hi. this is from the freefurby.com site.
Shocking News About Furbies
An exclusive Internet ScamBusters article by Dr. Audri Lanford.
The hottest toy in the last ten years may, in fact, go down as one of the biggest Internet scams in history, already costing parents more than an estimated $5,000,000.
The two biggest Furby scams are related to price and rarity. It's gotten so bad that people are almost blow-drying rats and trying to sell them as Furbies!
Auction, retail, and other Internet sites are unwittingly being taken advantage of by unethical Internet promoters and hucksters. Furby "For Sale" headlines read: "Rare First Edition Furby - $350," "Rare Tuxedo Furby - $195," "Family of Four Furbies - $500," and "Bride and Groom Furbies - $195." The biggest collectible craze since Beanie Babies is now in full force as Furbies hit the auction block on ebay.com and other sites, with bids and offers ranging from $65 to over $500.
We called Lana Simon, a spokesperson for Tiger Electronics and asked her to comment on the value of these "rare" Furbies. "The fact is," she stated, "there are NO RARE FURBIES and NO COLLECTIBLE FURBIES. We are creating roughly an equal number of Furbies of each fur color, eye color and voice pitch." Hasbro and Tiger Electronics have no intention of creating rare Furbies, first editions, or even retiring certain colors and combinations of Furbies.
Other Furby Internet scams include:
Not delivering Furbies that have been paid for. To reduce the chance of this happening to you, go to one of the reputable auction sites, ignore the claims that any Furby is rare, and check out the feedback of the seller from other users who have bought items from this seller. That way, you'll be able to check out if the user has received prior complaints or praises.
Selling non-existent Furbies, such as rare Blue Furbies (which are white Furbies dyed blue, if they exist at all), Elvis Furbies, and so on. None of these exist.
Collectible Furby boxes with a typo on the box. We asked Ms. Simon about a typo on the original boxes, where the word "Sing" was misspelled as "SNG." She commented that there were hundreds of thousands of Furby boxes that were produced before the typo was corrected, so she felt that these would have no additional value as a collectible. "The important thing is the quality of the product, not the box," said Ms. Simon.
Ms. Simon told us there will have been 2,000,000 Furbies sold by Christmas. Their standard retail price is $30.
In summary, unethical promoters, scam artists, and hucksters have rushed into this hot market and "invented claims" of rare Furbies in order to take advantage of unwary consumers. We advise you don't fall into the trap.
First, decide if you want to pay more than $30 for a Furby. We recommend most parents choose not to. However, if you want to get your child a Furby for Christmas, don't spend more than $70 to $100 (right now) or you're overpaying. You can get up-to-the-minute prices of what people are buying Furbies for at ebay.com by searching on "Furby" and then clicking on the "Search Completed Items" link. This will tell you the current going price for Furbies.
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Visitors are asked a number of research questions when they register for the Free Furby contest. This is part of a new Internet ScamBusters study being conducted on exploding the myths of how we all really use the Internet.
