Hasbro/WoTC sends Pinkertons to a breaker's home...

[BobC]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

A little more info here:

https://www.polygon.com/23695923/mtg...d-leaked-cards


Looks like there was either a screw up in shipping the product out and confusing with a similarly titled card release, or there was some sort of backdoor release, somewhere along the line.

Not the first time it's happened apparently.

So Dave, do you think it was just a coincidence that the men showing up at that person's door were as described, or that it was a blatant and intentional effort to scare the crap out of some entirely innocent people that large "heavy hitting" guys can just show up on your doorstep to give you contact info to call someone at the company, and then stand there while you talk to the company rep who sounds all nice and apologetic while at the same time seems to have made at least veiled threats of you stealing items and jail time? Also, the comment about needing all the items back immediately to supposedly then be able to detect where the hole was on their end so they could then plug it sounds like total BS. If this outfit can hire and so quickly track down and confront these innocent people, one would think such a company should be able to easily and quickly figure out and determine the source of their own internal screw-up and shipping error. So why resort to such questionable methods on their part?

IF, these items had been stolen, then yes, I agree they should be returned to their rightful owner. But per the story, the company rep spoken to apparently claimed that they weren't necessarily stolen or that the party involved had done anything wrong. In that instance, the couple really didn't have any obligation to return anything to the "nice gentlemen" on their doorstep. And in return, this company had no right to intimidate and force/coerce them into taking down any videos about this product they appear to have legally purchased. In my eyes, this company essentially committed theft of this couple's property through threats and intimidation, unless there is even more to and behind this story that isn't known, or being made public yet.

I wonder if the men at this couple's door allowed the husband to contact this company rep using his own cellphone, or if they conveniently provided him with one they brought along? Had that been me, my first call to anyone would have been to the police, after having comforted my other half first, and very quietly advising her to excuse herself and then slip out the back and make her way to a neighbor's house and immediately contact the police from there as well. The supposed comments this company rep made, sound like nothing more than intentionally intimidating threats, using a hired third-party group to act as the on-site physical threat to backup what was being relayed by the rep on the phone. If there really were no accusations or harm intended or directed at this couple, why didn't an actual rep from the company at least try to contact them first by phone or otherwise, possibly via contact info available through the YouTube videos, or have a company rep knock on the door, or at least be present, instead of it being just some hired third party goons? This doesn't seem way different in principle than what was done to that Massachusetts couple that was harassed by Ebay employees a while back. Maybe this other company learned from what happened in that Ebay case, so they use non-employees to apply the more direct pressure and intimidation, and hopefully separate and keep themselves from possibly even harsher civil or criminal charges, if any at all. This whole story has a definitely unfavorable stench to it.