It is with a heavy weight of frustration that I am announcing the indefinite cessation of all selling and trading on Pop Price Guide. We have always wanted nothing but the safest environment for our members, but we have been hit with an onslaught of individuals scamming members of our community. We’ve gone through methods to ban/block these members, but more spring up, or they find ways back in. That’s the unfortunate reality when it comes to online trading, particularly in a blind environment such as this where there is no true validation of identity. Even more unfortunate is that this has always been a problem in the Funko community, even more so lately. This brings me to a brief rant. While I want to go all “out of bubblegum” on these scammers for taking advantage of people, I have to also say that some of this could have been avoided if some common sense was executed by the victim.

There have been cases where sales were done, and items were paid for using Friends & Family on PayPal. Come on, people…this offers you NO protection in the event you get screwed. None whatsoever. A simple rule – if they’re not a friend or family member, DON’T PAY WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY. If they want you to pay the fee, that’s a decision for you to make whether it’s worth a couple of extra bucks or to back out of the deal. Honest sellers will either let you pay the Goods & Service fees or take on the fee themselves (it is a part of doing business after all). If a seller demands you pay Friends & Family, run. Don’t even bother with them. Some of the scammers showed obvious signs of illicit activity. Refusal to send additional pictures, offering “too good” of a trade, not providing a physical address (PO Boxes are a no-no, people!). If you’re trying to do a deal and the other party doesn’t offer transparency…RUN.

What I’ve just said takes nothing away from the accountability the scammers should have for their actions. It’s atrocious that some people are so lacking life skills that they have to fuck someone over for a toy. That being said, as long as we don’t have a secure way of transaction verification, our Marketplace is going to be closed. This includes buying/selling/trading in the Forums. We don’t want anyone getting screwed over, and if we can’t protect people, we don’t want the risk to be out there. That being said, the Marketplace is sure to come back in one way or another…there’s just a lot of work to do to make it feasible.

I apologize to all of you good traders who are affected by this. Trust me, it’s painful to shut down an area of the site in this way.