Bootleg Figures at the Dealers Hall

[Acheron]

Just a heads up to anyone who bought figures this year, especially Nendoroid and Figma brand ones: The three big figures I got this year turned out to be bootlegs after checking them against the official GSC guide. I don't usually buy Nendoroids, so I don't know if this was a bad year for it or it's normally this bad, but aside from a small blind box, 100% of what I got was fake.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything I or anyone else can do about it now, but I suppose it's a good reminder about pricing - if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

[reppy]

That sucks. I have had that experience and it's always frustrating to know 1) that you didn't buy the real thing 2) you're not directly supporting your favorite shows by buying its products.

Hopefully someone on staff will see this and give you an e-mail about who to contact. AFAIK, Kumoricon does its best to be sure that they aren't knowingly allowing vendors that sell bootlegged material.

[BlackjackGabbiani]

I keep seeing them too. I've even spoken with one of the vendors during another event and they refuse to believe that what they have are bootlegs (everything else they have seems to be legit which makes it even more confusing), and another vendor even acknowledged that they were selling bootlegs.

Shouldn't they at least be advertised as such?

[hieis_girl1]

Do you remember which vendors you bought the bootleg figures from? If so, I would highly suggest emailing exhibits@kumoricon.org and letting them know. We try to be vigilant about keeping bootleg merchandise, and the vendors that try to sell them, out of our convention, and the best way to help us do that is to let them know who you bought the items from.

[Witchaven]

 
 As one Vendor who sells figures (all legitimate) I to am wondering what figures you purchased and if you remember what vendor you got them from.
 While I wasn't able to check out everything at the show, I do know most of the Vendors that were there, and know none of them sell bootlegs.
 I know one thing not mentioned on the Good Smile website is that if the figure was distributed in the U.S. by one of the major Anime Distributors (AAA Anime for example) then they will usually put a label on it. In some cases it will also have stickers for the U.S. licensor of the Anime the figure is from.
 For example, I currently have several Attack on Titan Figmas. Because I got them from 2 different Distributors, they each have a different sticker on the back saying where they are from (in this case AAA Anime and Ultra Tokyo Connection.) They both also have a Funimation sticker on the front since Funimation is the licensor in the U.S. Both AAA Anime and Ultra Tokyo Connection are official distributors for Good Smile and get their stuff directly.
While some Bootleg Manufacturers will try to duplicate the original Japanese packaging, it’s very unlikely that they would add these stickers. The presence of these stickers would be a very good sign that the figure is not a bootleg. Of course, some Vendors get their stuff directly from Japan so the lack of these stickers doesn’t necessarily mean the figure is bootleg either.