This recently came across the interwebs, and I think it’s worth sharing. A Reddit user expressed concerns that his LGS was pocketing the promo cards that Wizards sends out and was reselling them for a profit rather than passing them out to the players as WOTC intends, and it seems he’s not alone.
The simple question is, what can you do?
Simple answer: Report this activity to Wizards. It’s something they take extremely seriously, and you should alert the customer service department. A stern warning from WOTC typically would shut this down, but they will take further action if needed.
I’ve seen local stores do this before. I went to a midnight Game Day at one of them, took a friend’s homebrew deck and battled until 4 a.m. to make Top 8. I finished fifth, and then I find out they’re only awarding half the Top 8 promos “because only four came in.” That is, of course, a complete lie because they literally only come in packets of 8, and I found out later the same thing was happening with buy-a-box promos.
I guess I didn’t need one anyway…
This is incredibly shady behavior, but you are not powerless. Simply bringing it up to the store is a start, and refusing them further business and encouraging others to do the same is understandable, but you also have Wizards on your side. Remember that.
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We had a local shop running pre prerelease events for years on a Thursday/Friday before. They got reported and once wizards saw their events were being advertised on fbook etc they got suspended.
You mean you should tell Wizards instead of reddit? Crazy…
We had a local shop running pre prerelease events for years on a Thursday/Friday before. They got reported and once wizards saw their events were being advertised on fbook etc they got suspended.