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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A tale of woe, Skeletor-lessness and MOTUC Matty RaaAaGe!!11! (Or, an ode to LineItem 4827281615)

It’s a hard gig trying to collect Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics line for any collector out there, but spare a thought for us folk in other timezones that have to get up at odd hours if we even want to have a chance on these figures.

The original He-Man and Skeletor releases passed my notice, and then some of the next figures were sold out by the time I got up on the day of their release, and this put me off collecting the line for awhile, but after Man-at-Arms dragged me in, I started up and patiently awaited the re-releases of the first two key figures. Things seemed to be going well in Matty MOTUC land when more stock was made available and figures were taking a couple of days to sell out. The He-Man re-release even hung around a little while.

All this lulled me into a false sense of security regarding today’s re-issue of Skeletor, and I decided not to set the alarm for a 4am Australian Eastern Standard Time wake-up to battle the evil red page of waitingness. As fate would have it, however, the AFB Bladder (trademark pending) woke me up at 4:20am and so I decided to order while I was awake.

I got onto the site with no problem and got Skeletor, King Randor, the DCUC Justice in the Jungle 2-Pack and a set of 6” Flight Stands in my cart with no problem. When I got to the checkout page however, I got “Could not increment allocated quantity for LineItem 4827281615” each time I tried to order. Very informative.

After nearly 30 minutes I played around with editing my items (as I did not know which item was LineItem 4827281615, a rookie mistake I know), took out the flight stands, and was then informed that Skeletor was sold out and I needed to remove him from my cart. Did so (with a sob) and the order went through.

So here I sit, it now being 5:20am, with no Skeletor and too wired to go back to bed. Now, I’m not going to swear and rage and say I’m quitting the line. You can check out Matty’s Facebook page if you want to read that. I do think it’s fair to say, however, that Mattel’s continued inability to handle these kind of sales is astonishing given the historic demand for this product. It isn’t about the figure selling out in under an hour - good on them for being so successful – it’s about the fact that folk like me had the product in my cart for half an hour only to miss out. That’s just weak.

Thus ends the rage. I’m not going to buy an eBay scalper a nice meal on this one, though. I’ll just wait it out, and if that means no Skeletor in my collection, so be it. Raspberries on you Mattel and all that jazz.

Oh, LineItem 4827281615, I nearly knew you well.

Sigh……..

(If you'd like to join the RaaAge!!!11!, the thread for today's Matty sale is here on the AFB Forum.)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain. It sucks for us to be in this part of the world.

Anonymous said...

I have no idea what you're talking about. The original He-Man release lasted a month. Skeletor was up for like 3 weeks. And they weren't even sold at the same time. What were you, asleep for a month?

Scott said...

You're right. I meant the releases that came a bit later. He-Man and Skeletor passed me by. Thanks and post edited!

Kyle said...

I forgot he was coming out today. I ordered the Justice in the Jungle set. I guess its a sign I shouldn't get into any of the MOTU figures (I was only interested in Skeletor, Beastman and the female characters)

Newton Gimmick said...

Wow, so he sold out in about an hour? That's just terrible. I missed out on him too, but I forgot to go look until a couple hours in.

MattyCollector has turned into such a bane for collectors. I wonder how many potential clients they've turned down with their monthly pratfalls?

Dan said...

I missed out too today, and am bummed!

Jay said...

Wow, so he sold out in about an hour?

38 minutes to be precise. At least he'll be back in January!

fishmilkshake said...

Glad I'm not collecting this line or I'd be ready to kill someone over at Mattel!

Westy said...

Yeah, so Mattel suck. But they're trying something a little bit better than Hasbro, so there is that. I think you might do well if you sent them a well written, jovial letter (actual letter) addressed to their CEO of marketing. I'd be surprised if they don't keep a "special circumstances" back supply (they have to expect someone will have a faulty one and force a re-supply, right?) that they could spare a figure from.

bigraj said...

At least there'll be more available. Again. Good luck getting one.

Tom Freak said...

Man what a mess. I couldn't get one either. I was lucky enough that a friend of mine got more than one and I begged him to give me one...

Are you happy Mattel? you made me beg!

chopa said...

I'm so glad I managed to snag one of the orig skeletors off ebay for a decent price. I'm horrifically terrified of ordering Battlecat come feb.

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