Player 1 Services — Local services in Kensington

EDIT2: so I tried to see the good in Ben since he reached out and offered to right his wrong by offering a refund (hence why initially I changed my review to 4 stars) Even though it might just be a front to improve my review. But after hearing what he did to my friend Kimberly at a card show (please read her review), I have completely lost faith in Ben. And mind you, Kimberly is not the type to write reviews (that’s her only review!), she HATES confrontation, and seeing someone like her being this upset just shows me what kind of person he is. But long story short, Kimberly went to a card show and wanted to buy an arceus collector’s chest, a vendor was selling it for $60, but kimberly being a loyal customer, wanted to continue to buy products from player1 services since they claim to ‘price match’, kim went to ben and inquired about the chest, and realized ben was selling it for $90, kim told him to price match, and he blatantly went to the vendor that was selling it for $60, and BOUGHT the chest in front of Kim! I’m speechless…

the owner replied that I posted on announcement page, but if you look at the screen shot (last photo) at the tcg collector chat, only my messages were deleted. Anyways you can join the discord channel yourself and see my chat history.

Summary: if you're not well versed in pokemon market, you're going to think you're getting a good deal, but you're actually paying market price.

First off I'll start of with the good. Their pokemon collection is very complete and if you're looking to find cards that are missing from your collection, it is the place to go.

However, if you're not too informed about the hobby, you will lose alot of money in the store. The store puts a front that they are selling below market price, so people who are not very well informed about the pokemon market will think they are getting a good deal, but they are actually paying market price. If you enter their discord group, and inquire about retail prices. Your messages will be deleted. At first I thought it was weird, so I tested it out, and I have the screenshots of before and after deletion. See the first two pictures below.

The best example of the shady practice they do is with the most recent release of prismatic evolutions, they were annoucing that they are selling prismatic way below market price, which is only a half truth. Only the ETB was being sold like $40 below market price, the rest was being sold at market price, such as the binder collection or the poster collection or the tech sticker collection. But you might think to yourself, that's not bad, you can just buy the etb. Well that is true, but they also sell the prismatic bundle at $240, which includes all the product, and It is actually MORE expensive to buy the bundle than buying the products individually. The up charge they sell on the bundle is the difference between the "discounted" price of the etb and the market price. (You can see screenshot below of the owner admitting that is more expensive to buy the bundle in the discord group when pressed multiple times why the sum of the product doesn't add up to $240) So if you're like a typical mom/dad wanting to buy some pokemon products for your kids. You are going to get baited into thinking you're getting a good deal when in reality you are paying market price.

What they are doing is nothing out of the ordinary for a typical card store as all card store will try to maximize profit, but the difference here is that they are dishonest about it, they make you think you are getting a good deal. Last example I would give is the blooming waters box, which was sold at Costco for retail at $45, but this store claims that it is also selling at "retail" but the price is actually 69.99. (See screenshot) Just a bunch of shady practice in general that made me lose respect to the store. And the fact that they will delete your discord messages when you're just inquiring about prices. It is a shame since the community and the customer it brings are...

EDIT 2: Ben reached out and apologized profusely for the incident. My overall card show experience still remains tainted but I am impressed with the effort Ben made to patch things over. He gave me the packs in the Chest along with two Evolving Skies, which he did not have to add but I appreciate very greatly. I will cautiously leave the review up for now but may amend/delete as I see fit... 3/5 stars.

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EDIT: Ben responded to this review (which I have screenshotted in case he tries to edit or delete it) in which he admits he bought the item I was asking him to price match. The pricing doesn’t even matter… it’s the principle of buying something I asked you to look at right in front of me! You were asked to examine the inventory, not buy it out and resell it to me for higher…

Also one more thing I did not add to my original review: the first vendor had another Collector’s Chest he was willing to sell. He graciously allowed me to purchase it at $50, the same price haggled by Ben. And when I did open the Chest, it did contain Evolving Skies packs. So while I acknowledge there is a possibility that Ben’s bought Chest did not contain Evolving Skies, it seems extremely likely it did considering both items come from the same vendor and were presumably purchased around the same time…

And suppose the Chest did have other packs. Why are you trying to sell it back to me at $90 when, considering the original price of $60, there should be less valuable packs inside? Ben’s side of the story is riddled with holes, inconsistency, and dishonesty - unbefitting of any small local business I wish to support.

This is so shady - lying about their supposed business practice and then doubling down on it when called out. I hope my experience brings light to what Ben (and by extension Player 1 Services) are doing and that others are able to protect themselves.

I do not intend on reaching out as this incident left such a horrid aftertaste on my otherwise fun and pleasant card show experience that I cannot see myself having any redeeming interactions with this establishment ever again. If I could rate this place a 0/5, I definitely would…

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I normally do not feel the need to write reviews, but the very scummy and despicable practices by Ben makes me feel inclined to warn other non-suspecting patrons…

At a local card show, I expressed interest in a sealed Arceus Collector’s Chest at a separate vendor that was sticker priced at $60. When I approached the Player 1 Services’ booth and saw the same exact chest in their inventory, Ben offered it to me at a “discounted” $90 but also offered to price match it with the other vendor. When he went to the other vendor to verify the pricing, instead of price matching, I witnessed Ben buying the Collector’s Chest I was interested in…

He then ignored me when I expected him to follow up on the “price matching.” When I was the only person left at the Player 1 Services’ booth, he finally paid me any attention and so I confronted him about it. Ben had the audacity to try to sell it back to me at same $90 when I trusted him - as an employee of a reputable card shop - to honor his “price matching” practice. The worst part was that when I returned to the original vendor, he said he sold the Collector’s Chest to Ben for $50…

I sincerely question the integrity of this establishment if this is how their employees treat patrons. Ben took full advantage of my trust and not only scammed me out of an item I was eyeing, but lowballed the other smaller-scale vendor. Their “price matching” seems to merely be a front to scout out lower priced items to swipe product from oblivious customers.

These people are not to be trusted and have no remorse on up-charging product. I do not ever plan to step foot at Player 1 Services again and I would never recommend this...

Edit: Included the image of the 325 cards on tcgplayer optimized since store claims that it would've costed me far more than $230 to purchase those cards (all in near mint condition). $99.62 total.

Summary: Shady in price calculation Overpricing bulk cards Says that they'd take in certain cards at 80%, and then giving a price that does not add up to it. When called out, no longer want to take in the cards.

Had a horrible experience at this store. I do not recommend anyone to go here due to some very shady business practices. Today I came in to buy playable cards and trade in some of my collection. I planned on buying 325 cards consisting of bulk cards and ex cards. These cards amounted to $70.50 on limitless and $99.87 tcgplayer avg price on their collection tab, as seen on the images. Instead of being met with a similar price, the clerk told me that everything costed $230. I asked for the reasoning behind the price difference and they explained that the bulk cards were charged at 15 cents instead of a few cents due to the store needing to pay for the labor. To provide some further context, the minimum price of a bulk card on tcgplayer avg is 10 cents per card. To give them the benefit of the doubt, assuming that every bulk card would costed 5 cents higher due to their statement. Not including the ex cards, the price difference would been $12.85 on top of the $99.87 equaling $112.70 being no where near the $230 that was said. Another problem I had was when I was trading in 4 cards, tcgplayer market price seen in the attached pictures. The lowest market price total, from both graphs and listed market, for these 4 cards adds up to $39.29. 80% of that number being, $31.43. I asked the clerk what percentage they would take in these cards and he said 80% since they were part of the store's wanted list due to having low stocks of them. He somehow then calculated the cards to adding up to $27. I told him that it added to $31.43 for the 4 cards. After seeing the number, he then said "I'm good then." I understand that this is a business and they need to make money, but overcharging bulk cards and being shady with how they price things is awful. I do not understand how this place has a 4.9...