HTS Cluster .... Any scores?

Inferno v3 · **Joined:** Fri Jul 09, 2010 7:24 pm **Posts:** 26

I was able to get most of what I set out to get, both Zarana's for me, one for a friend, and a Starscream for a friend.
Big pain in the ass though.

firefox91 · **Posted:** Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:25 pm

I was in a meeting most of the day at work. Tried at lunch to get all that was left, pink Zarana, and that timed out. I expected this which is why I am glad I already bought the Starscream on ebay and avoided the hassle.

b_i_thomas · **Posted:** Tue Jul 26, 2011 7:59 pm

I was able to get 2 each of the pink Zarana and the Indy set, one for me and one for a friend. I had pounced on Starscream as soon as I saw the listing (which couldn't have been more than a few minutes after it was added), but the site kept crashing at various stages of the checkout process, and of course I missed out. I also had the black Zarana in my cart for a long time, but was unable to get my order through before she sold out as well.

Goldbug · **Posted:** Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:50 am

What an ordeal!
I was there when everything started showing up. I had a Starscream in my cart but decided just to wait until Zarana showed. Then it took me 30 minutes to get 1 of each Zaranas. By this time it was lunch hour for probably a lot of people as the site slowed to a crawl. For my second order I tried to get the Indy set. It took an hour just for them to tell me my cc was denied. Apparently cc company charged me my monthly interest today! That made my spending limit lower.

Instead I decided to get an extra Zarana. That one was very easy to get. It took maybe 5 minutes.
I refreshed the exclusive page & she was sold out! I guess I got the last one.
I was too exhausted to try for the Indy set again. I hoped it would last until tomorrow. Luckily a pal got a set for me.
BTW BBTS was on there too buying stuff. AVAC saw that pre-orders popped up after an hour of them showing on HTS.
What you had to do when the error page came up was to continueously refresh until the next step came up.

If you missed out on the Death Star you didn't miss much. All those figures will come out later in the year anyway. I don't see why someone would want to over pay for the DS package.

Apparently all the SDCC stuff had free shipping. So all those who missed out should take some solace in knowing that some negligent HTS employees will be getting fired over this fiasco.
It would be funny in a crazy way if they canceled all the orders & restarted everything Wednesday. :twisted:

Kozy@Rebelscum wrote:

For what it's worth Sentinel was sold out on the floor by yesterday midday. I'm not sure if they intentionally hold back some stock for HTS but speaking with David Vonner he told me that they do have plans in the works to get the classic color version out there. He didn't know if that meant they would eventually ship to regular retail or more like the dark Galactus.

Something was different about SDCC this year and it seems that more and more scalpers have caught wind of the HTS exclusives (I know that's not news in and of itself) but here's a little story that I think tells a larger story...

I took my stuff from the con to a FedEx office 8 blocks away from the center (no surcharges like they charge at the con) and as I was packing up my stuff a guy sitting there saw my Sentinel and asked if I got Starscream (i didn't because I didn't want it but I know it was the first item to sell out - gone by Friday evening). Then he asked me if I was a "reseller" and I said nope just a collector. He proceeded to tell me that his friend runs a booth that sells posters but that he didn't care about selling posters - he pays the vendor's fee for a small booth ($1800 per day) which gets them 7 or 8 vendor passes. Vendor passes get you some of the earliest possible access to the floor especially on preview night.

He continued to tell me that only one person worked the poster booth and the rest of them were there to just buy the exclusives. So I didn't think much of it - how much damage can 8 guys do after all? A few minutes later they started carting in their haul - I counted 17 cases of Sentinell, 15 of Starscream, 10 or so of Thor 15 cases of Death Stars and so on.

I'm not saying these guys singlehandedly cleared the merchandise but I can't imagine they are the only people using this technique to get their hands on tons of exclusives.

There is a rumor that HTS will cancel orders where the same account got multiples. I hope they ignore my 2x.

Shogi · **Posted:** Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:27 am

There's also the possibility that what happened one year where they didn't mean for some discount code to work or there was some glitch and they asked everyone to cough up the extra money or they were gonna cancel the order.

I vaguely remember it, but a friend of mine was telling me about it yesterday as he went through it (he said it was last year's SDCC exclusives)

Southzen · **Joined:** Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:50 pm **Posts:** 26

About Goldbug's post (went this way because I didn't want to have a huge quote)

I am sure there are a lot of things that would make us raise an eyebrow or two; and honestly, I can't blame them (scalpers or convention). I don't know if anyone remembers the Gleek fiasco with the Matty booth and a certain not to be named website. The convention allows this to occur because it wants to sell out of those spots because it makes the convention money, and I seriously doubt the people making and selling the exclusives will change a thing. They don't want to end up with huge amounts of stock they can't unload (ei ROC Destro pack). To me exclusives have become something of an ugly truth about our hobby. I really do feel for those that came up empty handed. Somewhere inside, I feel terrible for supporting the scalpers by pre-ordering. But after a couple of years ending up empty handed on HTS, I just don't like risking things. For the most part, this is about the only thing I hit up on evil-bay unless it is something vintage or a has been missing from shelves for a long time.

cmderinchief · **Posted:** Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:01 pm

I know everyone is scalper, scalper, scalper...and rightfully so. People got shut out on Tuesday and everyone is a little angry. Sure, I get it. I pre-ordered by Skystriker WAY back in April for $140. Am I paying a huge markup, you betcha! However, is it cheaper than going to SDCC, paying for a hotel, flight, and food and not to mention not having to stand in line in fanboy hell! Darn straight it is!

Its the same thing every year at JoeCon. People don't go and then rightfully feel taken advantage of in the secondary markets. Is $150 for a carded Dial Tone a bit much? Yeah it is...but I will tell you this. I paid a hell of a lot more than $150 to get me and my family to the con. Now I know some people are going to say, "yeah, but Gary, I could not afford to go to the con and thus I cannot afford a $150 Dial Tone," and you know what, I feel your pain and I wouldn't know what to tell ya in return. All I know is this: whether you stay at home and buy con goodies, or you go to the con and buy your goodies there, either way, it ain't cheap.

Xhairs · **Posted:** Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:47 pm

nothing off HTS as the system kept crashing when i was at step 4 but got 2 off BBTS. i wish HTS could get there system fixed. now they need to restock once in awhile and have the new waves put up not just for joe but TF. not sure about the other lines as those are the only 2 i buy.

yes chife is right with what he said. if you want it you either pay alot to go and get them at asking price or have a bud that is going get you them. or deal with the 2ndary market. either way your going to pay you just have to find the cheapest way to get them if you want them. we have been dealing with scalpers since what 2000 if not earlier. it is part of the life as a collector. we are not the only ones who have to deal with this just be glad your not TF fans my god it is insane what they ask for con items .

m6d · **Posted:** Fri Jul 29, 2011 9:53 pm

Actually xnay on the pink Zarana for myself. Got a cancelation notice for it from HTS.

At least it looks like the Z set and Skystriker should be getting shipped for my buddy, still hasn't shipped yet.

A little disappointed as it ws a PITA to get it ordered, but what can one do?

My regular guy that goes to SDCC to pick up had no luck either. He refused to hop back in line after three tries, sounds like it was as poorly a run cluster as the website.

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HTS Cluster .... Any scores?

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