O/T Topps quality issue - what to do?

[kailes2872]

I am writing the post to talk about a 2019 topps set. Given that the main board is dedicated to cards 100 years older, this might get booted, but I need some advice and I don’t this I get eyeballs in the water cooler or modern card section.

Every year since 2004, I buy both of my my boys the current year baseball and football sets. They say that they enjoy them but they don’t look at them much anymore. My oldest prefers his growing pre war collection and my younger son hasn’t shown a bunch of interest - he just likes that they get them yearly. We used to open the box and sort them together. I now find myself doing it alone otherwise the sets would stay sealed and the binders and sheets would go unused.

On August 12th, I bought this years topps sets from MLBshop.com. I had bought off of there the last couple of years and have not had any issue. On Monday, I went to the local card shop and bought 2 binders and two boxes of ultra pro sheets figuring it was time to get them in binders.

Last night (35 days after purchase), I began the sorting and sheeting process it takes about 2 hours per set. I finished the first one without any issues and decided to go ahead and start on the second one. The process consists of putting in stacks of 100 and then taking those stacks and putting them into 10’s. After getting those stacks sequential, I then put them in the sheets 100 at a time.

By dumb luck, my daughter offered to help. While I was still sorting the second series she was putting into the stacks of 10. She started noting about duplicates. I told her to put them into a separate stack. However when she put them in 1-10 order they were all there through the first series. This didn’t make sense as it is a 700 count box.

As soon as we got to series 2 (starting with card 350), this holes started adding up. All told there were exactly 100 duplicates and 100 cards missing from series 2 (all of the missing cards were from series 2 but duplicate were over both series equally distributed.)

I went to shopmlb.com to call customer service and noticed that there was a 90 day return policy. Since it was now after 10pm, I had to do an online chat. I explained my situation and was told that there was nothing that could be done as this was a direct ship from the manufacturer product and that was only 30 days. I explained that I had just getting around to breaking the seal on the product and I would think that I could take them at their word that the set was complete and therefore not necessary for me to open it the day that I receive it to make sure that the description on the box was accurate

She stood firm but out of the kindness of her heart offered me 10% off of my next purchase. I asked for a supervisor. It was clear that I was dealing with a cost center in a much different time zone. The supervisor held the line as well but he offered 20% off my next purchase - despite my protestations that I wound not be purchasing from them again so the discount off of their crazy marked up product would be unnecessary.

At this point I am at a loss. It makes no sense for me to try to collect the 100 cards one at a time at a show or a shop. I’ll probably be in for what it would cost to buy another set and I wouldn’t have the hassle factor.

I reached out to topps on Twitter DM and gave them pictures as proof as well as the card list. No response.

If I could just explain to someone with a bit of sense they would understand that this was a collation/ QC issue with topps. They would apologize and make it right. Heck if they just wanted to send the 100 cards I’d send the duplicates as I don’t want another 2 hour sort and sheet session.

So, help from the group. Am I supposed to just chalk it up as a sunk cost and go buy another set? Is there a route that you would go that I haven’t thought of?

Thanks for the feedback. This one is pretty frustrating