My girlfriend and I picked up the Paris Architecture set from the Lego store in Danbury this afternoon. Upon opening it, (seals intact) the numbered bags were already opened. We looked at it even further, and realized some of the pieces were already assembled - it looks like someone built it and took it apart to return. Anyone else have this issue? How did you rectify? Surprised it came from an official LEGO store. 

I'd go back and get a replacement. I wouldn't want to assembly it to find it's missing pieces..

I bought a sealed box at Target and all the mini figures were missing inside. The bags were all sealed but did looked funny compared to other sealed bags I’ve seen before. I think some people found a way to open and reseal the bags and boxes to make it look like they were never opened before.

I bought a sealed box at Target and all the mini figures were missing inside. The bags were all sealed but did looked funny compared to other sealed bags I’ve seen before. I think some people found a way to open and reseal the bags and boxes to make it look like they were never opened before.

It’s very simple to use a heat sealer like one found on a food saver to repackage bags. One of the sellers on BL reuses bags from sets this way and I’ve had some orders come from him in sealed bags stuffed with elements from my order.

Buying clearance off the shelf has always been a crap shoot, but seeing the lengths some people go to cover up theft is alarming.

An odd set to buy, build, and then return, but people are strange.

I'd get a replacement saying you can't know if it's complete.  Although if you did decide to build it, Lego would send you any missing pieces.

I never thought I'd have to check seals at the LEGO store. There's no safe place left.

2 hours ago, fuzzy_bricks said:

An odd set to buy, build, and then return, but people are strange.

I'd get a replacement saying you can't know if it's complete.  Although if you did decide to build it, Lego would send you any missing pieces.

That's what I thought. There's nothing really worth removing from the set. Who knows. Good point about Lego sending missing pieces.

42 minutes ago, lodibricks said:

I never thought I'd have to check seals at the LEGO store. There's no safe place left.

Right!? Sad day indeed.

9 hours ago, Mark Twain said:

 

It’s very simple to use a heat sealer like one found on a food saver to repackage bags. One of the sellers on BL reuses bags from sets this way and I’ve had some orders come from him in sealed bags stuffed with elements from my order.

Buying clearance off the shelf has always been a crap shoot, but seeing the lengths some people go to cover up theft is alarming.

 

I agree with you. This wasn't clearance tho. Just us buying at RRP for a personal build.

Find that person who returned that item and BAN THEM!  

i took a large JW set back to argos. box was mint, seals intact & lady behind desk just ripped it open to check contents of box.

1st time i have ever seen this.

Update: We disassembled all pieces and started building. So far we found 4 missing pieces. Just more of a pain than anything else at this point. Check those seals before you buy all. Even the LEGO store isn’t safe these days.

I bought the 80101 and 80102 from a guy on Bricklink(the two exclusive chinese sets) and they both arrived mint and sealed. However, the 80101 - Chinese Dinner, sounded like there were loose pieces inside. I watched an unboxing video of the set and all that should be loose are these two big sand baseplates. I shake the set again and I can hear small pieces, sliding, back and from the inside of the box. My suspicions were confirmed, added to this on the outside of the top of the LEGO box there is a protrusion. It looked as if something had jabbed the box but from the inside because the cardboard was pointed out away from the box. Ultimately, I opened the box and found Bag 1 opened. I looked up the instructions online(the instructions in the box are sealed in plastic with stickers) and confirmed all the pieces were still there. I inspect the other bags and they look fine, all minifigures are there. So I taped up the ripped bag and then retaped the box being careful to use tape pieces the size of LEGO's. What is interesting is that the box did not look tampered with and I did several inspections before opening it up. Now I am going to have to put in a weird description and message my future buyer of this set to confirm that they know the box is "tampered" with.

Very often I am startled when I see seals that are with very little air pockets...so do you guys think those could also be opened. I find these very often at a lot of places where you can buy Lego. I recently saw it on the 75243 20th Anniversary Slave1. Maybe its sometimes because of the differences in the used carton.

I also see Sets where the Seal is loosen at the inside of the seal. Maybe that is from shipping due to movement, so the Seals starts to get loose.

After all I think its all about trust. Imagine you have a Set for 15 Years or so...then sell it and the buyer claims the bags inside where open...man! ...people these days!

I´m new btw, so hello everyone!

This happened to me with the Star Wars Ewok Village set. It was purchased from LEGO.com and when it arrived the seals were intact. I opened it, and pretty quickly realized that someone had opened every bag with mini figures, stole them, taped the bags shut, and returned it. Upon closer inspection of the seals, there were secondary seals placed upon the first ones that looked exactly like the ones LEGO uses. So it seems that either LEGO resealed it without checking the contents well, a worker at LEGO pulled it off, or someone bought the set and made seals that looked nearly identical to LEGO's before returning it. LEGO was able to take the return and replace it.