2nd & Charles — Attraction in Roswell

I had a bad experience and won't go back.

My son is on the autism spectrum and loves Pokemon cards. The problem with his love of Pokemon cards is two fold: (1) it is difficult to find them due to scalpers and (2) he has trouble with patience and anxiety.

We have gotten some packs at 2nd&C before and me, my wife, and our son had went in today to see if they had cards as well as to look at the vinyl records. He ran in first and starting hyperventalating with joy. 2nd&C had Pokemon Prismatic Evolution ETB boxes, the most sought after new Pokemon cards there are. They had two of them. We weren't planning on spending that much, but this was such a rare find, I told my kid he could have one. He was more excited over this than his birthday or Christmas. We hadn't looked around but I wanted to go ahead and buy the box so that no one else got it while we were there, so I told the CSR to ring it up. They asked if I wanted to join the member thing and I never had, but given this moment I reasoned to since I was about to become a super customer after this. I signed up, gave all the emails and phone numbers and all that.

Then they told me the charge was $150.

The MSRP of these new Pokemon boxes are $49.99. And these are new. This isn't some rare, first-edition, graded, vintage item. This item was probably printed and shipped in the last two weeks. This is a new item at a professional retail store that has an MSRP, and they are trying to charge 3x that MSRP. I told my son he couldn't have it, we couldn't afford it. To be correct, we could afford it at the fair price. But we couldn't afford the made up scalper price 2nd&C was trying to charge. We were able to buy him two packs of other cards which for some reasons they weren't overcharging for. He was ok but quiet. I told my wife what happened and we were quiet for a minute and she said what we were both feeling, that we didn't feel comfortable shopping there anymore. We put back the items she had already selected to buy and we left. When we got to the car, that's when the kid broke down. He told me he went back to talk to them while me and his mom were talking, and asked them why they charge so much. He said they told him that it was so scalpers didn't buy them. But that just makes them the scalpers.

A store is a store and they have the right to honestly charge whatever they want for things they are selling. If they want to take a $10 item and try and sell it for $1000, it's their right. Just as we have a right not to purchase from a place that is effectively price gouging. And that is what we are doing from here on out. I don't know what they think they are, but everything they sell can be easily found on amazon or eBay. I've never seen the place busy and I can't imagine this is a good policy for them. It's their choice, but I can't take my kid back there with the possilbity he sees something he's been desperate for but can't get because they want 3x, 4x, or 5x what it actually sells for. Disappointment is part of life, and he has to learn that as we aren't raising a brat, but when we say it is ok for him to get something and then we can't get it because the store is over charging, he doesn't understand that. He internalizes it like he did something wrong cause he knows what it costs, and doesn't understand why they won't sell it to him for that. He kept telling me, "can we go back and tell them we aren't scalpers, so we can buy it at regular price," while choking on tears. It was rough. Really rough. Was not a good way to end the summer.

I wouldn't even buy water from 2nd and Charles now even if I were on fire. When this place eventually shuts down, we look forward to whatever company moves in and takes over...

Excellent selection. Unfortunately every time we go there we have an issue with the staff. My son is special needs. One day he turned some books in and even though people were standing around they said they couldn't possibly give him the amount of his credit for a day or two. Okay. We came back a couple days later. Gave his name and we're told he never had brought any books or games in. All but called us liars. It was very upsetting to my son. I let them know that I had given my name and my direct contact number to the person taking in the books. They had nothing. They had basically turned away and we're no longer helping us when I noticed the sign-in sheet and I asked my son if when he had been there a couple days ago he had signed in. Sure enough there was his name. A manager was brought in because the person said they couldn't handle us because there were absolutely no things that he brought in put to the side so she couldn't give us a credit. Manager walked over and within about 2 seconds pointed out that it was very clear he was in the system. Frustrating. On another occasion a man checked us out when my son bought a game. Apparently only the cases are on view and when you check out they put the game inside for you to take home. That wasn't done so we had to return days later to get the game to go inside of the case they had given us. Got to be a better way...

I wish I had checked the lowest rating comments before I came here. I had the same experience so many others had. The staff is horrendous, absolutely the worst I've ever encountered anywhere. They're an abomination. Like someone else I arrive at 2pm and almost left after the first five minutes but I didn't. They told me two hours. After I didn't hear anything for three I went back and they said they haven't even started . At 7:50 I went in to follow up and they were done. A text would have been nice. They decided they wanted to buy two out of three totes which was some vinyl records first edition Pokemon cards and 40 books most of which were hard back and non retailed for under $20. They kept me here all day and was rude as hell for $31. Later I went to take a look at the receipt and the long folded up receipt that the lady handed me along with the cash was completely blank. I wonder how much money they stole from me. That's was a horrible experience I cannot recommend going here to sell anything unless you're starving and that's the only way you can eat. I'm going to reach out to the corporate office or their ownership and make sure they know exactly what goes on here at this joke of a business. One star is...