NECA TMNT Toon Line

I kind of agree.  I see a lot of tough-guy talk out there on the socials, but I've yet to see anyone claim to have actually received this new email?

I'm still looking this morning.  There's a new one up supposedly from Blaine on social media ... somewhere about how he wishes fellow collectors would respect each other, but even that one is just someone posting it and I can't actually find it on any of his actual accounts (and different lines of the text have different font sizes in the image I saw).  Possible he deleted it, of course.  But every image I've seen of this second letter, threatening to charge people for the duplicates, looks a little sketchy (one has a light gray background behind each separate line of text, for example), none have the direct screenshot look of images I've seen of the first email, and I've still yet to see a single person say that THEY PERSONALLY received this email.  If they sent it, they sent it and I'm wrong, but right now, to me, it looks like a lot of people being riled up by someone with an axe to grind.

Even if the new email and Blainer’s response are fake to rile people up… they’re not wrong.

The internet isn’t JUST for being angry about toys! Lawyers, like real ones not angry redditors passing around the same unrelated jpg about unordered items, will often answer questions about the law for normal people! I’ve found post where:

-Walmart sent a guy two speakers, he returned one for his money back, Walmart asked him to either return the other speaker or pay for it. He wasn’t happy he didn’t get to keep his one speaker for free but the lawyers were like “no, yeah they can do that legally”

-a guy was sent two king sized mattresses by the mattresses company, when the mattresses company realized the mistake they told him what days they’d send a truck to pick up the extra mattress. He didn’t like the mattresses company decided without asking him what days the pick up would be and wanted to know his rights under the FTC rule. Lawyers told him that didn’t apply, and he would confirm he called the FTC and was told as much, and the mattress company had every right to ask for the extra back and schedule a pick up.

-don’t remember the items, but on an ask the lawyer web-site a scenario basically identical to the NECA situation occurred. Guy sent two items, company offered to pay for return shipping or they’d charge him for the second item, but guy sure would like to keep both and not pay. Lawyer told him “I know it’s not the answer you wanted” but company CAN demand a return or charge you, and if he tried to take it to court, because the company took steps to make it equitable they’d be seen as in the right.

NECA is not the first company to fuck up like this,  these chuds are the first dipshits to try to hide behind the FTC’s “Unordered Goods” ruling, this does not end how they think it does.

and I want to believe most collectors will do the right thing, because like everyone else I’m seeing the emails but not hearing from a lot of people who got them. I’d like to believe the fury over it is:

-scalpers who are mad their double profits are being cut into.

-innocent nerds who didn’t know they could legally ask for the second back and legit don’t know what to do.

-guys who did not receive a second lab or babyjuice or even order one, but are SUPER PISSED nine years ago they asked Randy on Twitter “ever consider making Star Wars figures?!” and that fucking c-word rudely replied “not gonna happen” and they’ve held a burning hatred towards NECA ever since… oh sure they still give them $3k a year because no else makes Alien, Predator, movie Ninja Turtles, Slashers, and Universal Monsters… but the second Jada or Hiya or Nacelle pick up their favorite license and move to a seven inch scale they’re OUTTA HERE! These guys are on reddit telling the people with doubles to hold the line because they’re not the ones gonna get banned from buying exclusives because they didn’t return an item, there’s no repercussions for giving bad legal advice on the internet!

My impression is a lot of that last one.  People have long had these wild conspiracy theories and hatreds for Randy/NECA (while also conflating everything NECA-related with Randy personally) in this hobby that I've always seen as such bad faith/angry nerd weirdness.  It's been offputting, but I don't really hang out in collector communities other than this one anyways.

From what I'm reading, the distinction people seem to be failing to see with the FTC rule is that they think these items are "unsolicited", but dont' realize that that rule is more about companies sending you stuff out of the blue and then hoping to get you to buy it (ie: scams), not mistakes made during transactions you already entered into willingly.

What is funny to me are all of the people on Reddit and Facebook who don't even have a horse in this race.  They didn't order the lab and yet they are saying that because of how Neca is acting they will never buy another Neca product again.  Those people know even as they are typing they will be there on preorder day next time Neca puts up something they like.  There is so much manufactured outrage.

I am likely getting screwed out of my original diorama and I'm not even really mad at Neca.  Mistakes happen. What is making me angry are all of the posts specifically saying "don't send this back, you don't have to legally".  Those people are actively encouraging people to do the wrong thing and screw over people who have paid for this and not received it.

I didn't order the lab, so I feel like I don't have a real say in the matter, but it's been such an interesting discourse. It's tough to know who to really blame in the situation- if it was only one or two extras that got sent out, it could be chalked up to an unfortunate mistake, but on such a widespread scale, there's clearly some internal thing that needs reworking, and undoubtedly will be reworked after this.

I hate to be a pessimist here, but I think I do side a bit more with NECA in this situation. I only say that because I've worked customer service most of my life- retail and food service- and at least here in America, I do think the "Customer is always right" mindset has really damaged our relationship with how we view ourselves as the customer and how we do business with places.

I can't tell you how many times customers would purposely order something wrong or complain about XYZ, just to get something for free. We had people who that was their whole thing- they never paid for a meal because they knew they'd get it for free, or they'd return a clearly worn piece of clothing on a Monday morning after clearly wearing it to party over the weekend. At the end of the day, it was better and easier for all parties to just grin and bear it and move on. But on the few times those people actually were called out, you'd best believe they made the biggest show of things and played the victim. But the establishment has every right to stand their ground and call them out. Obviously a $20-ish meal is a whole different ballgame than a $350-ish playset, but companies are all working on different margins. At the end of the day, customers can complain and threaten to never come back again, but everyone knows they'll be back to support the second something that interests them comes out, even if it's at a different location. Collectors love NECA, no matter how much they complain to the contrary, and especially with the "Me First" mentality of late, they're not going to deny themselves a coveted item to their collection.

I'm like anyone- I love a happy accident where I get sent something extra, or something doesn't quite work or is broken, and the place says not to worry about sending it back, and to keep it alongside the replacement. But just like in customer service- just because "the manager did it for me last time" doesn't mean it's an every time thing. We've unfortunately become used to getting things our way and our way only, and that's just not how things work. A transaction is a mutually beneficial agreement, and NECA is a private company, they can run things however they want. If they know you're doing/have done something with the sole intention of getting something for free and damaging their profits, then I'd say it's within their right to deny you service, especially when they're offering to not only ship it back free of charge, but store credit on top of it. Seems like a win-win situation- NECA ain't cheap. They're already arguably losing money by paying for return shipping and for the store credit, so threatening to withold future business just seems silly.

Could they have handled it better? Sure, but we have no idea as to the internal discussions that happened before they made the email, however poorly worded it may have been. Whenever a mistake like this happens, I don't think our first reaction as collectors should be "How can I personally profit from this?" Yeah, times are tough, but it just feels slimy. Sure, scalpers have always been a thing and unfortunately always will be, but I do feel like there's been a pretty noticeable decrease in collectors helping collectors of late. Not that I'm some shining example, but I try to help where I can. That's a whole other discussion, of course, and one with blame on both sides as well, however uneven.

Ultimately, I think both sides need to be understanding. If someone did reach out to try and make it right but didn't get a response, and ended up selling it, I don't think that necessarily signals them as a bad person. If you purposely kept or sold something just to capitalize on an accident, then yeah, that's different. The tricky (and probably impossible) part is distinguishing between the two. You can ban people all day long, but like others have said, they'll either find ways around it, or just order from somewhere else. If someone wants something bad enough, they'll find ways to get it, so I don't know if there really are any good ways to "punish" people in this day and age, but if you can find a way to "punish" scalpers, then I'm personally for it. Otherwise, it's often everyone who ends up getting punished- they may have to raise costs on future products to make up for past losses.

I think the smartest thing for NECA to do would just be to eat the cost and produce more for those who didn't get theirs. Everything else seems too messy; for instance, a couple friends of mine were going to go to a concert for one of their favorite artists, and she cancelled her current tour on a Thursday/Friday, but announced tickets going on sale for a bigger tour the following Monday. Refunds were issued to all fans who got tickets for the cancelled shows, but because it happened over a weekend, a lot of people didn't get the money back in time to get new tickets, so scalpers or people who didn't get tickets before were able to scoop up the seats they'd orginally had. Obviously NECA could do something different- find a way to have a unique link for those who ordered but didn't get theirs, have a certain window of time for previous buyers, etc., but even that isn't foolproof, and they'd wind up with new orders from new people. I say, eat the cost, produce however many missing units, and fix the internal problem to ensure it doesn't happen again.

NECA is a big enough company and popular enough with both collectors and casual buyers that their reputation is only going to be damaged up to a point no matter what they do.

This whole thing is very, very strange, especially since that second threatening eMail isn't verified. A lot of people are betraying their psychology on Reddit right now. The "little guy vs the man" "I'm being taken advantage of by authority" people are highly triggered. It's okay to be frustrated or angry when a company doesn't live up to their end of the bargain, and I'm all about offering fair criticism as part of the hobby, but feeling like this is a personal attack aimed at you is really an unhealthy response. I'm particularly sympathetic, maybe, because I worked in customer service at a small print shop for a few years, and I had to deal with people on eMail and on the phone who would project all sorts of conspiratorial and nasty things onto us when there was a problem with their order—whether we caused it or not (often times it was because they themselves f'd something up.) It was really a dehumanizing experience while at the same time giving me deep insight into humans. To them, I wasn't a working stiff making $12/hr, I was their distant father, strict mother, corporate elite, or whatever. I was a villain trying to shit on their joy.

You can see it in the assumptions they make about Randy. He's everyone's cruel highschool bully/older brother or something. A lot of these toy makers livestream from their bedrooms or apartments and frankly they don't exactly look like they are living in the lap of luxury by and large. 

I am reminded of a time I ordered a $35 MAFEX Boba Fett from Hobby Genki and instead was sent a large box of premium figures including MAFEX Venom, Spider-Man, a bunch of FIGMAs, Revoltechs, and Figuarts, probably worth over $1000. I wrote them right away to tell them I got someone else's package, and they got back to me after a few days and told me to keep it and that they'd send me a new Boba. I was surprised. I wrote back and told them to keep the Boba (I wanted the Spidey figs) this was compensation enough.

A few more days went by and I guess they realized which package I received and how much sold out stock was in it and they circled back around asking if I could send it back. The Spidey had already been opened, but I told them yes 100%. They sent me a label and told me to keep the Spidey, and thanked me profusely. I felt guilty that the Spidey wasn't going back but at the end of the day it was a net positive interaction, I was compensated fairly for the inconvenience. $100 in NECA credit is a pretty dope freebee.  

Mistakes happen. I hope everyone who didn't get their dio, at the very least, gets one in the near future, and maybe some coupons for the hassle. 

Yeah, it's interesting seeing what battles people pick and choose. I know it's tough times all around right now, and so many people feel like they don't have control on so many things, so maybe this is one "injustice" they feel they actually have some control over. But I don't really think anyone is "sticking it to the man" as much as they may like to think they are. I think more patience and understanding is needed all around- the truth and solution always lie somewhere in the middle.

Following this whole debacle... I really don't think anyone (or only a very select few) is in the right here. Assuming the second email is fake, which I absolutely believe it is, this still isn't a great look for NECA anymore than it's a great look for people whining about not being able to keep their free lab (and really, it doesn't seem like very many people doing the bitching and complaining even got a free lab).

I'm pretty strongly of the totally anecdotal opinion that NECA doesn't have a whole lot of -moral- right to pearl-clutch at people not wanting to send the product back. I have never had a good experience dealing with NECA's customer service, and it very much seems like that's a recurring and common complaint. Hell, there's at least one or two seemingly trustworthy reports of people emailing NECA when this all started happening asking what to do with their second free lab and getting NO response.

Frankly, if I got a free item from NECA and they ignored my email for a week (or two), then fuck 'em. Ethically, I think it's incumbent on NECA to be proactive AND responsive. If they fucked up this bad AND ignored people for days, even weeks, then it is entirely their fault to not be getting that product back.

Further, if you're one of those people that NECA has (sometimes repeatedly) ignored or blown off in the past over QC issues or whatever, then I'd actually say you have every moral right to keep that extra playset. After all, if NECA can't be bothered to help you out when they fuck you over on a product, what moral right do they have to demand your full and complete attention now. Just ignore their email like they ignored yours. Or give them a shitty, worthless response like they do when they even bother to respond.
Call it petty, but I don't see the legitimate ethical argument against telling a company with shitty service to go fuck themselves when their shittiness is in your favor instead of theirs.

I also don't think there's a lot of validity to the argument that this is hurting other collectors in any appreciable way. It is ENTIRELY NECA's fault for taking this long to deal with this. It is a 100% certainty, from their perspective, that by the time they got this message out there that some of those labs would be lost to them. Even if you believe that only the worst human beings on earth would DARE to keep that extra lab -- the reality is that some people are just going to keep it. Some people may have opened it, sold it, or gifted it specifically because NECA ignored all of their inquiries about it. Or because they didn't know this was a wide-reaching mistake and thought they were the one person that squeaked by and got lucky or whatever. Whatever you think of it, whatever the individual reasoning may be for that set being gone - 100% some of those labs are never making it back to NECA no matter what they do.

So no matter what, some collectors are out that product and what NECA is actually doing right now is damage control. They're not doing this because they have any reasonable belief that they can get enough labs back to make up every unfulfilled order. No way. Meaning, it just falls flat to say that you're screwing over another collector here. NECA screwed over collectors by fucking this up, and they will be the ones continuing to screw over collectors if they don't make it right by producing more sets.
And MAYBE that's already the plan and the goal here is just to try to scare/beg/bribe people into helping make that process a little cheaper/easier for them. Maybe they figure even if they get 50% of the sets back, then that will help them save some money? Who knows for sure.

THAT BEING SAID - I actually do think it's wrong to keep that extra set if the aforementioned stuff doesn't apply to you. If you've always had a good experience with NECA, and you've just sat on your extra set and never contacted NECA about it and are now refusing to return it when requested (or sold it immediately without contacting NECA about it), then I do think you did something ethically wrong. You absolutely had/have the moral obligation to give them the chance to recoup their property.

But again, if you gave them that opportunity and they ignored your email like they seem to so often do, then that is entirely NECA's fault and they can pound sand. But they definitely have the right to ask for the return of mistakenly-delivered product that you didn't pay for. I simply think they have the obligation to do that speedily (which they don't seem to have done), and to make sure they're being responsible and answering any concerns from customers in a timely way. There's gotta be give and take here.

In short, I think the ONLY people I would hold it against for not returning the sets are people currently sitting on unopened extra labs. NECA has NOW requested those be returned. So return it. It isn't yours and you clearly were fine with sitting on it all this time so just send it back. But I also don't really blame anyone that does not have the lab to give at this point, because NECA waited too long and even potentially ignored customers that specifically asked about this problem.

I see over on reddit this morning that they're finally having their FTC dreams shot down by some folks with actual legal knowledge, though of course there's still some denial going on too.

Posted by: @cmoney

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I see over on reddit this morning that they're finally having their FTC dreams shot down by some folks with actual legal knowledge, though of course there's still some denial going on too.

Yes, it has been great to watch this in real time.  Apparently someone thought to post it in the legal advice subreddit and the lawyers there were in agreement that much like Doc Baghead said, this was a rule put in place relating to scammers in the 80s & 90s where they would send you merchandise you didn't order just to extort money from you and it would be a company you had no prior relationship with.  Duplicate orders and such don't apply and as long as the company provides postage to send the duplicate item back, you have to do it.

This has definitely been an occasion that calls for the Michael Jackson popcorn gif.

I remember when the first batch of the toon street scene diorama was available for preorder, mine wasn't able to be fulfilled (and many others) because of a missing storage container I believe so a lot of international orders weren't fulfilled but Neca refunded me and gave me $50 voucher to use on their store. So in my experience Neca are usually very good at coms and fixing errors but this is something else. 

I feel sorry for those who are missing out because of someone else being selfish/dishonest and hope they get a full refund for the missing diorama. But I hope whatever has gone wrong at Neca for this to happen is sorted ASAP so this doesn't happen again. 

What's the worst outcome here for Neca? 

Definitely has been a show to watch unfold. It's always times like these, where the customer's right to whatever is called into question, that I see really icky takes creep out of the woodwork. I always see it when the whole debate on tipping comes around too. Maybe I just never thought certain things because I and my family have always been closely tied to the service industry, but man, the feeling of entitlement is strong with a lot of people, and even though I know this, I'm always surprised to see just how far it extends.

I forget the exact legal terminology because I'm dumb in that way, but I was reading that folks were arguing they found something that said they could keep the extra set if they could prove they didn't personally benefit from keeping it. But then those same people said they were going to sell it, so my thought was- wouldn't making an extra couple hundred bucks mean that you benefitted from the mistake? I never realized how many athletes we had in the collecting community, because the mental gymnastics needed to make some of it make sense was wild. 

Ultimately, it's of one of those gray areas where both everyone and no one is at fault, and fault changes hands as each new step is taken. It's sorta like asking your spouse to take the chicken out of the freezer to thaw. Once you ask/remind them, you've done your part, and the responsibility shifts to them. If they forget/neglect to do it, then that's on them, and as a result, everyone suffers. It was a very specific series of events that led to this, and now it's just kind of assumed (or hoped) that people will do the right thing, but as we've seen, and as collectors are wont to do, they don't always do the right thing if it means losing out on something. Yeah, NECA shouldn't have taken so long to respond; I don't know, but was it within 30 days? I figure, if customers can't return something after 30 days, then it would stand to reason that a company shouldn't ask for something back after 30 days too. I get they probably had to consult lawyers and all that, but still. They also could've worded the email a bit better, but I think they also needed to get across how serious a situation it was. If any one of us was missing tens of thousands of dollars and wanted it back, we may be a bit forward too. 

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone is really gonna apologize or admit fault here. I know collectors won't really learn anything from this, and I don't necessarily expect NECA to learn from it either. In a perfect world, they'd use it as a chance to evaluate and restructure their shipping/customer service strategies. Maybe take a little more time to ship things- check for errors, etc. Take more time to read and respond to emails; send a preliminary "we're not sure what to do, but I'll forward this to my manager; hold on to the item in the meantime" email. There's always room for improvement, and I hope that something changes moving forward.

As corny as it is to say, I just don't get why people don't do the right thing. As others have said, obviously there's extenuating circumstances that should be taken into consideration, but if you know what happened and know what to do to fix it, just do it. There's enough crap in the world, and we don't need the extra headache or finger pointing. Two things can be true at once. I'm glad it seems like it's starting to wind down. Obviously it's one of those things that some folks will stand firm on, and we'll hear about it in certain situations for years to come, but we really just need to move on.

If anyone here is missing their diorama from all this- keep us updated on what happens! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you guys!

This is ultimately a hobby full of the kinds of people who fancy themselves smarter than everyone around them.  They will rationalize their bad faith and harbor their resentments until their dying days, and there will be no pleasing them.  NECA has played fair offering the free returns (well, they would have had to do that anyways) and the $100 credit, after that it's just trying to spin yourself into a righteous fury so you can personally profit off of a software error.  I've seen people whine that "they really expect people to pack them up and take them to the post office?"  Guess what: it was already packed up when it got to you, and the post office will pick them up at your house, where they already come every day.  Just slap the label NECA provided you with on the box they already sent you.  Some people just don't WANT to be satisfied.

Also laughable is the assumption that Neca didn't consult their lawyer before proceeding with sending out any e-mails or effort to get these labs back.