I've been following the adventures of Mike and Jeff on their respective blogs and their continuing difficulty dealing with Upper Deck and their expired resumptions from 2007 UD Masterpieces. A great product and pricey when it was release both guys got fairly cheap cases and busted them open. You can find there blogs here at Sports Syzygy and I am Joe Collector. Both have similar stories with dealing with UD on their expired redemptions. I was following Mike's box breaks pretty regularly. He would post a box by box break with scans and almost every box had a redemption in it. That sucks especially when your case hit and a quarter of your box hits turn up to be nothing but useless cardboard. I think the other main complaint was the lack of consistency with what they were told by different people in the customer service department at UD. So at least two facts. This product is close to 4 years old and the redemptions were in fact expired and UD hasn't had a MLB License for a couple of years, not that that's stopped them from putting out product. So I can understand the difficulty UD might have with coming up with something to replace these hits with.
But my question to the blog community and at bat is this and I would love any lawyers out there to weigh in as well: Should redemptions be counted as "Hits" in a box of cards? If you sell a box of cards and boldly claim that you get, not on average, but you get, 3 or 4 hits per box and state that at least 1 or 2 are autos and you insert redemptions for some of those hits and that now 3 or 4 years down the road someone opens that box and gets those redemptions but they are expired and no good, is it false advertising to claim on the box you get x number of autos or relics? And what is the legality of that? Especially if you are unwilling or unable to compensate for those redemptions down the road and therefore void the validity of the advertised hit count on the box?
I don't think anyone would disagree that redemptions suck. And it's a bummer, some of the redemptions they pulled were for some sweet cards, but I will temper with this, both guys knew or should have known there were lots of possible redemptions in these boxes and that they were expired and that's probably why the cases were so cheap.
I predict that UD will be dead by the end of the year anyways and either completely folding or it will sell off it's name and brands to some other company, but I could be wrong. I didn't think UD would live to see 2011 and they did and are still producing cards. But if your waiting on current redemptions with them good luck.
Alright have at it.
cb out
Blog about collecting stuff, the hobby of collecting stuff, mainly trading cards, and other things.
I am not a buyer of high end products for breaking, but I want to throw my two cents in anyway.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the company is really at fault in this situation. If they need the extra time to gather good player's autos rather than cramming in a bunch of nobodies, then I'm all for redemptions. If there is an expiration date on them I am okay with that as well providing that information is printed on the box itself. That way the buyer can be made aware of expired redemptions. If you choose to still purchase the product knowing all the info, then it's a case of caveat emptor.
I love buying older products because of price usually, but the companies are (or should be) within their rights to expect to sell the product within a year. If I had a company, I wouldn't want to keep around a bunch of autos hoping that in a few years someone MAY want to redeem them.
I understand buyer's frustration, but you know what you have a chance of getting buying an older product.
hiflew: Say that the card in question is a case hit and that some of them are redemption cards and some are not. Does your opinion change at all at that point? I can understand not being able to fulfill expired redemptions on run of the mill cards, but when it comes to something as integral to the value of a case as the case hit there should be an exception made because case hits should never be redemptions. Case prices aren't going to be discounted too much if 2 out of 16 autographed cards are only available as redemptions.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious though as to how it isn't the fault of the card company when they replace a card in the box with a worthless piece of cardboard? It's certainly not the fault of the collector. Production should be started far enough in advance so that all of the cards get packed out into the product. If the company isn't providing all of the cards in the box that are promised on the outside of the box then it should be their responsibility to do so.
Solely on a customer service standpoint, something I personally know a lot about, how difficult is it for Upper Deck just to send us anything they have available as a replacement? You position it this way. "Well, normally this isn't something that we would do, but since this is a redemption for a case hit then I think we can make an exception. I don't know if we'll be able to match the value, but we'd like to send you something." Is that really too much to expect? It shouldn't be. Do they really have any cards there that are more valuable then retaining a customer?
Just a couple of different ways to look at the situation. The thing is, there's no right answer and no wrong answer. Upper Deck has made their decision and to them it's better to lose a customer then send them something that they have lying around as a substitution. I'm not looking to get the card listed on my redemption card, that's not realistic, but I would like to get something. I don't even care about the other three expired redemptions that I pulled, but I feel that something should be done for the case hit.
Yes, redemptions should count as hits. The card company should honor them for at least one calendar year after the product is first sold. After that, you take your chances.
ReplyDeleteCard dealers should warn of the risks of expired redemptions when selling older product, but I can't understand why anyone expects Upper Deck to still honor redemptions from a 2007 product in 2011 when the company doesn't even have an MLB license anymore.
- Paul
Paul: They fulfilling expired redemptions from the 2008 products so why would it be a stretch to want them to fulfill expired redemptions from the 2007 product especially when they are for a case hit. The status of the MLB license isn't relevant because they could offer anything as a replacement.
ReplyDelete