Freaked out about pins

[Debbie-TN]

You all have gotten me freaked out about fake pins. I've bought a lot lately and had no idea there was such a thing. I have given some to friends to trade. What's going to happen to them when they try to trade them. They will be heartbroken if the CM's refuse them. Can they do that? I've looked at all the pins I have left and most of them look ok. No rough edges, no off color that I can tell and no ridges on the back. Two people I've bought from, you guys have said to not buy from them(it was already too late). Why are they getting so much good feedback if they're that bad. I leave in a week for WDW and now I'm freaking out about having bad pins. Are the CM's going to take them from me? Are they not going to trade? How do I know they're bad if I can't tell? I can't make out heads or tails on that pinpic page. There are thousands to have to go through. HELP!!!

 

[figment_jii]

You all have gotten me freaked out about fake pins. I've bought a lot lately and had no idea there was such a thing. I have given some to friends to trade. What's going to happen to them when they try to trade them. They will be heartbroken if the CM's refuse them. Can they do that? I've looked at all the pins I have left and most of them look ok. No rough edges, no off color that I can tell and no ridges on the back. Two people I've bought from, you guys have said to not buy from them(it was already too late). Why are they getting so much good feedback if they're that bad. I leave in a week for WDW and now I'm freaking out about having bad pins. Are the CM's going to take them from me? Are they not going to trade? How do I know they're bad if I can't tell? I make out heads or tails on that pinpic page. There are thousands to have to go through. HELP!!!

It's not that bad...don't worry about/for your friends. If they trade with CMs only, it's highly unlikely that the CM will refuse to trade. I've never run across a CM that refused to trade and, in all truth, many pins on the CM lanyards are scrappers. Sadly, it's just the way things are.

Some scrappers are really obvious and if those bother you, then avoid trading them or trading for them. On the other hand, some are pretty hard to tell and with those, there is no real way to say "yay" or "nay" to them being scrappers. My best advice is to just know that you will probably trade scrappers and trade for scrappers at some point unless you only trade pins you bought from Disney and stick to trading with "professional traders". ("Professional traders" are non-Disney CMs who hang around the pins store hoping to make trades. Some are honest/nice, but many seem to be trying to take advantage of tourists. If they ask you to buy them a pin off the rack (especially if it's an LE or something like that), I'd walk away from that trader.)

On ebay, not all buyers (in fact, I'd go as far as saying most) have no idea what a scapper is, so the feedback is based on the price, shipping speed, etc. Think about when you bought the pins - at that point in time, when you didn't know about scrappers, what did you think of the purchase?

 

[Debbie-TN]

Oh yeah, I was thrilled to be getting pins that cheap. I've been trading since the very beginning. Even back then you could get low cost pins sometimes. I stopped trading some time ago because I didn't have any thing else I wanted to trade. I'm doing a solo trip in December and I thought it would be fun to get back into trading. I haven't been on the DIS lately and hardly ever go on the Collector's Board. I just happen to come across someone posting about it. It never dawned on me that they might be fake. I thought maybe CM's were getting pins that weren't being used any more. I know when my daughter worked there years ago they had a place where the CM's could buy cheap stuff. I guess that's what I was thinking. Thanks for your help.

 

[Vii]

I'm a CM and I never knew fake pins existed! And we never ever turn down a guest when it comes to pin trading, trust me! I actually get excited when someone wants to trade with me

 

[pixiewings71]

They won't say no, but they may take your pin and put it in their pocket if they aren't sure, I've seen that happen before. Many CM's don't know enough about pins to know if you give them a fake or not but to flip that around you may not know if you're getting a good pin from the CM or not either. It can be frustrating.
As for FB on eBay, I would say 98% of buyers have NO idea there are fakes (I didn't) so they get the pins, assume they are legit and leave good FB. That's why we work so hard on our thread regarding eBay here, it's important that people know where to get good pins at a good price.
Enjoy trading!