Agin Toys

[canofhumdingers]

In regards to what defines being ripped off, I think a big distinction needs to be made.

As an example, people here have complained that Tony at Tempting Toys sells the '84 Godzilla figure from the recent memorial box for a "ripoff" price. He does sell it for a very high price (usually over $100). However, one time at Gfest, I was looking at it and asked him about the high price. He was quite honest, saying essentially "yeah, I know it's high, but people are willing to pay it & I'm here as a business to make money." He also had no qualms about telling me I probably could get it cheaper if I was willing to shop around and wait, but he had it right there in hand and some people are willing to pay a premium for that. And finally mentioned that when he breaks up the set, several of the figures were hard to sell, so he had to get the most for the popular ones he could in order to make a profit over all.

Now that I can respect. He was open about his high price and let me decide whether I thought it was a fair price I was interested in paying (I wasn't). But he never insisted that it was a great deal or that it would "go up in value", never tried to misrepresent anything about the figure (value or anything else), and never tried to bully me into buying it in any way.

Now while I've never dealt with Steve Agin, if what members here say is true, then yes, I would certainly say he is ripping people off. Knowingly misrepresenting a product in anyway (especially price or value) IS ripping people off. Say you buy a watch for $100 from a seller who insists the watch is worth it, will go up in value, and it frequently sells for that or more. Then you find out that the watch is sold in several other stores regularly for $25. Would you NOT say you got ripped off?