A comic shop owner in my town just got hit with a huge price guide scam

I was at my local shop, The Panel Page, last Thursday picking up my weekly pull list when I saw the owner, Mike, looking totally stressed. He told me a guy came in claiming to be from a big price guide company, saying he needed to 'verify' the shop's inventory for their online database. The guy spent two hours taking photos of all the high-value back issues, especially the graded ones in the locked case. Turns out, it was a total scam to case the place. A week later, someone broke in and stole only the exact books that were photographed, about $8,000 worth. Mike didn't ask for any ID or a formal agreement, he just trusted the guy because he seemed to know his stuff. Now he's out the books and the insurance is giving him a hard time. Has anyone else's local shop dealt with something like this? What kind of checks should they be doing?

3 comments

3 Comments

stella11110d ago

My buddy's game store got hit with a similar thing. A woman came in saying she was from a distributor doing a "market survey" and needed to see their rare board game stock. She took a bunch of pictures of the sealed collector's edition stuff. They got cleaned out a few days later, lost their whole stock of Frosthaven.

the_cameron10d ago

Yeah the "market survey" thing is such an obvious scam now. They're just casing the place to see what's worth stealing and how the stock is laid out.

laura_wilson10d ago

I used to think those surveys were just annoying but harmless. Then a guy came into the local comic shop asking about their high-grade slabbed books, said he was with a grading company. He was super interested in their security setup, like where the cameras were. They got robbed the next weekend, and every single one of those slabs was gone. It was way too specific.