BUYER. Avoid being cheated

We can't deny that, as many as there are honest sellers, there will also be few unscrupulous scammers out there preying on naive collectors and gamers. We have heard tonnes of bad experiences and stories. Therefore, we are trying our best to educate and to spread the awareness to our fellow collectors and gamers (we wouldn't want to burden the police with more police report, would we?). Hard truth? There is no full proof method to avoid being cheated. However, we hope the tips below would at least minimize this risk. Here goes.

1) The best-est practise, is to meet up with the seller and to inspect the item on the spot. This is called cash-on-delivery (COD). If everything is okay, then only you made the payment. However, more often than not, you would not have this luxury when the seller is 100km away from you. If you are resorting for the seller to ship the item to you, please do these:

1) Get the phone number of the seller, call and chat up with him. These scammers tend not to pick up the phone and usually prefer to use email or sms. However, bear in mind, some of them are a smooth talker.

2) Request the seller to take the photo of the item with today's newspaper. This is to ensure the seller has the item physically in hand and not by showing the photos that can be easily downloaded from Internet.

3) Request the seller to take the photos of the item at all angles. Top, down, under, above, left, right, 45 degrees, 180 degrees, close up, switch on lights (if it comes with lighting feature)....any angles that you can think of. Any dents, damages, discoloration, missing parts and etc, you are able to nail it.

4) Request the seller to take a photo of him holding the item. Just in case, you need to bring the case to the FBI/Interpol :)

That's it. Happy hunting.

PS: If you have other effective tips, please send it to info@ToyManic.com and we will share it here.