repack ripoff

[bedafile]

check out this auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mox-Sapphire-Time-Walk-Umezawa-Jitte-Pithing-Needle-MTG_W0QQitemZ5229249027QQcategoryZ19113QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

so if you buy all 120 repacks for $600 will you get:

Mox Sapphire (Alpha, good condition considering how long I've had the card)

Time Walk (Beta, again, about the same condition as the Mox Sapphire)

Ancestral Recall (Unlimited, but very good condition)

Badlands (Alpha, played, but three)

Savannah (Unlimited, played, and five)

Underground Sea (Beta, played, and two)

sound too good to be true.

if anyone is out there with $600 to blow is would be a really good deal

[Limbo]

I will be selling them in lots of 120 until they are all gone

I think he is trying to trick one into believing there are only 120 packs by giving a bonus of two boxes of saviors for 120 packs sold, but the above quoted sentence implies there are more sets of 120 packs...

[Gort32]

Repacks are frequently good to collect some random black-bordered commons and uncommons, but don't expect to get any of the advertised power. 

[bedafile]

oops I'm stupid

[Jacob Orlove]

Hint: repack auctions on ebay generally offer worse odds than the lottery, but marginally better consolation prizes. Stay away from both, unless you enjoy paying a stupid tax.

[Godder]

Here in NZ, the lottery has reasonable consolation prizes as well, and the proceeds are used for (more or less) charitable purposes, so I prefer to see ours as a donation to charity with a possible upside, rather than a stupid tax .

Repacks, however, annoy me, although I guess you might get some useful cards out of it. I'd still rather buy singles, though.

[Meddling Mike]

repacks by definition are a huge scam, your time would be better spent writing to publisher's clearing house.

[crazzykid81083]

Hey I spent 48 dollars on repacks 4 weeks ago and pulled a LOA (right after I bought one LOL) but I sold it for 180. Got lucky but doubtful to happen again.

[Komatteru]

Here in NZ, the lottery has reasonable consolation prizes as well, and the proceeds are used for (more or less) charitable purposes, so I prefer to see ours as a donation to charity with a possible upside, rather than a stupid tax .

Last year, the Mega Millions went to like $180 mil, so I bought 5 tickets (picking all prime numbers, filling in the gaps with the two perfect numbers and then some triangular numbers) and was hoping to win like $10.  I won $150.  That paid for Origins.  Then I played the next week and didn't win anything and decided it was a scam.

Also, this auction's little story almost touched me.  I'd feel sorry for the guy if they didn't go and his story were really true.  If he made it up and is trying to scam people, I hope he gets set on fire and he gets trampled by rapid meerkats.

[mrieff]

I did buy out a repack auction once. This scammer was not so smart: he said that all featured cards (P9 etc) would be in this series of repacks. So I bought them all. That was of course not what he expected. i neverd heard from him.

Fortunately he had to eat the substantial Ebay fees for the auction. That'll teach him.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back when i first started i bought 20 repacks from a guy totalling about 60 bucks.  I pulled a beta demonic tutor, force of will, and a fbb plateau.

Lesson is that repack auctions are sometimes genuine and sometimes utter ripoffs, but because telling the difference is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO hard its not even worth it. You get burned more then you benefit

[dandan]

I bought a lot of 100 cards (commons and uncommons) a while ago and got quite a few playable cards and many cards that were so bad I hadn't bothered to buy them so I was quite happy. For seriously casual players, repacks offer good odds of getting those crap rares. If I started collecting Magic today, I'd go and buy a few bulk buys as the card/price ratio is good and newbies will actually use and enjoy many of the cards.

Having said that, if you want to get Power and fancy a gamble, get together with some friends, buy the card and then sort out a fair way of determining who gets the card. Playgroups can also group together to buy out any players leaving the game and divide up the cards afterwards. Even determined randomnly you are giving yourself a far better chance of getting something you want this way.

[Bram]

The backstory for his auction is ludicrous.

Today I finally decided to move out of my parent's house, and I'm moving to Florida to actually make a living. It's almost a dream-come-true for this washed-out would-be teacher: I'm going to be a pirate at Disney World.

It's actually kind of a shame he added 'at Disney World' to that. If not, this would have been an even more drastic career move, and more than a little Guybrush Threepwood-style. Anyway, I always thought the pirates were animatronic. But then again, upon reflection, I guess they could have been washed-up deadbeat vintage players.

and my soon-to-be wife will work at Ron Jon's (or something; Ron Jon's is the plan, but it could be anything).

So did she actually apply for that position or just at one point thought it would be nice to work there? Ron Jon's is the plan, but she could just as well end up turning tricks for crack?

We'll have rough times ahead, but living the rest of my life in Florida will be amazing.

Arrrrgh. You'll have to overcome such minor difficulties as scurvy and keelhauling at first, but I'm sure you'll be the scourge of the Florida coastline in no time. Pour me a grog an' walk the plank, matey.

[xthexpunisherx]

and my soon-to-be wife will work at Ron Jon's (or something; Ron Jon's is the plan, but it could be anything).

So did she actually apply for that position or just at one point thought it would be nice to work there? Ron Jon's is the plan, but she could just as well end up turning tricks for crack?

Also he must have met the absolutly most understanding woman in the world.  "Hey hunny I don't want a carrer like a teacher I want to pretend to need an Eyepatch for tourisits!  Oh and if you wouldn't mind being a waitress that would be great so we can live in a shack!"

That my friends is a girl you marry!

[BigMac]

As said before, for people trying to get some cards to get started repacks are quite nice. And for those people even a single "old" card can be a real treat. A friend of mine got some beta stuff, a revised serendib and a ring of maruf.

He was happy with the cards he got.

However, gambling to get power is a waste of money and time. Spending 600 dollar with a chance at power is a bad idea however you put it. Power is 300 bucks when you search a lot so it would actually buy you 2 power cards when you look right. So when you need a lot of cards its nice, otherwise, don't do it but don't complain about it as for some people it is nice enough, whatever cards they get.

[dandan]

and my soon-to-be wife will work at Ron Jon's (or something; Ron Jon's is the plan, but it could be anything).

So did she actually apply for that position or just at one point thought it would be nice to work there? Ron Jon's is the plan, but she could just as well end up turning tricks for crack?

Also he must have met the absolutly most understanding woman in the world.  "Hey hunny I don't want a carrer like a teacher I want to pretend to need an Eyepatch for tourisits!  Oh and if you wouldn't mind being a waitress that would be great so we can live in a shack!"

That my friends is a girl you marry!

I detect a single man giving an opinion. As a married man, I am pretty sure that in 5 years time, the waitress will blame the pirate for stopping her from becoming a teacher, astronaut or whatever else she thought she might do but never got around to doing! It is a grave mistake to think that a woman agreeing to anything or clearly stating that she doesn't want som,ething actually means that they won't bitch about it.

Try a simple test.

On a hot day, offer to buy your girlfriend an ice-cream.
1. If she accepts, dump her. She'll turn out fat. (if you like fat chicks, ignore this. For me, if I wanted to lie down on a huge semi-liquid object, I'd buy a water bed)
2. If she says no but then wants some of yours this is normal. Get used to it. Don't give her any. This is basic training in understanding logic and as such doomed to failure but at least you get all of the ice-cream. This woman will bitch about being a waitress who lives in a shack and it will be your fault.
3. If she says no and then doesn't hassle you over your ice-cream, consider marriage. Also pinch yourself to see if you are dreaming. Try the advanced tests (watching sport on TV on her birthday/whilst they are showing the last part of a soppy TV soap) and fill your house with Magic players. If there is still no adverse reaction, consider marriage.
4. If she says I'd love one and you can smear it all over my breasts and lick it off, buy her the friggin ice-cream.

[Matt]

4. If she says I'd love one and you can smear it all over my breasts and lick it off, buy her the friggin ice-cream.

But would you marry her in this case?

[Eddie]

Probably, because she wouldn't be eating the ice-cream anyway. In fact, you'll have 2 ice-creams and sex, which is about the only thing that will delay the trip to Vegas.

[Revvik]

4. If she says I'd love one and you can smear it all over my breasts and lick it off, buy her the friggin ice-cream.

But would you marry her in this case?

These are the kind of girls that guys always say they "should have" married, but they're probably incredibly smart in not doing so.  After all, when you're grown up and living in your shack in Florida working at Disneyworld with little pint-sized Vintage players of your own, and they start asking pesky questions like "daddy, what's Hepatitis?", you won't be giving the truthful answer of "A is in the water, C is in your mother."

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot I had something on-topic to add.  As someone who has made and sold repacks before for the company I work for, I can tell you to stay away.  Stay far away.

[Yare]

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot I had something on-topic to add. As someone who has made and sold repacks before for the company I work for, I can tell you to stay away. Stay far away.

Can you be any more specific than that?

[Revvik]

Sure.  Why buy a pack of 15 Revised / Kamigawa crap commons?  No joke.  4th / 5th Edition cards and bulk in-print commons make up a vast amount of repacks in general.
Here's a rule: If I know what I want, I will buy it.  I will NOT buy something that is not it.  I will NOT buy something that "may" be what I want.

[dandan]

To be honest, the sort of people who buy things that 'may' be what they want, are the sort of people who find that their money disappears one way or another anyway.

Repacks - bad for getting Power - good for getting junk rares and commons/uncommons. If such things please you, then buy repacks.

[Bram]

For me, buying regular boosters has always been a foolproof method to that latter end. It's where I got all my junk rares, and at prices lower than most repacks!

[dandan]

For junk rares, find Ebay sellers that offer fixed postage costs and that have a lot of cards for sale. Buy the cards you need and put bids on the crap rares you want (casual Magic is sooooooooo cheap). I can't tell you how many 'playsets' of 4 junk rares I've bought for $0.01-$0.010. Beware postage! I've also had good deals on common sets although postage usually makes that less of good thing. Even a hard core casual player like me can't find a use for at least half the cards Wizards print (although playing a few games of Limited as you open new sets is highly recommended).
As a result, I'm at least satisfied if I open a package and get a few cards I don't have. I think most people here wouldn't be as likely as me to smile at a Wormfang Manta (I have a few spares if anyone is interested, I only wanted one for my highlander crap combos with Phasing deck which recently got trashed by Wizards rules revisions (because revising Phasing was obviously a Wizards priority)

[Yare]

...Beware postage!...

QFT

If you can avoid the steep shipping costs people will try to slip in there, you can really clean up.  I've been trying to get a Beta Plains (if you have one you want to trade, let me know ).  I was looking at eBay and I found one for $1.  It was like, well, if shipping is low I might go for it.  Shipping cost?

SEVEN DOLLARS!

So yeah, watch that shipping.

[Chaos]

I managed to pull a Mox Jet out of about 25 repacks, was a decent deal at at the time, got free duals for each  10 packs bought. I ended up with about 7 duals, a mox, and some other random good stuff for about 75 bucks.


Then again, I have picked up some that were just were bad, really bad..;/