A rant against Disney Profiteers

Minthorne

Well-Known Member
Not everything is proven/disproven by a link on the internet. I'm not a lawyer, but it's my stance that this could be pursued and won by Disney. You left out the fact you're taking advantage of a discount and re-selling it...not just buying an item and re-selling it.

If I'm wrong, so be it. My point is, Disney makes a reasonable 30% operating margin on consumer products and they run a perfectly legal business.

An actual item (not a ticket to a show or a claim for services) can't be limited in resale rights by the original seller unless there is a specific contract involved. The only exception is Goblin made swords, but that's a different park...
 

thomas998

Well-Known Member
One is illegal, the other isn’t.

Disney’s margin for consumer products is public information and is nowhere near your example.
It isn't illegal to buy the Disney stuff and resell it. The question to ask when someone complains about other people doing it is why doesn't the person complaining do the same thing, make that extra money and then buy the $400 shoes they are upset about off ebay still not be out any more money than if they had bought the over priced shoes from Disney? Well the reason is that buying something at Disney to resell on Ebay takes time to do and it isn't a sure thing. You might see something on Ebay listed for $400 but that doesn't mean it will actually get sold for $400... and even if it does get sold you have to remember Ebay takes a cut, Paypal takes a cut... Does the person possibly still make a profit? Yes. But there is nothing stopping others from doing it and the more people that do it the better because it will work the same way concert tickets do when you get too many scalpers, the prices drop of the tickets. I've found that if you don't want front row seats to a concert you can often just wait until the last minute when scalpers are trying to dump whatever tickets they have left as quickly as possible and get tickets below the face value. If you wait long enough the price of Disney junk on Ebay will drop, or it will end up in the Disney outlets... And a funny thing about the Disney merch at the outlets is you often find things in the outlet that were sold out in the parks. I don't know if they just find an extra box of stuff after the events are done or they ship some to the outlets directly and it never hits the parks, but I've seen several things over the years in the outlets that I remembered being sold out event items in the parks the previous year.
 

thomas998

Well-Known Member
An actual item (not a ticket to a show or a claim for services) can't be limited in resale rights by the original seller unless there is a specific contract involved. The only exception is Goblin made swords, but that's a different park...
Yep, companies have gotten into trouble with the feds for trying to interfere with a company reselling product that they had purchased legally. A great example is Paul Mitchell hair products, they love to put out advertisements that claim they are only good if they are bought by an authorized reseller... It's all because in the past some hair salons found that they could make a fast buck by buying Paul Mitchell stuff and then reselling it to chains like WalMart that would then sell it for less than the products were being sold for in the regular hair salons. There was nothing Paul Mitchell could do to stop it so they started the goody only good if purchased by a authorized reseller stuff. Before that they had tried to go to court to stop the department store from reselling it and failed big time.
 

thomas998

Well-Known Member
Though not totally the same, it seems to be a 'two way street' when it comes to what is ethical and what is not. Disney doesn't have clean hands either.

Last year it was announced that the Disney Store website had limited edition Haunted Mansion hoodies with the Funko Pop ride charcters for sale, first come, first served. I immediately went to the site and found they still had an XL in stock and ordered it. When it arrived, I found it had a small hole in the right front of the hoodie, and I immediately contacted the site. I was told they were very sorry, I could return it for full credit, but there would be no more coming in as it was a limited edition item. I kept the hoodie, and my wife did a masterful job sewing the hole shut with matching thread.

Fast forward to this past February and our annual trip to WDW. I walked into the Haunted Mansion gift shop after our first ride on HM, and there was (and probably still IS) a full RACK of the same hoodies hanging there in every size imaginable. Apparently the quick sales of the hoodies off the website convinced them this was a hot item and they made it regular store stock!

Still the same price, so I can't complain about that, but apparently they are active participantes in createing their own 'limited/collectible' market to drive the sales themselves.

I was disappointed at not owning a true 'limited edition' item, but totally lived through it. ;-)

JMO, though, and my own personal experience with this topic. Other will definitely vary.

I still love my hoodie, and wear it every day at the house.

Regards! Michaelson
I've seen other things like that over the years. Sometimes I think the limited edition is just a code for test market. Only things that seems to be truly limited are things that are numbered.
 

OG Runner

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hi thomas998, am torn. I am a generally straightforward and flexible individual, but the example you gave of someone doing what I am complaining about, to earn the money to buy the extremely overpriced items from others is just "out there". (the nicest way I could think to say that.) You have heard of the old expression of "Two wrongs, do not make a right."? I am sure what these people are doing is not illegal. It has been going on for much too long, in the open, not to be noticed. I just feel on an number of levels that it is wrong.
 

Chef Mickey

Well-Known Member
An actual item (not a ticket to a show or a claim for services) can't be limited in resale rights by the original seller unless there is a specific contract involved. The only exception is Goblin made swords, but that's a different park...
There is a legal agreement in the form of the passholder agreement, which re-selling products would violate.
 

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
I hate that it happens but those of us who see Disney merchandise we really want and live outside the state have no options but to buy from them when Disney doesnt put items for sale outside of the park events.
 

Minthorne

Well-Known Member
There is a legal agreement in the form of the passholder agreement, which re-selling products would violate.

The vebiage is: "Discount is for personal use only and may not be used to purchase merchandise with the intent to resell the merchandise. "

So if you don't purchase with a AP discount then there is no restriction. I think I covered this with "unless there is a specific contract involved."

However, say I buy an item today with an AP discount and in 10 years the item is very desirable and can sell for far more then i bought it for. I decide to sell this item. Would you argue that it is against the contract to sell this one item? I never bought it "with the intent to resell the merchandise" but later decided to sell it.
 

larryz

I'm Just A Tourist!
Premium Member
Not everything is proven/disproven by a link on the internet. I'm not a lawyer, but it's my stance that this could be pursued and won by Disney. You left out the fact you're taking advantage of a discount and re-selling it...not just buying an item and re-selling it.

If I'm wrong, so be it. My point is, Disney makes a reasonable 30% operating margin on consumer products and they run a perfectly legal business.
Every business in the world "takes advantage of a discount and re-sells it."

If you'll just cite a law that says Disney could file a criminal complaint against you for reselling AP-exclusive merchandise, I'll agree that it's "illegal." Otherwise, it's just against Disney policy.

Another legal distinction here:

Yes, it is unlawful to be selling merchandise for a profit if you're not property licensed and regulated to be in the retail business. Generally, you must obtain a license to sell merchandise, and go through the proper, wholesaler channels. If you're deemed to be a collector, you must wait a certain amount of time, and the goods must be old enough to be considered legitimate memorabilia. This applies for goods that are sold over the counter, and not necessarily ones that are free or available to the public at no cost (baseballs from games, autographs, artifacts, etc.).
What country do YOU live in? In America, there are no such restrictions unless you derive a significant part of your income from sales. Then you must register as a business and are subject to all the commercial codes, etc.
It depends on the terms of service agreements, or the implied relationship that you have based on what a reasonable person would think based on common sense. A company can jam anything into a terms of service agreement, but all that matters is what a judge would think when it goes to court. If a judge finds that the terms of service were unreasonable, ambiguous, too favorable to one side, hard to understand, or a reasonable person would not or could not read the whole thing, he or she will void it.
It's not illegal to violate the terms of a contract between you and another entity. You can be sued over your non-compliance, or you can be denied future custom under that agreement, but you're not going to be arrested for it.
This is probably a case of legislation being needed to clarify the situation and finding a solution that's beneficial to all. People shouldn't be hoarding merchandise that's in short supply only to profit off of it. And they shouldn't be profiting off of their access to the park that was for one person's admission and using that to transfer merchandise rights to other people. There was no commercial substance that was added, and any profit should be invalid.
Perhaps that's how they handle things in some parts of the world, but the American Congress generally finds more important things to waste their time on than regulating the free trade of useless souvenirs from some huge entertainment entity.


While Disney could revoke your AP and ban you from their properties for violating the terms of your AP, it's unlikely they'll do that, since by buying an AP and lots of AP-exclusive merch, you're actually a better customer than the occasional non-AP visitor or AP holder who didn't come often enough to buy that particular merchandise. As long as you're not flagrantly flaunting your reselling, they aren't going to take the time or effort to mess with you -- why pick on good customers?
 

Chef Mickey

Well-Known Member
The vebiage is: "Discount is for personal use only and may not be used to purchase merchandise with the intent to resell the merchandise. "

So if you don't purchase with a AP discount then there is no restriction. I think I covered this with "unless there is a specific contract involved."

However, say I buy an item today with an AP discount and in 10 years the item is very desirable and can sell for far more then i bought it for. I decide to sell this item. Would you argue that it is against the contract to sell this one item? I never bought it "with the intent to resell the merchandise" but later decided to sell it.
I think it’s easy for the law to determine abuse. Your example is not abuse. Plus, I’m only talking about buying items with the AP discount and re-selling them with the purpose of making money.
 

jloucks

Well-Known Member
Nothing at all wrong with buying low and selling high. The only counter would be to increase supply overall or put quantity caps on sales.

"No, you cannot buy 30 pairs of shoes at once."

As far as AP discounts go, I don't think they are significant enough to apply. I am talking more about 400% (or more) markup scenarios.

Reminds me of the very first Hallmark Enterprise ornament. Sold/retailed for about $50 and you could resell for $300. I made a LOT of extra money on that one as I had bizzions of hallmarks stores right by where I live and I could check them 3 times a day super easy.
 

disneyfireman

Well-Known Member
I love it when folks make money on a side hustle. No issues.
If I can buy something at Disney and sell it online for a big profit..Good for me or whoever does it. I love Capitalism.
My buddy has an AP he always buys lots of shirts and stuff.. you can only get at say...Epcot Center. I'll pitch in. We then keep one for ourself and sell the rest online or on a facebook group. Great way to make some extra cash. Its a common thing. Not a big deal.
 

LittleGiants'16

Well-Known Member
Let me bring out my lawyer hat (I am an actual lawyer haha):
Let me bring out my lawyer hat here (not an actual lawyer though haha):
  • A park is within their rights to ban somebody from the park for a year, a lifetime, or any other time that they choose.
  • They will usually contact the local police department of this ban and get approval.
  • The local police department will deliver a letter to the person's home address informing them of this ban (often times, the park itself won't even contact the person, they'll hear about the ban from the cops and not the park).
  • If the person still goes to the park while they are banned and they have been given constructive notice they are illegally trespassing.
  • When the cops are called to remove them from the park, if they resist there is an entire arsenal of crimes that they've committed that can be thrown at them to prosecute.
Even without going through this process, if you commit an infraction that results in an ejection on the spot, a park can still call the cops if you and refuse you're "trespassing."
Yes, criminal trespass is a thing. No, it's not relevant to the analysis here. Reselling the object (let's not get into the intent requirement) is a breach of your contract for the AP. Breaching a contract is (almost always) not criminal. You can be sued, but you won't be prosecuted.
Another legal distinction here:

Yes, it is unlawful to be selling merchandise for a profit if you're not property [sic] licensed and regulated to be in the retail business. Generally, you must obtain a license to sell merchandise, and go through the proper, wholesaler channels. If you're deemed to be a collector, you must wait a certain amount of time, and the goods must be old enough to be considered legitimate memorabilia. This applies for goods that are sold over the counter, and not necessarily ones that are free or available to the public at no cost (baseballs from games, autographs, artifacts, etc.).

It depends on the terms of service agreements, or the implied relationship that you have based on what a reasonable person would think based on common sense. A company can jam anything into a terms of service agreement, but all that matters is what a judge would think when it goes to court. If a judge finds that the terms of service were unreasonable, ambiguous, too favorable to one side, hard to understand, or a reasonable person would not or could not read the whole thing, he or she will void it.

This is probably a case of legislation being needed to clarify the situation and finding a solution that's beneficial to all. People shouldn't be hoarding merchandise that's in short supply only to profit off of it. And they shouldn't be profiting off of their access to the park that was for one person's admission and using that to transfer merchandise rights to other people. There was no commercial substance that was added, and any profit should be invalid.
Good note on unconscionability as it relates to consumer contracts. Courts are becoming less willing to enforce boilerplate consumer agreements because: (1) we know consumers don't read them, and (2) even when consumer do read them, 99% of consumers don't have the requisite legal training to make heads or tails of what they're reading.

That said, licensure is probably (read: almost certainly) inapplicable here. We're talking about a private sale of goods between two individuals, not the sale of goods by a merchant to a buyer. There are policy reasons to make business comply with regulations and licensure (public safety, anti-discrimination, etc.), but that's not really relevant here.
Not everything is proven/disproven by a link on the internet. I'm not a lawyer, but it's my stance that this could be pursued and won by Disney. You left out the fact you're taking advantage of a discount and re-selling it...not just buying an item and re-selling it.

If I'm wrong, so be it. My point is, Disney makes a reasonable 30% operating margin on consumer products and they run a perfectly legal business.
Disney could probably rescind the AP agreement because reselling merch purchased with an AP discount is a pretty clear breach of the agreement. But that's an action in contract.

To make a broader point, courts can't just do whatever they want. The legal system has rules (and rules, and rules, and rules) about what wrongs you can recover for, and which ones you can't. And "he charged too high of a price" typically isn't good enough.
There is a legal agreement in the form of the passholder agreement, which re-selling products would violate.
That's not how this works. You're free to sell the products, you just can't sell them and use your AP discount.

Just to reiterate, breach of contract is not a criminal matter. It's not "illegal" as we commonly think of it. You're free to breach if you want; you just have to be willing to pay for the damages resulting from that breach.
I think it’s easy for the law to determine abuse. Your example is not abuse. Plus, I’m only talking about buying items with the AP discount and re-selling them with the purpose of making money.
It's really hard for the law to determine abuse - heck, most of the time, the "law" doesn't care. There's a reason states have to pass price gouging laws.

Also, none of the foregoing should be construed as legal advice. No, you shouldn't go and violate your AP agreement by reselling merch. Just buy your own stuff and let others buy theirs.
 

Heppenheimer

Well-Known Member
I have absolutely no stake in this argument (at most, I might buy a shirt or Christmas ornament every few years when I visit the parks), but just wondering... what kind of merchandise are we talking about here? Is there really such a large secondary market and what kinds of mark-ups are we talking about on the aforementioned secondary market?
 

Duckberg

Active Member
I can't see buying currently available park merch with jacked up prices, forget it. But there are so many reselling looking for the possible pigeon that would pay the high asking price. Disney Collecting Fever can do strange things to people o_O
 

Paper straw fan

Well-Known Member
Just flood the market. People will still get a kick out of scoring a ‘limited’ edition item, you’ll sell plenty, secondary markets will be stamped out due to lack of interest.

I understand the capitalist point on this, but really, it’s pretty crappy to hoard hard to get items to then sell far above retail- ticket scalpers, people who buy up hot Xmas items, every baseball card store owner ever, etc. There’s got to be a better way to make money.
 

thomas998

Well-Known Member
The vebiage is: "Discount is for personal use only and may not be used to purchase merchandise with the intent to resell the merchandise. "

So if you don't purchase with a AP discount then there is no restriction. I think I covered this with "unless there is a specific contract involved."

However, say I buy an item today with an AP discount and in 10 years the item is very desirable and can sell for far more then i bought it for. I decide to sell this item. Would you argue that it is against the contract to sell this one item? I never bought it "with the intent to resell the merchandise" but later decided to sell it.
It would be very difficult for Disney to prove anyone that simply buys an item with an AP and then sells it on Ebay was violating that term as it is always plausible that you bought the Disney item then changed your mind and decided to sell rather than try and go back and get a refund. Might be different story if you found someone that was continually going and buying boxes of mouse ears and then selling them in a shop somewhere... but unless the AP discounts have gotten an awful lot better than when we used to be APers I don't see much value in the AP discount. It would likely be eaten up by the shipping cost if you were selling things on Ebay... certainly be eaten up by how much most people value their time that would be involved in reselling most things.
 

MAGICFLOP

Well-Known Member
Sorry, but this is the capitalist system that served this country well.. These people that do this front the money now and gambling that the price will go up later. If it doesn't they will lose, but they are taking the risk. I have no problem with it..

If it is a matter of fairness and everyone should be able to get one, well let everyone entering MK try to buy a Goofy doll and see how that will work out.. supply and demand... if Disney made a million of one item it will have a low value by nature...

Maybe when I BUY my next Tee shirt in Disney I can ask the cashier what are the rules governing ownership of the shirt
 

Lensman

Well-Known Member
This is another fascinating example of retail arbitrage.

Personally, I don't see a problem with it as long as the arbitrageurs don't prevent primary buyers from getting the product at original retail. In the case of the runDisney items, it sounds like they did so Disney needs to figure out a way to avoid that.

Here's a funny video with a retail arbitrage example.


I'm less keen on eBay listers who drop ship products from Amazon.
 

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