Mattel's CRIMINALLY abusing their Biggest FANS.

For most of us Mattel has been a big part of our lives.  Everything from educational toys, dolls, and toy cars are made and produced by the company.  While most of us out grow our love for toys until we have children of our own, some members of society continue to pursue, preserved, and collect part of the toys that greatly influence our growth and development.  These men and women are known as the toy collectors.  While socially they are snubbed by average members of society,  many of them are just everyday men and women that collect as a hobby.

In the past few years Mattel has become aware that they are one of the biggest producers and licencing holders of most of the top popular iconic figures for cartoons, comic books, and sport figures. Knowing this, the company has created a niche for their loyal collectors known as the "Matty Collectors".  The company sales subscriptions at an outrageous price that  guarantees the subscriber at least one of each figure in the series they signed up for.  The series include Master of the Universe, Ghotsbusters, WWE and DC Universe to just name a few.  

For a collector, a guaranteed on a toy they greatly desire and they pay top dollar to obtain, is a dream come true.  However for many of the subscribers this membership has turned out to be their worst nightmare.  My husband included.  Many collectors are receiving products that are low quality, assembled incorrectly with incorrect parts, damages packages, opened packages, missing parts in the packages, over charging on products and at times double charging on products and trying to refund the subscriber with coupons for toys instead of reimbursing their money for the extra amount.  I've seen this first hand, and knowing how much my husband is paying for these figures, he was both pissed off and had a very un-happy wife.

The neglect to their consumers don't end there.  In conventions such as San Diego Comic Con many loyal fans come to purchase exclusive products from the event.  Many of them will stand in line for hours waiting, in hopes to obtain a specific product they traveled long distances to obtained.  In many cases the consumer will wait in one line to obtain a ticket to then stand in another line to hopefully purchase their desire product.  What many of them find out is that the Mattel's booth will pass out extra tickets that surpass their quantity of the products their brought to sale at the convention.  Leaving many their loyal collectors extremely irritated, because they spent hours waiting to purchase a product they were falsely lead to believe they could obtain.

At one point in time waiting for hours in a convention seem like a great investment for a collector.  However the company has started devaluating their own products by simply re-releasing their exclusive products for the conventions weeks later on-line making the whole convention experience completely pointless for many fans of their products who are looking at retaining value into their collectibles. My husband use to get exited every time the San Diego or New York Comic Con was around the corner.  He would glance through the publish list of exclusives and decided weather or not they are worth getting.  This past year he looked at it, considered maybe one or two pieces, and simply told me "I bet you these would be released in stores in a few months".  Boy was he right and the many members of the  on-line toy community were pretty pissed off.  Especially the guys who dropped a fortune and time trying to obtain these figures.  This is just not cool. At this point these pieces are hardly worth being called "EXCLUSIVE".

While this seems completely pointless to the average individual, the behavior is simply unethical.  The company is neglecting their product, selling defective goods, practically stealing money from their subscribers by neglecting to give money back for overdraft quantities and giving them coupons for goods they did not request, and simply inconveniencing their consumers in many ways.  Why do they do this, because they know they aren't that many competitors.  Imagine if Wal-Mart, JC Penney's, Sears, Best Buy or any other major retailer doing this with their costumer service.  You would not be happy eighther. 

As long as I've known my husband, he's always been a member of the Mattel's Matty Collector series, but he finally gave it up and I don't blame him.  The last straw was on his Masters of the Universe series.  Mattel first pulled the money out of his account, then Mattel sends out an e-mail saying the shipment was behind on schedule and it will arrive in sometime in January, then they said they've lost track of were figures somewhere in their warehouse, this was fallowed by a cancellation letter.  At the same time we had learned his friend had received his figure, but he didn't. Not to mentioned the money is still up in the air. I this is just total crap and no one should be treated this way as a costumer.