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Kevin
5434
Outreach
Jun 20, 2019
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Hey everyone, it's been a busy day with a lot of questions so I wanted to clarify a few thoughts/misconceptions going on here with my take on it (from a design perspective, feel free to disagree). 1. This looks a lot like gambling.
  • We very specifically do not want this to appear to be gambling. Gambling typically involves some (or many) people losing in order for others to profit. This bounty box is designed so that anyone participating should come out with a significant amount of value from their box. Some have asked to guarantee a monetary value, but that is extremely difficult to do since products have wide ranging monetary/market values (that literally change daily). We very specifically have given a list of all of the eligible products, as well as the minimum item counts in each box. If you try to find the lowest valued products in each category and added them up to the value of a box, you should end up with a result very close to the box price (and that would be an extreme worst case scenario). If you take the most expensive items from each category, you get a value a significant amount higher. That is the default situation- without getting a 'special box that has extra rare/epics in it'.
2. No really, it still looks like gambling.
  • I don't know of any gambling games that allow for refunds if you don't "win". Our policy is that if you don't like what's in your box, you can send it back and get a refund. (Conditions apply to discourage exploiting this on a large scale).
3. What is the point of this, why don't I just buy what I want?
  • The products in these boxes have been carefully selected by our buyers and community members to be fantastic products. If you buy this box with an open mind, you'll probably end up with things you never thought you would find useful, that you end up loving. Me, personally, I own the Metro XS Blunt umbrella, which is the best umbrella I've ever owned... And no, I would never go "umbrella shopping to find a good umbrella". I randomly got mine at an employee sample sale. Go read the reviews on the Seki Edge Nailclippers. Are you ever going to spend time picking out good nail clippers? But if you get them in your box and use them, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised like the hundreds of people who have already purchased them. If you buy this box with a closed mind, you'll say to yourself "I spent $100 and got a nailclipper, a flashlight, a knife, and a keyboard. I could have bought similar items on Alibaba for $9". If this is you, please do not participate.
4. Are you just dumping inventory?
  • No, that was the Mystery Box. The majority of the products that are being shipped in the Bounty Box are being purchased by us from our vendor partners, explicitly to put into these boxes (that's why there's a 3 week delay on fulfillment).
5. Why can't you ship these internationally?
  • This is Canada's customs valuation website. There are potential issues relating to the value of goods in a box, versus the price purchased, versus the value declared for the purposes of customs. For most cases, there's a lot of flexibility here- but if you start having some boxes with $1000 of goods in them, declared at a $250 purchase price, it raises eyebrows at the border. Now consider that every country has different rules and restrictions around this (An EU purchaser could get hit with a 21% VAT on a $1000 valued box that they paid $250 for!). It's a compliance issue that we're not comfortable with dealing with at this time.
6. Isn't this just a lootbox?
  • In-game Lootboxes cost real money, and typically give you colorful pixels on a screen in return. Pixels that you do not own, you simply hold the right to use with your in-game account. Usually these pixels have no material effect on your gameplay (other than looking pretty). Lastly, 95%+ of lootboxes contain stuff you don't want, and you only buy them hoping for an epic item. So if you see the similarities between the Bounty box and a loot box, call it that. I'd say this is much closer to a TCG or Sports Card/etc card pack, with considerably better value mechanics. At least- that's how it was designed.
7. What's the point of all of this?
  • Honestly if you ask people who participated in past boxes, it's a lot of fun. Enthusiasts are typically collectors by nature- an enthusiast cyclist usually has multiple bicycles, audiophiles have many headphones and dozens of IEMs. Trying out and discovering new and interesting things is part of the hobby itself. These boxes give enthusiasts an outlet to explore products in their category and others, with the safety, knowledge and assurance that these products aren't junk. That's why we've made this box and offered it to the community.
Happy to answer or clarify any more questions.
(Edited)
Jun 20, 2019
maddoraptor
12
Jun 20, 2019
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KevinPersonally not sure I’d go in on this, but other such boxes have a place for people to enter preferred clothing sizes. There’s a comment below that someone’s clothes didn’t fit — seems like a basic pre-requisite for a box like this, unless the goal is for the client to resell items that don’t fit.
Jun 20, 2019
Theroc
2318
Keyboard Club Member
Jun 20, 2019
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maddoraptorThere are no clothes in this box. Just tech, audio, edc and outdoors gear.
Jun 20, 2019
Spectralis
13
Jun 20, 2019
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KevinDamn.. I'm Canadian. Feelsbad Any chance this will be available in the future internationally?
Jun 20, 2019
dgo42
3
Jun 21, 2019
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SpectralisAlso Canadian here. I’d have gotten a gold box no questions if I could’ve :/
Jun 21, 2019
viktorknife
0
Jun 21, 2019
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SpectralisSame here
Jun 21, 2019
polandro
7
Jun 21, 2019
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KevinHi, any chance you could stop sending me US-only offers. You know where you sent my order, right?
Jun 21, 2019
Shark50521
255
Keyboard Club Member
Jun 21, 2019
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polandroYou are a child. Good lord.
Jun 21, 2019
polandro
7
Jun 21, 2019
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Shark50521Um, sorry I upset you. I live in Europe and have had many US-only offers in my inbox. I am familiar with the concept of using databases to target emails to appropriate customers. This encourages sales and avoids alienating buyers by wasting their time, thereby losing future sales. Are you familiar with thumper's rule? You can see it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wui-PNqJrxs I am sure that you would prefer I stop trip-trappin over your bridge so I will go now.
(Edited)
Jun 21, 2019
Shark50521
255
Keyboard Club Member
Jun 21, 2019
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polandroOr you could just not get triggered by an email. Your choice.
Jun 21, 2019
Aggelos
66
Jun 22, 2019
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KevinSo is a nail clipper, knife, flashlight and keyboard a potential outcome , because that excites me.
Jun 22, 2019
broderick
18
Jun 23, 2019
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KevinJust so others see it on this comment, “Conditions apply” means a 25% restocking fee on returns that they keep refusing to share directly. It’s behind a click in the description. I don’t know why he couldn’t link it here or even just mention the fee. It’s shady to make people think the return policy is the standard Drop return policy when it isn’t. Yeah, you can return it but you’re going to be out at least $25 ($62.50 on the next up) and have nothing to show for it. This whole drop is a money grab.
Jun 23, 2019
stuey138
99
Keyboard Club Member
Jun 23, 2019
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broderickI found the return to be very obvious on the link in the returns section. It's not a money grab in my opinion. You most likely won't lose value and if you buy it, it's very clear that what you're getting is random and you can see exactly what you can get so it should be okay. If they weren't telling you the exact odds and what you could get, then that would be a bit of an uh oh.
Jun 23, 2019
da-ve
12
Jun 23, 2019
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KevinYou should listen to your members, who are trying to keep you out of legal trouble. The Canadian customs issue should have raised giant red flags for you as well. It's easy to see that this is a private lottery, which is a form of gambling that is illegal everywhere in the USA. It has all three legal elements of a lottery:
  • Chance (who wins and who doesn't is based purely on chance)
  • Prize (those who win will get more than they paid for)
  • Consideration (you must buy something in order to receive a chance to win a prize)
Your responses in the comment above don't help you. (1) Your definition of gambling requiring some people to lose in order for others to profit has nothing to do with the legal definition of gambling or lotteries. (2) Offering returns is irrelevant; you're still requiring the purchase of goods in order to have a chance to win a prize, which is illegal. The fact that you charge a 25% restocking fee for returns merely underscores this fact and rings your defense hollow. Why was your "Mystery Box" ok? Don't be sure it was. Mystery Boxes are already illegal in many countries under similar legal reasoning, and may be illegal in the US as well, but the issue hasn't been tried in court. Want to be the test case? Skimming your Mystery Box listing, I think you probably weren't really safe even then. However, in this case, you've been very explicit about what the Chance, Prize, and Consideration elements are... unintentionally making it quite easy to identify this as an illegal private lottery. I'll take at face value your assertion that you have the best of intentions and just want this to be fun. But that too is irrelevant to the question of whether it's legal. IANAL, but if you cleared this with your lawyers, I think you need better lawyers. If you didn't clear this with your lawyers, you were foolish.
Jun 23, 2019
bsastor
779
Jun 24, 2019
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da-veDamn...I want to see how MD responds to this if they do at all.
Jun 24, 2019
dingie
136
Jun 24, 2019
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da-veI just want to reply to say that this is a great summary of the problem with this. It is exactly a private lottery. You don't know what you're going to get (even if they do provide a list of possible items - which they encourage you not to look at, by the way) and there's a penalty for sending it back, meaning you definitely do lose money if you don't like how you fared in the lottery. This is really sketchy, Drop. Also, as the son of a gambling addict, I can tell you that most gamblers say that gambling is fun too. It doesn't make it not bad.
Jun 24, 2019
RRFluffy
106
Jun 24, 2019
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da-veNot critiquing what was stated above: What about the other "loot-box" oriented businesses? There are some that have been around for years and have grown in that time, without issue. They still offer semi 'random' items with a loss on the 'customers' end if it's returned. As well as upgrade/addon chances and all that. Is there something they are doing differently than what MD's attempting here?
Jun 24, 2019
da-ve
12
Jun 24, 2019
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RRFluffyReasonable question. Again, IANAL (I am not a lawyer) or any kind of expert on this, but here's my opinion. (sorry for the length, but tl;dr - Anything flies if nobody in a position of power cares enough to bother taking action. The moving parts are how much they care, and how much bother it is. Also, "mystery boxes" that look more like surplus liquidations are probably not games of chance. Further commentary and clarification of what I'm saying follows, if anyone cares.) Most "mystery boxes" are sold under the premise that every box contains something with a retail value more than you paid for it. You're buying bulk surplus goods at a discount because you don't get to choose what you get. It's sold as a retail form of product liquidation. To the extent that this argument is persuasive, it is not worth anyone's time to challenge it. I said Drop's previous "mystery boxes" were on more shaky ground because even the last one I looked at did imply that if you paid more, you had higher chance of getting something better (not just proportionally more random stuff). But Loot Boxes, physical or virtual (in-game), which play up the angle of there being some results that are much better than others, may all be a violation of US state and federal anti-lottery laws. This battle is currently being fought over in-game virtual loot boxes, and I think the AAA game companies have a strong chance of losing big. It seems that they are trying to argue that while there's obviously consideration (you buy the loot boxes with real money) they are not running a lottery because there is no prize ("winning" conveys no actual value over not "winning"). Or, that there's no chance because everyone wins (they're selling "surprise mechanics", and all boxes have the same "surprise" value regardless of contents). That's all obviously silly, so everyone rolls their eyes.

How can some "mystery box" technically be a violation of the law but still fly under the radar? When terms are vague and the stakes not very high (few people affected or small dollar values), nobody decides it's worth their time to enforce anything. Everything you could possibly receive in this Drop is physical and has a real-world retail value, and Drop does not claim that everyone is buying at a discount. They acknowledge that some people will get less than they pay for, even at retail value of the items. But I think Drop is especially unsafe here because it seems they've really described in great detail how they meet the elements of a private lottery, so even if the stakes are low, the FTC will have a trivial time proving the violation. Drop looks like "low hanging fruit" for enforcement, and where the rubber meets the road, that's probably all that really matters. In the US at least, winning or losing a legal issue is often not just about what is and isn't legal, right, or wrong, but rather about what minimizes fighting the battle in the first place. Being forced to fight can be the same as losing, in a financial and PR sense. That's why I think Drop is foolish for pushing the legal envelope like this. Some people probably don't want what I'm saying to be true, but get real folks: the primary thing Drop is selling here is the chance to get lucky and get a prize worth much more than you paid. Otherwise, there'd be no reason to spend $100 (or $250) on roughly $100 (or $250) worth of product that you don't even get to choose. Drop calls this "fun". I call that "spin" and a foolish risk for them to take. Even if the deal were that you bought some specific product for $100 and 10% of buyers get something worth $150 instead (or in addition) and 1% get something worth $500, it's still an illegal private lottery. Chance, prize, and consideration. From what I can tell, this is basic stuff in lottery/sweepstakes law. Why do you think "no purchase necessary" and "void where prohibited" gets plastered all over giveaway promotions? To avoid even the impression that they're doing what Drop is openly doing here. [The rabbit-hole could go on forever, and I have little interest to follow it all, but consider that I may not have whistle-blown the only problem here. Kevin bemoaned the Canadian customs requirements. But, consider that Drop may be obligated to file US 1099 tax forms for anyone who gets a package worth more than what they paid, and if you live in New York, they may be obligated register anyone who receives product worth $25 more than what they paid with the state. This is all separate from whether anyone will actually come after them for it being an illegal lottery, because the IRS and NY State will serve their own interests here, irrespective of what the FTC does or doesn't do. Drop must comply with the federal/state laws where the buyer is located, not where Drop is located.] I'm just a Drop customer (though all I've bought so far is some /dev/tty keycaps, since I wrung my hands too long to buy a CTRL High Profile keyboard and they sold out). I have no personal stake in this. I'm certainly not interested in suing anyone. I'm making noise because I don't want Drop to do something illegal and get into a huge mess. I think it's also unethical, but I'm not accusing them of intentionally being unethical... I think they have really not thought this through properly and have made a mistake that they need to stop before someone with a big government stick takes notice and feels like picking a fight.
Jun 24, 2019
RRFluffy
106
Jun 25, 2019
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da-veInteresting read, thanks! My gripe with the whole thing is that it's a overly obvious money grab. Kinda like the blueboxes, but more blunt and with more variety. Many of the blue boxes have items that were sold within the past few months, and oftentimes you may get something of lesser value, or something completely different. I'm looking at you, random ass full serrated blades added to blueboxes as an "upgrade". So it's likely an exchange or return backlog coupled with offloading clutter. Most places just discount the items, but here they charge you enough so there's a chance you won't break even, they don't release percentages, and you can't even refund for your purchase amount when they inevitably give out grab bags with sub par item combo's and value. So worst case scenario, they get their items back to resell, plus $25. And whoever waltzes in here saying "but that's shipping and restocking": If they don't have a business shipping account, then I am in awe at how they've managed to stay afloat. Also, restocking is nothing. You either have inventory peeps restock durring down times, have a misc. area that you dig through when desperate, or you have someone dedicated to managing returns(from evaluation to logging and restock). By all means, if someones got the cash to blow, or have budding interest in all/most of those categories, spin the wheel! Otherwise, you're playing a chancy game where you don't know the odds.
Jun 25, 2019
reswright
3850
Jul 10, 2019
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da-ve But, consider that Drop may be obligated to file US 1099 tax forms for anyone who gets a package worth more than what they paid, and if you live in New York, they may be obligated register anyone who receives product worth $25 more than what they paid with the state. This is all separate from whether anyone will actually come after them for it being an illegal lottery, because the IRS and NY State will serve their own interests here, irrespective of what the FTC does or doesn't do. Drop must comply with the federal/state laws where the buyer is located, not where Drop is located. This. I believe this is what is going to end up costing them -- that and the fact that you can buy the loot boxes with a credit card (https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/statutes/unlawful-internet-gambling-enforcement-act). They're at the mercy of whoever wants to take them to court - I'm going to toss Drop a bone and not paste the direct link, but anyone who googles the phrase 'reporting illegal gambling' will see step by step instructions detailing how to report to federal and/or state authorities. The resulting fines and penalties can be catastrophic and they can be charged in every state they shipped to. Some states offer payouts for tips that pan out, which places Drop at even further risk - they might be in better shape if they didn't have so many disgruntled community members, but for them to be this brazen and obdurate about what they're doing in the face of all these combined risks really is foolish, because there definitely appears to be a number of folks hanging out in this forum who appear to bear various grudges against the company. I'm not a lawyer. Just a guy that people tend to start listening to once it's too late.
Jul 10, 2019
reswright
3850
Jul 10, 2019
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reswrightthe universe has an sublime sense of humor sometimes. For example, here I am listening to Iron Maiden, Number Of The Beast, then this pops onto my screen...
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Jul 10, 2019
RageSatanas
0
Oct 5, 2019
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KevinHey Kev, can u set up box price around 150$?
Oct 5, 2019
RageSatanas
0
Oct 5, 2019
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RageSatanasFor customs*
Oct 5, 2019
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