What is being said is that there are different ways to steal and that this guy was obviously an idiot for stealing around 200 cards a month from an area that he wasn't supposed to regularly be in. What is being said is that he could possibly have avoided detection had he not been so greedy.
.
I would add this observation is very relevant as it questions how many smarter employees are doing exactly this. Wizard's ability to catch only the most blatant and stupid of crooks and cheaters is not encouraging.
It's no surprise that he wasn't smart about the whole thing. People who steal usually aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. He's still relatively young... hopefully he learns from this whole mess and comes out a better person.
They are sitting on higher moral ground than the argument that, although said employee was a suspect for stealing from the company he should have done it more intelligently. So, if anyone is to commit theft in the manner described vis a vis Ocean's 11-style they would have gained more respect from the community of interest advocating for doing it with more brains and panache?
Yes.
Clearly you should respect someone more for doing something in an intelligent manner than you should respect someone for doing something in a stupid manner. However, depending on the act, you might give very little to no respect in either case
But, based on the reception of movies like Ocean's 11 and the deception of the characters there in, I think the 'general public's' opinion on the matter is pretty clear.
I recall from some time ago that Wizards said "all cards are worth 3.5 cents each, to us" 45k my ass.
The fact that the cards were then being sold on the secondary market would appear to then make that then the new "value" of the cards, thus whatever they inevitably used for the market standard, is where they got the $45k from. I couldnt say for sure of course, but obviously the courts seemed to agree with the number :p.
1,753 MPR promos? Thats what, $10k tops if they were Bolts?
Why would anyone steal MPR promos? Obviously what happened was he walked into "The Vault," went to the most expensive cards he could find, and stuffed his pockets full 70 times. Likely judge promos which average about 20-30 dollars a piece and since 1753 * $25 = $43825 I'd guess that's exactly what happened.
Also, for all the idiots saying, "Oh, well the card are worth 3 cents to WoTC why are they charging him for $45,000 in theft?" Give me a break. If Wizards wanted to sell the cards themselves they would be worth the same as what they are charging him with. Everything in stores is worth much more than it costs to make.
I have known people that just go into Wal-Mart or Target and grab a bunch of packs of cards, open them and put the rares in their pockets and just walk out. I personally think that's not the way to get cards but that doesnt mean that people dont do it. They do! If you dont believe me, ask wal-mart or target on how much money they lose each year because of opened merchandise.
Magic: the Gathering cards as well as any other trading cards or trading card game carried by Wal-Mart (not sure about Target) are handled specifically by outside vendors. Many other items, like Hallmark cards and soda, are stocked this way as well. Wal-Mart does not purchase the merchandise until it is scanned at the register. This practice exonerates Wal-Mart of any shrink issues; any opened or stolen packages are given directly to the vendor and Wal-Mart will not lose a dime.
Think about this when you steal vendor items from Wal-Mart. If you're doing it because, "Wal-Mart is an obscenely rich company, they won't miss this," you actually aren't hurting them at all. You're hurting your own community who loses money from the shrink of their own assets. This will affect said community as the owners of these vendors have less money to redistribute to other citizens via shopping or services.
Also, stealing from Wal-Mart in general (including non-vendor items) will hurt your community's overall economy. Wal-Mart offers "profit sharing" to their associates, where every quarter a percentage of profit from that store is given back to their associates and therefore the community those associates live in. Those associates are going to turn around and spend that money in the community, helping it stay prosperous. Every dollar of shrink hurts their profit share and therefore the community.
If you're any kind of real person at all and actually care about your community you'll avoid stealing from Wal-Mart (or anywhere, really) as it's only going to hurt you in the long run. Of course most (not all) culprits aren't intelligent enough to understand the repercussions of their actions so it's probably hopeless, but at least I made an attempt to inform.
Magic: the Gathering cards as well as any other trading cards or trading card game carried by Wal-Mart (not sure about Target) are handled specifically by outside vendors. Many other items, like Hallmark cards and soda, are stocked this way as well. Wal-Mart does not purchase the merchandise until it is scanned at the register. This practice exonerates Wal-Mart of any shrink issues; any opened or stolen packages are given directly to the vendor and Wal-Mart will not lose a dime.
Think about this when you steal vendor items from Wal-Mart. If you're doing it because, "Wal-Mart is an obscenely rich company, they won't miss this," you actually aren't hurting them at all. You're hurting your own community who loses money from the shrink of their own assets. This will affect said community as the owners of these vendors have less money to redistribute to other citizens via shopping or services.
Also, stealing from Wal-Mart in general (including non-vendor items) will hurt your community's overall economy. Wal-Mart offers "profit sharing" to their associates, where every quarter a percentage of profit from that store is given back to their associates and therefore the community those associates live in. Those associates are going to turn around and spend that money in the community, helping it stay prosperous. Every dollar of shrink hurts their profit share and therefore the community.
If you're any kind of real person at all and actually care about your community you'll avoid stealing from Wal-Mart (or anywhere, really) as it's only going to hurt you in the long run. Of course most (not all) culprits aren't intelligent enough to understand the repercussions of their actions so it's probably hopeless, but at least I made an attempt to inform.
On a related note, this guy's an idiot.
Dang do you get paid to PR for Walmart? They don't give up thier store space for zero. You are correct that a 3rd party merchandiser may do thier displays but they get a cut.
The thing I buy from big box stores is stuff like Duel Decks I can flip on eBay.
Has anyone ever received judge promo's before (for working an event)? I'm wondering if they tally your compensation up for tax purposes.
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1,753 card that cost 3.5 cents to make. Thats $6,135.50. And he's being charged with $45,000 theft? REALY??? Well...duh...
If I stole $6,000 worth of merchandise from someone and sold it for even $20,000, being charged with $6k worth of theft isn't much of a detourant, let alone if I could make $40k+.
The guys was fool. He got caught. Yay. Happy ending.
Garbage for constructed, costs way too much mana and can't even deal with walkers.
To sum it up. Creature removal doesn't take care of Plainswalkers...how am I to respond to a statment like that? It's like somebody saying division symbols suck at simple addition.
1,753 card that cost 3.5 cents to make. Thats $6,135.50. And he's being charged with $45,000 theft? REALY??? Well...duh...
If I stole $6,000 worth of merchandise from someone and sold it for even $20,000, being charged with $6k worth of theft isn't much of a detourant, let alone if I could make $40k+.
The guys was fool. He got caught. Yay. Happy ending.
If the guy is smart, he won't get caught for the 40k of stealing product. If wizards is really counting their lawsuit on the value of cards, the prosecution will break since that would mean the wizards would be acknowledging the secondary market.
1,753 card that cost 3.5 cents to make. Thats $6,135.50. And he's being charged with $45,000 theft? REALY??? Well...duh...
If I stole $6,000 worth of merchandise from someone and sold it for even $20,000, being charged with $6k worth of theft isn't much of a detourant, let alone if I could make $40k+.
The guys was fool. He got caught. Yay. Happy ending.
No, its 6,135.50 cents. $61.
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If the guy is smart, he won't get caught for the 40k of stealing product. If wizards is really counting their lawsuit on the value of cards, the prosecution will break since that would mean the wizards would be acknowledging the secondary market.
Not officially they don't. Wizards doesn't sell single cards, nor do they assign values to single cards. Ofificially, the value of a magic card for wotc is production costs (which is pennies).
Even in this case wizards will not do such a thing.
The appraisals of the stolen cards were done by a third party and not a WOTC employee.
Not officially they don't. Wizards doesn't sell single cards, nor do they assign values to single cards. Ofificially, the value of a magic card for wotc is production costs (which is pennies).
Even in this case wizards will not do such a thing.
The appraisals of the stolen cards were done by a third party and not a WOTC employee.
So who does wizards sell to? Imagine: Strait off the press, ship to: starcitygames? The public? Stores? I know it EVENTUALLY gets to the players, but who do they sell it to first? Also, who do they sell it to?
"Oh, yeah, buyer X, that Tarmogoyf is... say... 3 cents? Oh, and you can have this exta Koth, we don't need him, and its pretty cheap."
On a related note, why doesn't wizards just print until inflation makes the cards less valuable, then, a few years later, when everyone lost their Jace, print them again?
I don't really want to defend Walmart, but I know a lot of employees that work there and 2 years after they announced they might stop the profit sharing (it's now 2013) and they have long since abandoned those plans.
In some parts of the country they struggle to even get employees (come to ND I can show you walmarts paying $14+ an hour for cashiers and stockers) and the profit sharing and benefits are some of the only reasons they can keep enough employees in some stores (I can't speak for the rest of the country, but there are a few stores doing ridiculous amounts of business in regions that are growing economically despite the downturns in other parts of the country and there aren't enough employees to go around up here)
So who does wizards sell to? Imagine: Strait off the press, ship to: starcitygames? The public? Stores? I know it EVENTUALLY gets to the players, but who do they sell it to first? Also, who do they sell it to?
"Oh, yeah, buyer X, that Tarmogoyf is... say... 3 cents? Oh, and you can have this exta Koth, we don't need him, and its pretty cheap."
On a related note, why doesn't wizards just print until inflation makes the cards less valuable, then, a few years later, when everyone lost their Jace, print them again?
Wizards has to find a balance between printing enough cards to meet "most" of the demand and printing them in small enough quantities to keep them desirable
They learned a very harsh lesson when they printed the Fallen Empires set which had a print run so high that the cards at the time were nearly worthless. They lost a lot of respect and a lot of players and dealers were threatening to stop carrying the product if the cards were going to be completely worthless on the secondary market.
If the cards become so cheap that everyone has everything, it's no longer a "collectable" and while some people might want the game to be as cheap as a poker deck, it would stop being anywhere near as special if the collecting aspect were removed by making all of the cards worthless
As it is the cycling of standard tournament legality and 4 new sets a year already makes 99% of the cards printed, virtually worthless. That last 1% is all thats keeping it a collectable
If you want to see the results of printing a collectable without a limit, take a look at pogs, unlimited print runs of something that was supposed to be collectable and they were barely worth a penny at the time of release, you can get them 10 for a penny now and still no one wants them
As it is now I know dealers who won't buy magic cards for more than 1/4 of a cent for a common, so it's already coming close to pushing magic into the over printed range
I could sell you thousands of cards right now for under $100 and still make a profit on it
Even the most liberal interpretation of the word "News" would have a hard time calling 2.5 years news. Closed. -Galspanic
I would add this observation is very relevant as it questions how many smarter employees are doing exactly this. Wizard's ability to catch only the most blatant and stupid of crooks and cheaters is not encouraging.
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Yes.
Clearly you should respect someone more for doing something in an intelligent manner than you should respect someone for doing something in a stupid manner. However, depending on the act, you might give very little to no respect in either case
But, based on the reception of movies like Ocean's 11 and the deception of the characters there in, I think the 'general public's' opinion on the matter is pretty clear.
Straight from the article, no kidding. It's even more impressive he stole the cards with his fist!
Best post of the thread.
Gotta love guys throwing out random, derogatory comments to strawman the hell out of everybody else for no reason at all.
Sig and Avatar drawn by me.
The fact that the cards were then being sold on the secondary market would appear to then make that then the new "value" of the cards, thus whatever they inevitably used for the market standard, is where they got the $45k from. I couldnt say for sure of course, but obviously the courts seemed to agree with the number :p.
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I believe it was said that they included judge promos as well, not just mpr promos. And also promos like Damnation are worth more than Bolt is btw.
That quantity is staggering.
I wonder if they'll offer him a plea deal to testify against the store owner..serve him right if they were in cahoots.
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Why would anyone steal MPR promos? Obviously what happened was he walked into "The Vault," went to the most expensive cards he could find, and stuffed his pockets full 70 times. Likely judge promos which average about 20-30 dollars a piece and since 1753 * $25 = $43825 I'd guess that's exactly what happened.
Also, for all the idiots saying, "Oh, well the card are worth 3 cents to WoTC why are they charging him for $45,000 in theft?" Give me a break. If Wizards wanted to sell the cards themselves they would be worth the same as what they are charging him with. Everything in stores is worth much more than it costs to make.
Magic: the Gathering cards as well as any other trading cards or trading card game carried by Wal-Mart (not sure about Target) are handled specifically by outside vendors. Many other items, like Hallmark cards and soda, are stocked this way as well. Wal-Mart does not purchase the merchandise until it is scanned at the register. This practice exonerates Wal-Mart of any shrink issues; any opened or stolen packages are given directly to the vendor and Wal-Mart will not lose a dime.
Think about this when you steal vendor items from Wal-Mart. If you're doing it because, "Wal-Mart is an obscenely rich company, they won't miss this," you actually aren't hurting them at all. You're hurting your own community who loses money from the shrink of their own assets. This will affect said community as the owners of these vendors have less money to redistribute to other citizens via shopping or services.
Also, stealing from Wal-Mart in general (including non-vendor items) will hurt your community's overall economy. Wal-Mart offers "profit sharing" to their associates, where every quarter a percentage of profit from that store is given back to their associates and therefore the community those associates live in. Those associates are going to turn around and spend that money in the community, helping it stay prosperous. Every dollar of shrink hurts their profit share and therefore the community.
If you're any kind of real person at all and actually care about your community you'll avoid stealing from Wal-Mart (or anywhere, really) as it's only going to hurt you in the long run. Of course most (not all) culprits aren't intelligent enough to understand the repercussions of their actions so it's probably hopeless, but at least I made an attempt to inform.
On a related note, this guy's an idiot.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-09/wal-mart-to-end-worker-profit-sharing-contributions-in-february.html
Dang do you get paid to PR for Walmart? They don't give up thier store space for zero. You are correct that a 3rd party merchandiser may do thier displays but they get a cut.
The thing I buy from big box stores is stuff like Duel Decks I can flip on eBay.
Has anyone ever received judge promo's before (for working an event)? I'm wondering if they tally your compensation up for tax purposes.
If I stole $6,000 worth of merchandise from someone and sold it for even $20,000, being charged with $6k worth of theft isn't much of a detourant, let alone if I could make $40k+.
The guys was fool. He got caught. Yay. Happy ending.
Rogue players for the win!
If the guy is smart, he won't get caught for the 40k of stealing product. If wizards is really counting their lawsuit on the value of cards, the prosecution will break since that would mean the wizards would be acknowledging the secondary market.
The GJ way path to no lynching:
No, its 6,135.50 cents. $61.
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Explain please. Wizards already does that.
Not officially they don't. Wizards doesn't sell single cards, nor do they assign values to single cards. Ofificially, the value of a magic card for wotc is production costs (which is pennies).
Even in this case wizards will not do such a thing.
The appraisals of the stolen cards were done by a third party and not a WOTC employee.
So who does wizards sell to? Imagine: Strait off the press, ship to: starcitygames? The public? Stores? I know it EVENTUALLY gets to the players, but who do they sell it to first? Also, who do they sell it to?
"Oh, yeah, buyer X, that Tarmogoyf is... say... 3 cents? Oh, and you can have this exta Koth, we don't need him, and its pretty cheap."
On a related note, why doesn't wizards just print until inflation makes the cards less valuable, then, a few years later, when everyone lost their Jace, print them again?
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I don't really want to defend Walmart, but I know a lot of employees that work there and 2 years after they announced they might stop the profit sharing (it's now 2013) and they have long since abandoned those plans.
In some parts of the country they struggle to even get employees (come to ND I can show you walmarts paying $14+ an hour for cashiers and stockers) and the profit sharing and benefits are some of the only reasons they can keep enough employees in some stores (I can't speak for the rest of the country, but there are a few stores doing ridiculous amounts of business in regions that are growing economically despite the downturns in other parts of the country and there aren't enough employees to go around up here)
Wizards has to find a balance between printing enough cards to meet "most" of the demand and printing them in small enough quantities to keep them desirable
They learned a very harsh lesson when they printed the Fallen Empires set which had a print run so high that the cards at the time were nearly worthless. They lost a lot of respect and a lot of players and dealers were threatening to stop carrying the product if the cards were going to be completely worthless on the secondary market.
If the cards become so cheap that everyone has everything, it's no longer a "collectable" and while some people might want the game to be as cheap as a poker deck, it would stop being anywhere near as special if the collecting aspect were removed by making all of the cards worthless
As it is the cycling of standard tournament legality and 4 new sets a year already makes 99% of the cards printed, virtually worthless. That last 1% is all thats keeping it a collectable
If you want to see the results of printing a collectable without a limit, take a look at pogs, unlimited print runs of something that was supposed to be collectable and they were barely worth a penny at the time of release, you can get them 10 for a penny now and still no one wants them
As it is now I know dealers who won't buy magic cards for more than 1/4 of a cent for a common, so it's already coming close to pushing magic into the over printed range
I could sell you thousands of cards right now for under $100 and still make a profit on it
Even the most liberal interpretation of the word "News" would have a hard time calling 2.5 years news. Closed. -Galspanic