Taobao Buyers: How Guilty (Or Not Guilty) Do You Feel?

[saply]

Chi didn't set those prices at $300 apiece, WE the USERS who bid on them did. If she was so concerned about making a "cool" anything, she would have put them on eBay, not held a private auction only for Arena Members. There is no need to make baseless accusations and derail this thread into a hostile witch hunt.


I think at the end of the day we all love ponies and want ponies and just wish Hasbro would release everything all at once so we could throw our money at them!

[teresat]

Chi, please do not feel guilty about how you chose to share the Pony ponies! I think you were so nice to give Arena members the opportunity to get one. You and saply and itajn have been very generous! You could have easily kept them all for an army! (I certainly would have been tempted!) I'm glad there are people like you kind members here on the Arena!

[ashes]

Dropping a warning as this thread is NOT to single out any one person.

[michelle53]

Well said Salpy!  Ok, 'scuse me for my two cents, but I don't see how Chi can possibly be held personally responsible for failed Taobao transactions.  As I recall, Arena members ASKED for instructions on how to order.  There have been many Taobao threads and many members posting on how to order from it, not just "one person".  I'm not trying to insult anyone or create waves, but Chi is a good person and I consider her a friend. And I consider it unethical to not defend a friend.

[LuvlyMelody]

Chi is a good person and I see no reason as to why that uncalled for (not to mention rude) attack had to be said. She ordered them so she could help people on the arena who couldn't get them. Like saply said, if she only posted it to brag and show off like a certain someone says she's done, she would have just made a Brag Thread about how she has 3 of them and no body is going to get them. But no, instead, she's posted them wanting to help them find new homes, but since there were only 3 available, the person with the highest bid is the one who gets it. Just like ebay, if there's an auction that someone wants to win, they bid, no matter how high it gets. This is nothing different.

Chi you did nothing wrong and you do not need to feel guilty. All you did was buy some ponies from an overseas site for people that were not able to get them and I see nothing wrong with that.

I haven't bought anything yet from Taobao (too much of a hassle). but if I were to buy something from there, I would not feel guilty from buying from them.

[Varkolak]

chi is a wonderful person, she helped people who asked for help, and was kind enough to share her good luck of getting Pony's with the rest of us. it was an auction, the one who wants it the most, will pay the most. and that's not her fault. she didn't set the price high, the people who wanted Pony did. can't do anything about that. there aren't many Pony's to go around, but its no need to get huffy about it if you can't get one.
hasbro has been emailed with questions about Pony, and its been mentioned to them that they saw them on a site called taobao.com. the information has been provided to them. if it were a serious crime, i'm sure they would have acted by now. they've been sent the link to taobao several times and yet nothing has been done about it. we don't know where these items come from, much like we don't know where the items on ebay come from. we could be buying a cd, a doll, anything, from someone, and it could have been stolen from a store. we just don't know. its not the buyer's fault if the seller committed a crime and the buyer was unaware. we don't even know that they were stolen. half of these ponies, maybe more, don't even make it to store shelves. they sell them at a fair price too, not jacking it up as high as they could possibly go. i see no problem with taobao and if another item pops up on there that i want, i will buy it. i see no difference in buying off there, than buying something overseas on ebay.
feel guilty if you want for purchasing a toy from someone that wasn't in a store. but if you feel that way, then why not feel guilty for buying from a garage sale, or a thrift store, or ebay, or even here. hasbro sees no profit from our customs, or our 2nd hand selling of ponies. boo hoo.

[Lon-san]

I was kind of hoping this thread could be about how buyers feel about their own purchasing rather than what others are doing.

[Megans_Cousin]

Chi did what she could in the fairest way possible considering the limited quantity of Ponies and huge demand. She offered them to us, rather than eBay and let people decide what they were willing to pay. If you were following the original thread, she was going to use the money for bills anyway. Please don't pass judgement on her. It's uncalled for and not what this thread was about. It was asking whether or not you felt guilty regarding Taobao, not criticising others' feelings.

[Stormy31685]

Chi,

   I apologize for how rudely that came across.  I really didn't read it as I had just gotten off work when I wrote it.

I think it was more the string of all the events that got put together as a total.  I do understand that you did not have any poor intentions at any time with any of your actions as they occurred.

I guess I just don't think you should be feeling bad about anything you did because the community appreciates those Ponies, and Hasbro rips us off enough.

I am also more upset I guess because I don't understand why this is all of a sudden being made such a public deal over.  Prototypes have been in circulation for years, Hasbro knows about it and has for a long time, so why choose now to make buyers feel bad about it?

We aren't manufacturing them to directly compete with Hasbro.  We are only collectors.

I also edited the original post to clarify.  My extreme frustration about all this has to do with greedy people on other sites that cause problems for everyone.
 In the situation with Nerf, it becomes a bigger problem because some of those leaks may actually harm a child if they are bought because they have not been through the testing process.  But I get upset that people here have taken on feeling bad about the ponies.

I mean, there is a whole board on this forum dedicated to ponies made elsewhere that were stolen or overproduced - why wait until now to do anything about it?

[partypony566]

Locking this as it's been hashed out enough.