although it was this post by @orionpax5000 that has really opened my eyes to the scale of the problem today. They went to Target and bought the new MPM-12 Masterpiece Optimus Prime, only to get the box home and find that someone had stuffed a Titans Return Powermaster Optimus Prime in there instead. Needless to say, the disappointment is quite palpable.

One can only hope that in this case, they’re able to return the item to the shop and obtain a refund (or perhaps even the toy they wanted in the first place!) but really, that’s not the point here. As someone who very rarely buys Transformers toys at physical retail, I must admit that I hadn’t appreciated just how commonplace this problem has become, but a quick bit of reading today has taken me right down the rabbit hole and let me tell you, I am appalled.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQb9xOzgE2w/

Imagine having the gall to pull off a stunt like this, won’t you? What possesses someone to think that it’s acceptable to do such a thing, especially when in a lot of cases, your action will quite clearly have an impact on a fellow collector, as it has here? I must admit to being really rather flummoxed by it all, especially as I just cannot fathom that it’s happening as much as it is.

Perhaps even more frustratingly, the feedback I’ve read from a lot of collectors is that even though they’re aware of it, their local shops aren’t always that receptive to hearing their feedback about it. I’ve already come across numerous reports from people saying how they tried to alert the manager at a particular branch to this problem being commonplace in their store, only for them to effectively shrug it off as though it was a fact of life.

Perhaps that’s true, and to be fair I can only imagine that some shops (particularly those not dedicated to selling toys) might see this as a minor annoyance versus the many other priorities they have to deal with on any given day, but for a lot of collectors, it’s becoming a real concern – and that’s to say nothing of children and their parents! I dread to think about this happening in the case of my son, for example.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CP3xTrTA4fc/

In fact, the problem is now so rife, that there’s even an Instagram page dedicated to highlighting it. I was amazed when trawling through @swapthefig to see all the endless examples of toys that had been unceremoniously stuffed into incorrect packaging as a way of fooling both shop staff and fellow customers alike. Some were rather subtle (to the point where I doubt I would even know that the toys in question had been swapped at all), whereas some were outright brazen – the kind of thing where you have to wonder how anyone even thought they were going to get away with it.

What’s more, some of the ‘swaps’ were seemingly quite nonsensical. In the case of the Optimus Prime toys above, it’s evident that someone wanted the new MPM-12 but didn’t fancy the price tag, and although the Titans Return figure isn’t necessarily the cheapest thing to part ways with, they decided it was a worthy exchange (even though one can only imagine the heavy burden they will now carry on their conscience for the rest of their existence… as if). However, I’ve come across plenty of examples where it’s hard to fathom what people were thinking when they ditched certain toys in favour of something new and shiny.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS8SHd_MVES/

Take this one, where someone has clearly shoved a WFC Siege Skywarp and Thundercracker (albeit a customised version!) into the box of their Earthrise 2-pack equivalents. So, two new toys for two slightly older models, you might think… except that Siege Skywarp alone regularly sells for sums of up to £180 on eBay, whereas the Earthrise box set is readily available at retail still for about a third of that. I feel like if you’re going to go to such great lengths and inconvenience others in the process, then at least don’t screw yourself over too, eh?

Anyway, a few odd ducks aside, the motivation behind this practice is all too clear, and unfortunately, it feels like it’s only going to get worse in the years to come. A large part of that is down to the increasing trend towards windowless toy packaging as a move to save on single-use plastics (in itself a very positive thing!), meaning that the identity of the contents of any particular package is not going to be known to the purchaser. This was ultimately how the Optimus Prime example from today was made possible, although I fear it won’t be the last such example we’ll hear of any time soon.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO1hgxJAAZP/

So, what to do about it? Well again, I mostly shop online myself, which of course sidesteps the whole drama to begin with. However, for those who prefer to continue shopping in person at physical stores, it seems the only thing you can really do is to take extra care with any particular toy packaging by making sure it hasn’t been tampered or interfered with in any way. If you can’t see the toy through a window in the box then does it appear as though it’s been resealed, for example? I’ve also heard a few rumblings about individual collectors asking to inspect the contents prior to purchase, although honestly, I can’t see that being something that a lot of shops are going to be happy about!

Really though, as with a lot of things in life, it shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of the wronged party to have to be more vigilant, as one would hope that the people proliferating this pathetic practice might see the error of their ways and put an end to it, pronto.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMS6R6nAckI/

All that really remains to be said is that you have ever found yourself disappointed as a result of such activity then you have my sympathy and I hope you were able to get it corrected. And, on the flip side, if you have ever found yourself stuffing an old toy into new packaging in a deliberate attempt to fool someone else, then you have my pity and I hope you step on a Lego.

TTFN