You’re right - anyone buying sealed packs on ebay, insta, fb, etc should expect them to be weighed.
In my opinion, the problem occurs when you have sealed packs that you know don’t contain a holo in them. You don’t want to open them because they lose significant value, but you also are hesistant to sell them because you don’t want others to feel scammed. So what do you do from there? What is the perfect next step?
It’s just difficult because the world isn’t honest. But when you have weighed packs, I don’t fault the seller for selling them and describing them as weighed. Because what are the sellers expected to do? Only either open them or keep them in their collection?
Selling weighed packs is acceptable when you state they are weighed. Weighing packs and selling them as normal is not, end of. As long as you are clear that they’re weighed then you’re okay in my opinion.
But as a side note, I sold a few packs a few months ago now, and as far as I know, they were not weighed. Buyer opens the packs and pulls nothing, not unheard of with just two packs, but proceeds to be rather rude and expectant, saying they were weighed. I explained politely as I could the statistics behind that happening and that as they were opened there was nothing I could do for him. He left bad feedback. Just goes to show, if they feel like it, people will find a way to blame the seller.
Like Kai has mentioned, I think it is fair for you to sell weighted packs, provided that you clearly described that they are weighted. In fact, for collectors who just want a sealed pack for display purposes, a cheaper priced weighted pack is like the ideal thing to buy.
I don’t really agree with your reasoning behind the weighted packs being not tampered. While technically yes, weighing the packs does not physically tamper with the product, the product has been technically tampered internally by the person who weighted the packs, because the odds of pulling premium cards from the pack went from a possibility to pretty much an impossibility. While the ratio is not guaranteed by the manufacturer, the ratio has been skewed to the seller’s advantage and the packs should be valued to reflect this change. Just simply ask yourself this: would you rather buy a pack that has been weighted before, or a pack that has never been weighed? Clearly you would choose the latter which illustrates that weighted packs reflects a different value for a buyer.
However, 100% if you clearly mentioned they are weighted in the title and description I think it is fair game and be considered acceptable.
There’s nothing wrong with rolling back the odometer in your car to reduce the mileage before you sell it. Even if you sell the car with the original milage, the next person could just roll it back.
Reducing the mileage in your car is just changing some measurement, it’s not tampering with any important part of the car. Besides, the milage has some measurement error and the car manufacturers don’t guarantee the number.
Cars aren’t cheap so people should be doing research about these things. There’s no excuse for being unaware about buying a car with altered milage in my opinion.
When selling a car you should clearly state how far back you rolled the odometer and explain exactly what that means to a buyer. You did your duty so you are not responsible for what “may” happen to the car in the future.
I’d be nicer to not alter the mileage but I like to make the most money possible when I sell a car.
@pkmnflyingmaster obviously it is easy to see where you are trying to go with this but I feel it isn’t the best analogy.
For one, what you are describing is odometer fraud and it is actually a felony. The act of weighing a pack is not.
For two, OP argued for people weighing packs and selling them as weighed, and explicitly argued against selling them as untampered/unweighed. A sealed weighed pack still serves a functionally equivalent purpose to a certain collector as a sealed unweighed pack. 2/3 of the time the contents are functionally equivalent as well. A higher mileage car is not functionally equivalent to someone in search of a lower mileage car.
I’m not making any argument for or against pack weighing with this comment, just calling out a very poor analogy. I’m sure a much better one may exist but this just isn’t it.
Do what you want with the items, I’m not going to pretend to be a moral expert, but nobody tries to justify morally correct things. It’s only things that are morally ambiguous or morally wrong that people try to find justifications for.
I’ll also point out the only way you know a pack is weighed is if you bought it from someone that told you it was, or you weighed it yourself. If you have a moral delema in what to do with the packs, don’t buy advertised weighed or weigh them.
Even if you advertise them as weighed there’s nothing stopping someone buying them cheap and selling them on as not weighed. If I had to find a way to allow myself to sell weighed packs maybe it’d be if I wrote ‘WEIGHED’ on the back of them in permanent marker, but I’d rather not!
People do have to occasionally justify morally correct things though. This is 2018.
Aren’t you aware of the debate surrounding vaccines, fluoride in water, etc?? (Please nobody start a vaccine debate in here)
Calling pack weighing immoral on that fact alone is just improper and a bit lazy. Calling it immoral is fine, but give some reasoning behind it. I am still overall on the fence with it. I am of course knowing it is “better” not to, but I still skew towards being fine with people doing it as long as they are up front and honest about it.
I have done it in the past, but its been over a year since I opened only a boxes heavy packs. I know a lot of pack collectors that I aided in completing sealed pack collections that were 100% happy with getting the product at a reduced price over “legit packs”.
Placing the blame of what nefarious acts may or may not be done down the line on the original honest seller isn’t proper IMO. Someone who sells light packs shouldn’t be blamed for the dirtbag who sells them as unweighed the same way someone who sells matches shouldn’t be blamed for arson.
The examples you give for justifying a morally correct thing isn’t the same. My point is on personal responsibility. If you agree that your actions are correct, why do you need to question them? I’ve never done the correct thing and sat around thinking was that the right thing to do? The only time this becomes an issue is when someone else perceives the actions as immoral, at which point it’s still not the individuals own morals that are holding them back, but rather someone else’s. To which the individual can take the time to try and learn the new perspective and reevaluate their position.
Anyway, back to the personal responsibility. If you’re trying to justify something my assumption is that you have a personal hang up. It’s best to avoid those situations.
This shouldn’t be confused with my personal beliefs. I don’t have an opinion on the issue, but rather advise on how to better an idividuals situation towards an issue.
You always gotta pick apart my analogies, huh? Hahaha
Yes I’m aware that one is illegal and the other isn’t, that’s kind of the point of an analogy. I am taking a behaviour that is questionable and comparing it to something that is both illegal (in many places) and widely accepted as immoral. The point is that all of these argument from OP are as easily applied to a circumstance that we can agree is immoral, or at least is illegal. The reason pack weighing is not illegal is because it’s not big enough of a problem to establish law over. They are similar situations but the scale is different. If packs cost $20000 and people needed to open packs in order to get to work, you better believe there would be laws against pack weighing. Even ignoring that, If Wal-mart started weighing all their packs today and selling the light ones (assuming this was possible with modern product), there’s probably a law somewhere they would be breaking. You could say my analogy breaks down since the scale of the problem is different, but saying “pack weighing is not as bad as lying about mileage” is not a very compelling argument.
Secondly, OP claimed a weighed pack was “untampered” so be careful when you summarize their argument. A car with 10,000 miles is functionally equivalent to one with 1,000 miles to someone who likes to display their car rather than drive it. We are not talking about the subset of people that are okay with a weighed pack/high mileage car though, we are concerned with the people who want to open the pack/drive the card. Mileage on a car is only an indication of potential wear, so some percentage of the time a car with higher mileage will function just as well or better than one with lower mileage.
I’d like to see what you think a good analogy looks like.
Whenever these type of conversations occur, a lot of people conflate a “reality” with a “moral” answer.
Also, when the term “illegal” is thrown around, it doesn’t mean felony. Clearly weighing packs is not a national crisis.
Like everything in life, it is all about degrees. I remember we had a member who would weigh new packs in stores. This is obviously shady on numerous levels. It is one thing to weigh a pack you own. Weighing another businesses product, and leaving the garbage behind is pathetic.
I personally am not a fan of the practice. I rarely sell packs due to the reality that most vintage product is weighed. There is too much inertia behind this reality for it to change.
In short, packs are supposed to be random. That is the fundamental purpose. From that pure perspective, yes it’s wrong. Outside of this, its a negotiation between how wrong and what that level of wrong is worth.
What if the pack is weighed but it is guaranteed by the seller to contain a holo?
Is it immoral on some level to create a lottery system to sell more packs? Keep in mind the odds are only printed in small font on the back and children are the target demographic.
Is selling a knife immoral because the buyer can turn around and stab someone with it?
I believe someone is doing this at my local Walmart. A couple months back I purchased around 15 or so single packs. Anyway, not 1 pack had a holo… all green code cards… I will never buy cards there again.
Pack weighing is definitely not illegal and isn’t necessarily immoral. You do what you want with your packs (i.e. weighing packs @ Walmart before buying/returning lightweight packs to Walmart is immoral because at the end of the day, those weighed packs are left at Walmart’s for an unsuspecting buyer to purchase).
Selling weighed packs is okay as long as you are explicit and not attempting to deceive in doing so (i.e. saying “packs are weighed” using Times New Roman with a font size of 1 is deceitful).
A catch-all for determining whether an act is socially right or wrong is understanding the consequence of your actions with respect to those who will be impacted. Not hard to understand, but hard to internalize when there are stronger countervailing forces at play.
@pkmnflyingmaster I came up with a much better analogy! Sticking with cars too, specifically used ones with unseen/hard to spot defects.
I have a co worker looking to sell his used car soon. He drives a decade old Camry which has A/C currently not functioning properly. He knows this and will inform any buyer of that fact. It devalues the car, but the fact is that the car still gets people from A to B effectively and safely and can serve a purpose to many people. He did nothing illegal to obtain his car in this state of disrepair or decreased value, it just is that way after his use of it.
Is it immoral of him to sell his car with non working A/C if he describes it as such? Should he be compelled to do $1,000 worth of work to a $2,500 car just so he can sell it? Sure, I would agree with anyone stating that it is immoral to sell it on a cold day in Fall and not tell anyone of the issue or trying to hide it in any way. But to be up front about it would be completely 100% moral IMO (and I think nobody could argue that). Sure the guy he sells it to could flip it for an extra grand the next day while lying about the state of the A/C but that isn’t on him. Same way some theoretical dirtbag down the line selling light packs as normal isn’t kosher, that just isn’t on you one bit.
Also, if pack weighing is unethical due to the decreased odds of opening a holo pack from light packs is it also unethical to open half a box getting 10 holos and then sell the rest? You never weighed them, you did nothing that could be remotely construed as immoral but you can be quite sure the remainder of the box has less than the standard ratio of holos remaining and have been invisibly devalued. Do you HAVE to open the rest?
@kinpatsunokiseki you can either type [at]kinpatsunokiseki where [at] = @
or click the icon that shows an @ symbol next to a figure with a blue shirt when you’re typing out a reply – enter in someone’s forum name and you’re set. In your case I would type “kinpatsu_no_kiseki”
I’m not going to go in the morality of the packs being weighed (therefore I won’t be answering your moral questions), but the difference is that if the pack is weighed in favour for the buyer, you will be damn sure the seller will be mentioning that. The problem is when the seller does not mention that the packs are weighed, but sells it as an unweighed packed. Weighing the packs in favour of a holo simply increases the odds of a buyer to collect every single card from the pack, and if priced the same as normal packs essentially reduces the cost burden of the buyer to complete the set. Weighing the packs not in favour for the buyer makes it impossible for the buyer to complete the set, and increases the cost burden for the buyer.
@kinpatsunokiseki: I think I basically agreed with your main statements and method of selling your weighted products but I just don’t really agree with your defence in terms of stating that the packs were not tampered with. To me, they have been tampered because the odds of pulling any holo has suddenly become pretty much zero. I can already imagine if I owned a set of sealed WOTC booster packs and any collector saw them and joked about opening them and pulling a charizard or something, I have to sheepishly say that they are weighted and won’t be getting jack from them. That’s a difference to some people. I’m not going to go into the morality part of weighted packs but I do respect the fact that you also care about future collectors who may get tricked from the next seller who bought your packs for cheaper than market and then reselling them to scam some poor pack opener.
What if the pack is weighed but it is guaranteed by the seller to contain a holo?
That is fine. In this case, there is 100% transparency, as the additional information is being presented due to the fact that it benefits the seller.
Is it immoral on some level to create a lottery system to sell more packs? Keep in mind the odds are only printed in small font on the back and children are the target demographic.
This is debatable and can be extended into 2 questions: 1) whether lotteries or lottos in general are ethical and 2) whether the target demographic (in this case, children) is able to fully understand the concept of a lottery system in order to make informed decisions.
Is selling a knife immoral because the buyer can turn around and stab someone with it?
No. Unless you are able to see the future, what the buyer does is out of your hands. To make this question even more relevant: is it immoral to sell a gun to a buyer who passes all background checks, etc., only to have them use it to harm others? No, hence why no one is targeting gun distributors directly and instead focusing on preemptive measures to decrease the chances of guns harming others (that may affect sellers downstream).
Part of my thing on this though is I still to this day think weighing packs you own and selling the (advertised as such) light packs is perfectly fine. Not immoral at all really. Saying that, when I see other members questioning the act and calling it immoral I feel it is my duty to listen to and try and understand their position as you said. I look inward and question myself the implication of it all and whether or not I stick by my original position. I think people should constantly challenge their own opinions, thoughts and beliefs and be prepared to change them in light of potential new information again as you alluded to a bit. That is what I meant when I say I am on the fence about it which was probably a poor choice of words. I’m not remotely “on the fence” in any way about the immunization thing in contrast.
The same way when I hear that some people believe fluoridating water or immunizing children is immoral that I will do my own research and give time to make my own thoughts on the subject. In those cases I can clearly see their hang up is on bad science and I can define their position and understand yet oppose it. In these cases of pack weighing I’m just unable to ever find a thought process I can even understand fully.