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LEGO Group banned user for buying bricks from official store and BrickLink
- turtlebits 7y agoMaybe speculating, but possibly he ordered too many (free) replacement parts from the LEGO store? I had to do this once and there seemingly are no checks in place to prevent abuse. (You don’t have to prove you own the set where you are missing pieces from) Also the OP bringing up Bricklink (which doesn’t use Lego account for login) is a bit dramatic, which makes me thing the poster is skewing or omitting some facts.
- jtbayly 7y agoMake sure you read the rest here: https://mobile.twitter.com/aurorastormG3/status/1206117939558006785 https://mobile.twitter.com/aurorastormG3/status/120611793955... He doesn’t even know why they’ve banned him. And just like Google, there is no appeal or ability to get more info.
- joshstrange 7y agoI'm pretty sure it's a "she"/"her" judging from her twitter profile.
- lopmotr 7y agoSeems to be her/princess. If princess is concerned about what pronouns people use, then princess wouldn't like "she".
- apple4ever 7y agoI cannot stand these companies who have these “we can’t change our decision” and “refuse to provide more info” policies. These types of policies are bad for customers. They should be banned.
- rs23296008n1 7y agoI didn't get a clear sense from her side on what happened. Or maybe I did? She ordered something and it was lost during delivery? Some system flagged fraud and then as penalty for this she lost access to essentially everything LEGO. Later she found out about this ban via an email that closes all communication without any path to further followup. Now she can't shop or use her LEGO Account for anything. Surely I missed something.
- elif 7y agoYes I gather: 1) her order was lost by aus post 2) she told Lego it never arrived, they made a replacement order 3) aus post found her lego after being prodded 4) some anti-fraud system decided she was trying to scamaz 5) their fraud dept doesn't care about false positives
- IntemerateApe 7y agoAus post (australia post) is the worst, especially this time of year. I have had that happen twice with Amazon (book) orders, they get lost, then only to arrive 2 months later (after Amazon has resent a replacement order)
- cyphar 7y agoI have to disagree. AusPost is pretty good. It's not perfect but given the stories you hear about USPS from the US, AusPost is undoubtedly doing a better job. EDIT: I should've said "postage in the US", not USPS. My response was in relation to someone saying that it is "the worst". I've had much worse experiences with private shipping companies like StarTrack.
- throwawaynothx 7y agoWho are you, from the sounds of it you are either work for Australia post or have never used them.
- 7y ago
- jrockway 7y agoHow do you get banned from an online store? Can't you just use a different credit card and they'll have no way of knowing? Seems quite pointless to me, unless your goal is to make your best customers your unhappiest customers, which seems like a pretty bad idea.
- TAForObvReasons 7y ago"we've decided not to accept any further orders from your account", not necessarily the human being behind the account. In the US at least, there are loyalty points you earn when making purchases (it used to be effectively 5% off), and those would have been lost when the account was banned
- djsumdog 7y agoThey could ban your home address, so you'd have to go get a post box instead?
- jrockway 7y agoI thought about that, but people move, people can live in apartment buildings with thousands of neighbors, and people can have packages delivered to their work address or a convenience store. None of those are even corners cases. I just find it baffling that someone would write a letter that boils down to "We are punishing you!! But there is no way to enforce this punishment, so, uh... umm..." Seems like a huge waste of time if you ask me.
- vips7L 7y agoYou can't be banned from all the stores either... No one knows who you are when you go in one.
- monocasa 7y agoDamn, I knew them buying bricklink was going to be terrible.
- app4soft 7y agoYeah, same feelings. Also LDraw.org[0] (open-source digital lego community) still has no official word from LEGO Group members to LDraw Ambassador about acquiring of BrickLink, as BrickLink's Stud.io app use LDraw Parts Library.[1] FTR, Ten members of the LDraw core met at the LEGO headquarter in Billund on May 22-26, 2019. (...) they also had a meeting with people from the LDD team and other compartments of the company. A request for a dedicated information channel when it comes down to part numbers, meshes or colours was forwarded.[2] [0] https://www.ldraw.org/ https://www.ldraw.org/ [1] https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-23768.html https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-23768.html [2] https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-23439.html https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-23439.html
- LemonAndroid 7y agoI wrote BrickLink a message about creating a new category on the platform. I got a reply addressing me with the name of my mum which they surely got from a Lego-database, since my mum is probably listed as a customer there. * amateurs.
- deogeo 7y agoGood thing he only got banned from LEGO and not, lets say, automated grocery stores all owned by the same company and associated with your Amazon account... Well, no need to worry ahead of time!
- djsumdog 7y ago2020 prediction: Amazon buys LEGO. June 2020: lead found in all LEGO bricks ... how does lead even get into non-metal toys? Life finds a way.
- mirimir 7y agoHe could just pay someone to order for him. Perhaps a friend. There might even be businesses in Australia that do that. Edit: She ... And hey, it's never too early to learn. Edit: Seriously, what's so horrible about working around a clearly unjust ban?
- rahuldottech 7y agoShe goes by female pronouns, it says so in her Twitter bio.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- aiyodev 7y agoWhat a disgustingly rude response.
- tree3 7y agoCan you stay on topic please?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- King-Aaron 7y agoThis is why I personally tend to refer to people on the internet as 'them/they/their', or by their username, limiting any possible pronoun specific arguments or the chance of offending people.
- rahuldottech 7y agoYep. Gender-neutral pronouns is the way to go. It's about more than just offending people. It's also about (mis|under)representation and subconscious biases.
- elif 7y agoI understand your perspective, but 'generic he' is grammatically correct for uncertain, unspecified or gender neutral contexts in English. I've corrected my comment since you've informed me that gender is relevant in this context, but it is more pedantry than correction.
- neotek 7y agoTo be even more pedantic, "they" has been used as a gender-neutral pronoun for over 600 years. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-of-the-year/they https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-of-the-ye...
- elil17 7y agoPretty amazing how a whole thread of HN readers assumes that everyone who plays with LEGOs is a man
- fastball 7y agoMore like one assumption snowballs. If I see someone else refer to an individual as "he", and I don't know their gender, I'm not going to dig into it without cause. It's not a big deal.
- zzzeek 7y agothe linked twitter account explicitly states "she / her", and if one doesn't want to assume a gender, they should use "they" as the pronoun.
- frosted-flakes 7y agoUse of "he" when the gender is unknown is very common (especially online) and has lots of historical precedent. It's not as common as it used to be, but that doesn't make it wrong. "They" is also correct.
- neltnerb 7y agoI mean, "he" is "wrong" because it's factually incorrect. Sure it's common and I basically agree that it's amusing more than malicious. It's a pretty gentle reminder that it can be offputting to misgender people, and while you may not care, the author might and it erases their gender from view in the discussion. It is inferior to assume that everyone you talk to is a guy, it may not be the most important thing ("no, she's a great coder, that's why I follow her" or whatever) but it colors the way you think about the world to make the default gender male. Anyway, this is getting waaaaay off topic. Apologies.
- fastball 7y agoPeople can get upset at literally anything, that doesn't mean it's reasonable. The solution here is to not get upset when you are accidentally misgendered - then there is no problem.
- ywhjaknskkkw 7y ago... but it's a dude, right? Like when we aren't playing make believe?
- matheweis 7y agoThe increasingly common pattern of corporations issuing ultimatums without apparent explanation, justification, or any other kind of due process is really terrifying. How do we fix this?
- app4soft 7y agoThe only way to fix this is to use only open-source software & hardware solutions + decentralized networks. But it's too hard for common users.
- bagacrap 7y ago"Due process"?? Buying Legos from the official store is not some kind of inherent human right. They can sell to whom they want. No doubt this person was breaking the terms of service. Explaining why he's banned would likely give away something about how they know he was cheating the system, which makes future fraud easier.
- app4soft 7y agoSeems like it's new reality of online services, for example Instagram just rolled out "offensive captions checker"[0], that's look like beta-release of Orwell's «Thought Police».[1] [0] https://twitter.com/instagram/status/1206637381224259584 https://twitter.com/instagram/status/1206637381224259584 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Police https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Police
- neotek 7y agoAh yes, the well known Orwellian police state tactic of politely asking users not to call each other stupid.
- ohyeshedid 7y ago"No doubt this person was breaking the terms of service." Was there more information outside of the linked twitter thread?
- robbrown451 7y ago
- pachico 7y agoFirst world problems
- tetra_proxy 7y agoShe has said she hasn't even tried to make a bricklink account yet. Hopefully she tries and is able to order that way.
- stevespang 7y agoIt appears that basically LEGO is punishing buyers so as to put pressure on Aussie post . . .