Alright, time for a toy public service announcement. After Christmas I found what I thought was a fantastic deal on a Soul of Chogokin Gold Lightan, a figure that's long out of production. $20 for this was too good a deal not to look into for a gold-plated transforming cigarette lighter robot, and so I put in an order on the suspiciously named:
Gold Lightan GX-32 18K Plating Figure Exclusive Wooden Box
The seller was Treasure Island Sports, and not to spoil the ending of this story, but Treasure Island Sports is to be avoided. The photo on Amazon was just a black box with the Saint Seiya logo on it. I assumed it was a placeholder.
Days pass. My buddy Mike Toole decided to go in on this too, and he suggests to me for the first time the terrible idea that this could just be an empty wooden box. This is possible: the Chogokin Lightan figure comes in a display box itself, and while it doesn't make a lot of sense, maybe the seller only has that part of the item. I would consider this a ripoff, but one where the seller could at least weasel into saying "this is what you ordered".
So here's what happened.
That's right, I got that damn Saint Seiya box in the mail. Nothing to do with Gold Lightan whatsoever. So this is definitely the wrong item, but it's still pretty heavy. Maybe there's something cool in there? Maybe I still got a deal after all?
Yeah, it's an empty god damn box. This is a display box for a Saint Seiya Myth Cloth figure. I believe it's a Bandai Hong Kong product, but there is no Bandai logo on this thing and it could well be a wooden box someone made and slapped the Saint Seiya logo on. It doesn't look like official merch, that's for sure. Again, this item has nothing to do with Gold Lightan. Adding insult to injury, the Saint Seiya logo fell off the front of the box the moment I removed it from the packaging.
So now I have to go through the process of getting a refund on Amazon. Unfortunately, Treasure Island apparently has a reputation for not getting back to their buyers, so we'll see how this turns out. Worse comes to worse, I'm sure that Amazon will refund me as soon as I have to bring this story to their attention: they did it for that defective DVD of Hollywood Cop, after all!
So, as always, be aware when you're shopping online. And don't ever buy from Treasure Island Sports.
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