I was sitting in at the Hasbro panel at the Comic Con when they made this announcement, and my jaw almost hit the floor. Surprisingly, the crowd that was present at the discussion didn't let out a loud moan/groan, or anything. But I was pissed off to hear about this absolute crap method of point redemption...
The Hasbro rep said they obviously had to be very careful from a business standpoint how they set up the promotion, since there were so many tens of thousands of JM points out there in collectors hands, that there was no way they would be able to cash them all in without getting hit badly financially. So it sounds like there will be a fortunate few who are lucky enough to cash in some of their points and get something nice. Since I already have all the items they mentioned as potential giveaways, I'm really not too concerned about the whole thing. Unless they come up with some other unannounced, and unique items, I'll probably just pass on the whole thing.
No idea how many points I've got, though I'm sure it'd be somewhere between 5,000 - 10,000, if Jim's got 8 and Scott thinks he's got about 5. I haven't been cutting them off the cards, but I've saved all the cards and boxes, so when I move next month, I suppose I could tally 'em all up and see where I stand if I decide I'm interested later on...
The whole thing really stinks though. What was Hasbro thinking? Ebay? They've got to know what a lot of collectors out there thing of the whole auction thing. I'm also guessing that without the need for a receipt, and considering the general desparateness of many folks to add a TF Vader or Sacul to their collections, we're going to be seeing a LOT of cut up SW Hasbro product on the retail shelves in the near future. Hopefully I'm wrong about that, and that there aren't such unscrupolous people out there that would do such a thing, but I won't be surprised if it does...
Shame on you Hasbro! Wish I had the cojones to tell them so at their booth later on, but I unfortunately just bit my tongue...