Hot Toys - TMS051/2 - Mandalorian and Grogu (Season 2)

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OK so I decided to keep him.
Here's a pic of him after a nice afternoon rub down.
You can't really tell in this pic but I did leave some of the weathering.
Rex is just a temporary room mate until I get around to putting the other cabinet together. Which I'll probably put off until Bo-Katan or Jesse arrive and I'm forced to do it because I'll be out of room.
 

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OK so I decided to keep him.
Here's a pic of him after a nice afternoon rub down.
You can't really tell in this pic but I did leave some of the weathering.
Rex is just a temporary room mate until I get around to putting the other cabinet together. Which I'll probably put off until Bo-Katan or Jesse arrive and I'm forced to do it because I'll be out of room.

SO you did decide to keep it! :rock
 
I've got a dilemma that I'm hoping to seek some advice on from all the good folks here...
I purchased my figure at my local official Hot Toys retailer and in a spot of bad luck, my figure had a serious paint chip on its nose...

I reached out to CS through their official email/app communication and was given a generic reply that they're getting the correct department to respond back ...and was subsequently ghosted for three months. Literally watched local stocks dwindle to zero on my local official hot toys retailer and voila they suddenly emailed me about 2 weeks back after I exhausted all avenues of reaching them privately and did so publicly on social media.

They claimed they're now sold out on the figure so they can't honor a 1-1 exchange, and said they had a spare head. They scheduled me to pick it up two weeks later and as my luck would have it, the day before I'm to head down to pick up the replacement head (this saturday) they contacted me again to cancel it and said the head they had for replacement was "damaged".

Was comped with points amount to 5 dollars and asked if I wanted to have the head shipped back to Hot Toys HQ for repaint. Estimated time for repaint/repairs would be 3-4 months min.

Never heard of such a solution before, but I don't have a lot of faith in their ability to communicate clearly and follow up. I feel I'm stuck in a damned if I do, damned if I don't. I feel that if I hand it over to have it repainted up by the Hot Toys HQ/Chinese factory (according to what they said), I'm absorbing a ton of liability on my end because if they damage it, lose it or fail to communicate with me, I'm gonna be out of a headsculpt in addition to all the present problems.

This matter has given me an exceedingly bad headache and bad taste in my mouth, with customer service, given I've paid up in full for over 40 hot toys items which are on preorder with my local official hot toys retailer.

I appreciate all your wisdom and advice on how to navigate this, but I'm contemplating eating this loss.
 
Was comped with points amount to 5 dollars and asked if I wanted to have the head shipped back to Hot Toys HQ for repaint. Estimated time for repaint/repairs would be 3-4 months min.

Never heard of such a solution before, but I don't have a lot of faith in their ability to communicate clearly and follow up.

That’s the first I’ve heard of an offer like that, but I’m in a different region. Is that something other collectors over there have been offered before? Seems unusual.


I feel I'm stuck in a damned if I do, damned if I don't. I feel that if I hand it over to have it repainted up by the Hot Toys HQ/Chinese factory (according to what they said), I'm absorbing a ton of liability on my end because if they damage it, lose it or fail to communicate with me, I'm gonna be out of a headsculpt in addition to all the present problems.

Why can’t they take the supposedly damaged replacement head they were going to give you, repair it, and then give it to you later?

This all seems like such a big hassle and like they’re giving you the runaround.

Can you still get a refund and just buy another figure elsewhere? Might mean having to pay more or buying from overseas but I don’t know if I’d trust their proposal.

It could take longer than they’re estimating or you might not get your sculpt back, like you said. And the figure could be even more expensive after many months of waiting if you needed to purchase another to replace this one.
 
That’s the first I’ve heard of an offer like that, but I’m in a different region. Is that something other collectors over there have been offered before? Seems unusual.




Why can’t they take the supposedly damaged replacement head they were going to give you, repair it, and then give it to you later?

This all seems like such a big hassle and like they’re giving you the runaround.

Can you still get a refund and just buy another figure elsewhere? Might mean having to pay more or buying from overseas but I don’t know if I’d trust their proposal.

It could take longer than they’re estimating or you might not get your sculpt back, like you said. And the figure could be even more expensive after many months of waiting if you needed to purchase another to replace this one.
I moved to South East Asia a few years back, and this store is the singular licensed distributor in the country. Perhaps that's why they have the ability to reach out directly to Hong Kong.

My concerns were not assuaged however, as I was simply told that the sculpt would go to Hong Kong's Hot Toys HQ, who will then route it to their factory in China, which in and of itself are many potential points where the sculpt could get lost.
It required me to trust them in good faith that they'd handle the communications between three different countries and maintain proper tracking all around over a 3-4 month period.
I guess it didn't help that they told me to bring in the sculpt alone, without the necessity of a box or container. When I asked the CS officer, was said, oh you can put it in a plastic bag and pass it over at the store counter. (good heavens..)

Yeah, I was also highlighting it to them that their solution of taking my sculpt from me and sending it off for such a long duration is simply them passing the buck and risk along to me as a customer. I already highlighted that their lapse in communication was what got me into this situation to begin with...

While I think it'd be good to have a refund, I bought it during the preorder period and the secondary market has risen up to 80 dollars on my end since. So with that price, I'd might as well purchase a new sculpt off ebay. Then again, it might be the smarter solution as opposed to depending on the store....

Sigh....
 
I moved to South East Asia a few years back, and this store is the singular licensed distributor in the country. Perhaps that's why they have the ability to reach out directly to Hong Kong.

My concerns were not assuaged however, as I was simply told that the sculpt would go to Hong Kong's Hot Toys HQ, who will then route it to their factory in China, which in and of itself are many potential points where the sculpt could get lost.
It required me to trust them in good faith that they'd handle the communications between three different countries and maintain proper tracking all around over a 3-4 month period.
I guess it didn't help that they told me to bring in the sculpt alone, without the necessity of a box or container. When I asked the CS officer, was said, oh you can put it in a plastic bag and pass it over at the store counter. (good heavens..)

Yeah, I was also highlighting it to them that their solution of taking my sculpt from me and sending it off for such a long duration is simply them passing the buck and risk along to me as a customer. I already highlighted that their lapse in communication was what got me into this situation to begin with...

While I think it'd be good to have a refund, I bought it during the preorder period and the secondary market has risen up to 80 dollars on my end since. So with that price, I'd might as well purchase a new sculpt off ebay. Then again, it might be the smarter solution as opposed to depending on the store....

Sigh....

Can you get a refund and then ask for some amount of store credit to be applied to your next order for all the trouble this has caused?

That would help bring down the price difference when buying another one of this figure.

I wouldn’t buy just a standalone sculpt off a store. You should have a complete new figure out of the box.
 
Maybe do both? By a sculpt off of eBay and bring yours to have repaired.
If you get yours back, then you can sell one of the sculpts. A pain, but you’d have a whole figure and head sculpt prices may just rise even more as time passes.
 
So, I finally broke down and ordered this guy today. The $25 off coupon I had from entering a contest worked on this. And then I used most of my RP's too so this guy was free. I only had to pay $21 for shipping. :yess: I went with the regular non deluxe as I've been waiting for it to change to in stock status which it finally did so this past week.

I pretty much wanted this from day one as I enjoyed s1 & s2 and have the s1 OG Mando paired with IG11 and the Grogu & Pram from the 1st Beskar dx. But after barely getting through ep 1 & 2 of Mando s3 I started to not care. I chose to skip the rest of the season as I don't want it souring my fondness of Mando... :lol But I decided I'm content with pretending Mando ended with his hand off of Grogu to Luke in the s2 finally. The perfect ending.. :clap

I don't need the Boba stuff and bags since I have the weathered Mando s2 Boba Fett. I bought the weathered Fett and a parted out pram from the Grogu set to be displayed with this guy, so they'd kinda be a waste if I passed on this.

Hopefully I'll have this by next weekend. And then I have to decide to keep him weathered or give him the ol' Cape Cod treatment...
 
So, I finally broke down and ordered this guy today. The $25 off coupon I had from entering a contest worked on this. And then I used most of my RP's too so this guy was free. I only had to pay $21 for shipping. :yess: I went with the regular non deluxe as I've been waiting for it to change to in stock status which it finally did so this past week.

I pretty much wanted this from day one as I enjoyed s1 & s2 and have the s1 OG Mando paired with IG11 and the Grogu & Pram from the 1st Beskar dx. But after barely getting through ep 1 & 2 of Mando s3 I started to not care. I chose to skip the rest of the season as I don't want it souring my fondness of Mando... :lol But I decided I'm content with pretending Mando ended with his hand off of Grogu to Luke in the s2 finally. The perfect ending.. :clap

I don't need the Boba stuff and bags since I have the weathered Mando s2 Boba Fett. I bought the weathered Fett and a parted out pram from the Grogu set to be displayed with this guy, so they'd kinda be a waste if I passed on this.

Hopefully I'll have this by next weekend. And then I have to decide to keep him weathered or give him the ol' Cape Cod treatment...
Congrats!

But dude ep 7 and 8 are a must watch.
 
I pretty much wanted this from day one as I enjoyed s1 & s2 and have the s1 OG Mando paired with IG11 and the Grogu & Pram from the 1st Beskar dx. But after barely getting through ep 1 & 2 of Mando s3 I started to not care. I chose to skip the rest of the season as I don't want it souring my fondness of Mando... :lol But I decided I'm content with pretending Mando ended with his hand off of Grogu to Luke in the s2 finally. The perfect ending.. :clap
This has been my approach too...although I did finish S3 I wish I hadn't and am happy to pretend S2 was the end of a lovely saga :D
 
I feel the same about S3 I didn't think it was to bad but definitely didn't care as much about it and realized S1-S2 are the only one's that were good. I prefer the ending to Grogu and Mando's adventure as it also would have been a nice ending to that story. S3 should have been Mando's episodes from BOBF minus reuniting with Grogu, completely, and also only making the Boba interaction one episode to set up for his return later, if anything for grogu more so him giving the gift to luke and telling him to take care of the kid, and him helping restore Mandalore but written better then what we got plus adding Boba at the end to help.
 
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