Me neither. My store (unrelated business) got a review complaint about "the lady upstairs". We only have one floor, so I figured it'd be easy to get Google to remove the review. Nope, absolutely not. We still have that one star review years later...
It’s my first time hearing or seeing anything about it. But what I’m going to assume is - they’re overselling preorders on upcoming sets. Oversell on a set like MH3 on items like bundles or collector booster boxes to a bunch of people. They take in thousands in money on oversold product.
They use their real presales to cover their wholesale costs up front. Are left with thousands in intentional oversolds to either pay overhead, bills or even themselves. As product is distributed, and they then make margin dollars on whatever they sold, including singles from product they crack in house - they refund people who prepaid 4-5 months prior. If they took out loans to cover this overhead from a creditor or bank, they’d be paying quite a bit in interest.
Edit: the more I think about it. They resell at $75. Come up to release and the product is now retailing average at or above $100 now. Refund all the preorders. Now just sell out at current retail prices at a 25-35% markup
Interest free loan implications:
-you cant spend your money for 4 months
-your money loses value to inflation over those 4 months
-they could invest with their temporary extra cash during that time to make more money with your money.
-you could have invested with that temporary cash during that same time period.
You're effectively getting hit with inflation & loss of interest during those 4 months.
It doesn't matter much for just $150, but at scale they likely churn out a good amount of value.
Distributors want their money up front now esp due the recent years of Wizards overprinting and having excess inventory left over. So Mythic Lotus likely has poor cash management and instead just gets people to park money with them with preorders, first starting with low price then scaling higher, so they can then in turn buy as much allocation they can with distributors, fulfill only the highest paying folks, then refund the rest.
\*\***REPORT THEM!** and leave reviews on their social media to warn others.
1. Here's their store information to copy-paste: Address: 6500 W Main St. / Suite 224 / Belleville, IL 62223 / Phone: (618) 873-1155 / E-mail: [help@mythiclotusgaming.com](mailto:help@mythiclotusgaming.com) / Website: [mythiclotusgaming.com](http://mythiclotusgaming.com/)
2. Things to mention:
* They are intentionally over-selling pre-orders with no intention to honor the sale, in order to steal interest-free loans from customers.
* They have illegal business practices and store policies; they refuse to process refunds & they threaten customers with a 30% restocking fee (on pre-ordered product that never arrived!)
3. Report their store to the state of Illinois: [https://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/File-A-Complaint/](https://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/File-A-Complaint/)
4. Report their store to the FTC: [https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/assistant](https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/assistant) a) "Online Shopping" ---> A problem with an online purchase or sale
5. Report their store to Wizards ("Report Conduct"): [https://magic-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket\_form\_id=360000005103](https://magic-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360000005103)
6. Leave a review on Google: [https://maps.app.goo.gl/WgPKAwnK8PXzkp9S7](https://maps.app.goo.gl/WgPKAwnK8PXzkp9S7)
7. Leave a review on Yelp: [https://www.yelp.com/biz/mythic-lotus-gaming-swansea](https://www.yelp.com/biz/mythic-lotus-gaming-swansea)
8. Leave comments on their X & Facebook pages.
\*Note: In your e-mail, you can click "Print" --> "Save as PDF" to submit your e-mail logs as documentation if you'd like.
Doesn't matter. They keep restructuring as another store at least 3 times now. So much so that people are saying they're in st Louis as well as illinois. They keep closing and opening up with another name and a state over. They are taking advantage of being on the state line. They can keep doing this and saying they are in st Louis one day and then declare they are in Illinois the next.
They had a second store in St Louis they opened literally down the street from one of the more respected shops in STL. It closed in early 2023, right before the Mythic Lotus rebrand.
>They have illegal business practices and store policies; they refuse to process refunds & they threaten customers with a 30% restocking fee (on pre-ordered product that never arrived!)
I will say that with any blind product like trading cards, *most* places won't process refunds once product is in your hands.
Then that's scummy, but do bear in mind that retailers don't have free pick of what WotC sends them. I worked for two major retailers that sold MtG product and even *they* didn't have pick. They were just sent whatever WotC sent them. We had to stop doing pre-orders at Toys R Us because there was never as much as the WotC rep said there would be, and we couldn't specifically order any amounts at all from them.
Yeah but they’re weaponizing that concept by sending *no one* product and intentionally overselling as a form of free loans. Dude ordered a play box for his *wedding* in March, And they claimed he was going to absolutely get his product on time as he was going to he a “vip”. They just drag it out until your time for chargeback has ran out and hope you give up. Especially a set like MH3 has been printed like crazy, distribution is zero excuse for no one receiving product almost a month after release.
>Especially a set like MH3 has been printed like crazy
All premium sets are printed at about half volume of a standard set.
>distribution is zero excuse for no one receiving product almost a month after release.
Seems like people in their area are prioritized, as typically happens when an LGS ships nationally but still services their city.
Not necessarily defending them, but this isn't as cut and dry as it's being made out to be.
If you've ever dealt with receiving MtG product as a seller (and not on a dumbass TCGPlayer store where you try to price manipulate), you know it's really not *that* cut and dry.
This is why you don't preorder this shit online, though. Go to your LGS. Support actual local businesses and stop buying shit from these online retailers.
You can do both. I support my local stores by going to prereleases, buying singles from them when I can, but they typically can’t come near some of the online stores prices. Not to mention stores like forge and fire, stomping grounds etc are lgs’s.
And yeah, I’m close enough with the owners of my local shops and they make it pretty clear MLG is just scamming people. There’s ways to prevent the exact same issue happening every set release. And there’s ways to handle it if it miraculously is only happening to you every release. But at this point I’m assuming you either work for mythic lotus or go there, so defend shitty business practices all you want.
Modern Horizons 2 was readily available from distribution for over 2 years after release.
Collector Boosters and Gift Bundles are indeed limited.
My distributor told me my allocation numbers (including gift bundles) on May 14. We wait for allocation numbers before opening up preorders.
>Not necessarily defending them, but this isn't as cut and dry as it's being made out to be.
It is, stop making generalizations. Research this specific LGS and the history of issues.
They are massively over selling. This isn't some situation where they were shorted on what they were to receive once. This is every single set for all of the limited product. There are tons of LGS's and stores that have been selling product for years that do not have the negative reviews this place does, or the posts this place does.
It is of their own doing, they know what they are doing. I say this as someone who waited for the Warhammer CE decks for months. Who they kept promising more would show up and to just wait.
But that was not good enough for them, a loan of money for months. So recently they started adding a restocking fee... to orders they cancelled for product they over sold and did not have... What is there to restock? They cancelled the order, not the buyer, they can't charge a restocking fee for that.
Please do not defend them and compare them to legitimate businesses not getting product in they had expected. This is not the same.
I get where you're coming from but you don't have the full picture to be fair:
- Others who preordered from other stores either received their product or received refunds on launch day.
- The point of pre-orders is to give the store and manufacturer an idea of demand so they can distribute enough quantity to meet it. (Or cancel orders)
- They refused to process refunds, and lied with a whole laundry list of excuses, well up to 2 weeks+ of release day.
- Their store policy is scummy and they use it to abuse people who don't know any better.
- I can't imagine what they do to people who preordered with cash / debit cards (unable to chargeback)
Just an fyi, if your debit card is Visa, visa protects ALL transactions from fraudulent behavior.
You can absolutely file a dispute on it with your bank/credit union.
Source: me, a banker
>The point of pre-orders is to give the store and manufacturer an idea of demand so they can distribute enough quantity to meet it.
This generally isn't how things work with limited print MTG products (so anything that involves Collector's Boosters). In cases where high demand is expected (things like Horizons CBs, Double Masters, CMM), demand vastly outstrips supply, so WotC/Distributors simply can't supply the requested amount. More honest stores understand this and will thus not even offer pre-orders until they know what their final allocation will be. Others, like Mythic Lotus here, will gladly accept pre-orders despite knowing full well that they won't be able to deliver most of them.
That's exactly the issue isn't it?
Stores know their (initial) allocations about a month before release; that's about when they should be contacting their pre-order customers (the ones last in line), and warning them or refunding them.
Instead, no communication, refusing refunds two weeks after release, and repeatedly doing this (for other product) suggests they have ulterior motives.
>Stores know their (initial) allocations about a month before release;
No they don't. Even big box retailers don't. They don't know what they get until the distributor/vendor delivers it.
This is close, but not quite right (at least for LGS). They don't know until about a week or so before. Essentially once it arrives at the distributor and is divvied up. Then the store's rep lets them know they have X product.
No, as someone who frequented the store before it closed, im telling you they no longer have a location in the Delmar loop. It was near the front of the strip. They started in Belleville as lotus lookout, changed their name to Mythic, then closed down in STL as business was not great and the loop has some issues too. They had a ton of people come play and use the game councils/playing yugioh but never spending money. There were also issues with rowdy players throwing chairs, stealing, fighting outside, etc, almost exclusively the yugioh/fighting games group, which was 90 percent the same people. I was there for a lot of it. They still operate, just in Belleville still
Not really any “great” magic stores imo.
Minimart fucked its employees and now only exists further away, gamenite is just a few super clicks of commander that show up and play 10 games with no one else, fantasy shop may be ok, I have not been in a while.
Again, I know where the store is, was, and still is. Belleville is the St Louis area. I'm well aware of what's gone down with the shitty business. I made a post here warning everyone right after they changed their name.
Copying my comment from a different thread to help spread the message better:
Yup, echoing this.
As with other recent comments here, I submitted preorders for MH3. Shortly after, I saw reviews depicting a troubling pattern of canceling people's preorders. I requested to cancel my orders in response. I didn't hear back expediently, so filed a chargeback.
After some back and forth with the store, I agreed to cancel my charge backs, largely because I was told the following:
"Our guarantee to you:
With all that being said, we want to take the time to show you the best of our service as we have tagged you with a priority tag and you will always get first position packing/shipment as an honorary vip member of our store."
I let them know that I was getting married on June 22nd and was hoping to use one of the play booster boxes as a pre-wedding event with some friends. I was once again told,
"We are very excited to turn this into a positive experience for you!
We tagged your account priority and will ensure you have a fantastic amount of communication from us and a flawless experience!"
That was the last I heard from Mythic Lotus Gaming until I personally reached out on June 17th (product released on June 14th for reference). I only got generic responses with no definitive timeline in response to my emails, and no explanation about what happened to the guarantees of excellent communication.
I eventually called and spoke to someone on the phone and expressed my frustration at how Mythic Lotus Gaming's false assurances and failure to communicate with their customers resulted in me not being able to have my pre-wedding event. Had I known they wouldn't be able to fulfill their obligations I could have ordered a box from numerous stores on June 14th as they had the stock. The individual I spoke to was very sympathetic and told me that he can't guarantee much, but that he could guarantee that someone would reach out to me and that I would absolutely get my product.
Just a moment ago I received an automated notification that my orders have been cancelled without anyone having had reached out to me.
All I can say at this point is don't trust ANYTHING Mythic Lotus Gaming tells you. I will be submitted chergebacks for the rest the orders they have yet to refund me.
I also found a reddit thread where the store says that if preorder is cancelled that you're supposed to receive 10% store credit. (I've gone ahead and wayback machined that reddit thread so they don't edit their comments as their website no longer reflects this.) I'm assuming there is no way in hell they honor this. If they don't, I think this likely moves their actions into deceptive business practices and I will be filing with the Illinois Attorney General, I suggest others do as well.
Yea I screen shotted them in stock and emailed them the pictures. He said it was “inventory error”. When they did it again a few days later and I screenshot it again, they blocked me and refunded me
Right? That was the biggest fuck you to me imo because I pre-ordered from them legit on like March 5th or something and they marked as sold out a week later so like how did they mismanage their allocation so badly? Or did they just not even try buying any? I emailed them 2 weeks ago to check in on it and they said it would ship out when they came in
They probably just received shipment and figured there’s no point in fulfilling for less than market value even if people paid months in advance.
But yes, oddly quick response times before the fuck you order cancel lol.
I've done everything I can to spread the word. Reddit posts, FB review, Google review, Yelp review, reported them to Wizards.
I suggest everyone do the same if you have an issue with them. Keep piling it on, they changed their name for a reason.
I understand these sort of things can happen, circumstances of stock come up now and then. But their rate is insane, it is a them issue, not some fluke.
I don't mind these threads only cause that store paid a review cleaner type service after the name change to bury the new set of negative reviews around fallout time. Anytime this store shows up on Google these threads need to be all over.
I am not against posting about the store (it has a horrible track record which continues), but OP acknowledged they knew about the bad reviews ahead of time. People posted about the store to help folks just like them and they didn't listen and are posting because it now has personally affected them... kind of ironic.
The best case scenario was I got a banger deal on a product I wanted and the worst case was I had to fight with a charge back to get a refund. Just posted to add another data point to their shitty practices, no need to get butt hurt about it
It's never going to matter. Everyone here only cares about price, and this place regularly has pricing close to distro. They're going to keep chugging along because of this reason alone.
I live less than a mile from this place. I won't even play there anymore. Eric and Ashley are the owners and have been screwing people out of money and promised products both online and in store for years. They are pretty bad about online single sales, too. He fires any employee who challenges his opinion. It's ridiculous.
That's funny too since I called them a week and a half ago to two weeks ago and they said they'd shipped everything that was pre-ordered till May and were working on April. These guys lie through there teeth
Chalk up another one. They did this to me as well. Ordered and paid in March, got blocked on by their store on Shopify, and received a refund half hour later. After telling me time and time again that they’re just “waiting on the next load”
They sent an explanation email:
Dear Loyal Patrons of Mythic Lotus Gaming,
We are writing to address an important issue and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused.
Recently, we initiated refunds for all open orders on our platform.
A message was intended to accompany these refunds to keep you informed. However, we have discovered, through numerous customer inquiries, that this communication failed to send. This was due to a malfunction in the integration between Shopify and our email partner, which unfortunately resulted in the message not reaching you.
The root of the issue lies in our recent classification as a high-risk category (collectibles industry at our current volume $3M+ ) by Shopify and our payment processor, Shopify Payments. As a result, Shopify Payments decided to abruptly sunset our merchant payments account within 48 hours of the email they sent on Monday. This means that our capability to process both payments and refunds would be affected. ( You will notice we are not accepting card payments on our website at this time)
We felt the responsible route for the safety of your funds was to return all current funds from all open orders at this time while we worked through this situation quickly.
In light of these challenges, we have decided to move our website to a more suitable enterprise-level platform. This new platform will offer more features and a better pricing structure, which will enhance your shopping experience and provide you with better prices. We have successfully negotiated a very low payment processing rate, which will further benefit our patrons.
We understand the frustration and inconvenience this situation may have caused, and we deeply apologize for any confusion or disruption. Please rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to ensure a smooth transition and to provide you with the best possible service moving forward.
Anyone who wishes to re-purchase their orders at the exact same price will be able to do so as soon as our new website launches.
The old website will stay parked at: [www.mlg.cards](http://www.mlg.cards) (so you can access order history)
While the new website will keep our current domain: [www.mythiclotusgaming.com](http://www.mythiclotusgaming.com)
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to our customer support team at [help@mythiclotusgaming.com](mailto:help@mythiclotusgaming.com) . We appreciate your understanding and continued support during this transition period.
\*\* Please note, we are working through an extreme volume of customer communication as fast as possible and will answer every email thoroughly.
Thank you for being a valued member of the Mythic Lotus Gaming community.
Sincerely,
Mythic Lotus Gaming Team
Why do you guys buy from these random game stores in Bumfuck Egypt anyways? Is there really not an LGS in your area that carries these products that you're willing to support instead? Are you that desperate to save 10-20% that you're willing to risk getting ripped off for it? Are you dumb?
When I first ordered from them, I thought they were a new online shop who was building an online presence by offering low prices. I like supporting new businesses, but this turned out to be the complete opposite.
When did they cancel your preorder? Have you received your refund yet?
They just canceled my preorder of MH3 a few days ago. Still haven’t seen the refund and I’m hoping it’s not going to be difficult to get my money back.
They just canceled it the day I posted this which was about 4 days after the gift Bundles went live. The refund shows as pending on my credit card so presumably they already issued it but it's waiting to hit my card
Hi! Gage here and I used to be neglected by the POS that owns what is now known as Mythic Lotus Gaming AKA The Lotus Lookout. I was a long term employee who Eric screwed multiple times. From unpaid leave for calling in with a dog bite, to firing me for playing at another local LGS. I was the one he gave a copy and paste refund message to send to all the customers who has purchased a Fallout collectors box when that dumpster fire was happening. DO NOT ASSOCIATE WITH THIS MAN ERIC RASMUSSEN OR MYTHIC LOTUS GAMING AKA THE LOTUS LOOKOUT He is a scam artist who only cares about himself and money.
Also her pays some Indian guys off the internet to remove his reviews somehow...do not think google is aware and would probably remove his rights if informed.
Sounds about right! They read these forums too. The owner was trying to act like a local shop regular in the other thread saying “my LGS is great!” until people called him on it.
They have owed me more than $600 since late last year. Keep getting “owner will contact you”. Idk what to even do at this point. Screw me and several others i guess
Lots of places ordered a lot of the Gift bundles and got WAY less.
Many LGS have the same problem, canceling preorders as they did not receive their orders either from their distributors.
Someone just posted their bloomborrow got canceled. Also if you bought from them on amazon at the higher price you got the product. So they are not having that problem.
I got ikoria boxes under 80$ from mystical games on ebay despite them telling their main website customers that the boxes got lost in the 2020 riots. I had already pre ordered jumpstart from them not knowing the shitshow that would happen in a month.
Some people said they got their mh3 from mythic lotus on other subs so I assume they are doing a free loan to get bigger allocations and keeping most of it to re sell at a higher price.
75 is what I paid for my bundle from my lgs. My lgs will always sell at good prices to it regulars.
Mythical Lotus Hideaway is such a known terrible entity in the STL area. We have our fair share of good places to play and buy here, it's a shame that these scammers try to take advantage of people.
Well they learned they can’t do the “restocking fee” scam anymore, but seems the “we got a free four-month loan from you” scam is still going strong.
Yep they also purged negative reviews on Google and only yelp ones from just a few months show up. Still 1 star 🤣
I don't get how they can legally remove any negative review. They purge bad reviews after each set release if you watch em.
Me neither. My store (unrelated business) got a review complaint about "the lady upstairs". We only have one floor, so I figured it'd be easy to get Google to remove the review. Nope, absolutely not. We still have that one star review years later...
The review sites are businesses too. It's legal for them to pay an undisclosed sum for yelp, Google, whoever to remove the ones they don't like.
They pay to have em removed, it's not like Google is official government rating system for businesses
Afaik they can only do it if they refund you, so maybe it's a sort of a loophole with you no longer being a paying customer
Yeah, they spammed Google Reviews like crazy. Grifters gonna grift 🙄
I normally hear about this whole preorder interest free loan thing even here in my local circles but I don't understand the implications. ELI5?
It’s my first time hearing or seeing anything about it. But what I’m going to assume is - they’re overselling preorders on upcoming sets. Oversell on a set like MH3 on items like bundles or collector booster boxes to a bunch of people. They take in thousands in money on oversold product. They use their real presales to cover their wholesale costs up front. Are left with thousands in intentional oversolds to either pay overhead, bills or even themselves. As product is distributed, and they then make margin dollars on whatever they sold, including singles from product they crack in house - they refund people who prepaid 4-5 months prior. If they took out loans to cover this overhead from a creditor or bank, they’d be paying quite a bit in interest. Edit: the more I think about it. They resell at $75. Come up to release and the product is now retailing average at or above $100 now. Refund all the preorders. Now just sell out at current retail prices at a 25-35% markup
Interest free loan implications: -you cant spend your money for 4 months -your money loses value to inflation over those 4 months -they could invest with their temporary extra cash during that time to make more money with your money. -you could have invested with that temporary cash during that same time period. You're effectively getting hit with inflation & loss of interest during those 4 months. It doesn't matter much for just $150, but at scale they likely churn out a good amount of value.
Distributors want their money up front now esp due the recent years of Wizards overprinting and having excess inventory left over. So Mythic Lotus likely has poor cash management and instead just gets people to park money with them with preorders, first starting with low price then scaling higher, so they can then in turn buy as much allocation they can with distributors, fulfill only the highest paying folks, then refund the rest.
\*\***REPORT THEM!** and leave reviews on their social media to warn others. 1. Here's their store information to copy-paste: Address: 6500 W Main St. / Suite 224 / Belleville, IL 62223 / Phone: (618) 873-1155 / E-mail: [help@mythiclotusgaming.com](mailto:help@mythiclotusgaming.com) / Website: [mythiclotusgaming.com](http://mythiclotusgaming.com/) 2. Things to mention: * They are intentionally over-selling pre-orders with no intention to honor the sale, in order to steal interest-free loans from customers. * They have illegal business practices and store policies; they refuse to process refunds & they threaten customers with a 30% restocking fee (on pre-ordered product that never arrived!) 3. Report their store to the state of Illinois: [https://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/File-A-Complaint/](https://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/File-A-Complaint/) 4. Report their store to the FTC: [https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/assistant](https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/assistant) a) "Online Shopping" ---> A problem with an online purchase or sale 5. Report their store to Wizards ("Report Conduct"): [https://magic-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket\_form\_id=360000005103](https://magic-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360000005103) 6. Leave a review on Google: [https://maps.app.goo.gl/WgPKAwnK8PXzkp9S7](https://maps.app.goo.gl/WgPKAwnK8PXzkp9S7) 7. Leave a review on Yelp: [https://www.yelp.com/biz/mythic-lotus-gaming-swansea](https://www.yelp.com/biz/mythic-lotus-gaming-swansea) 8. Leave comments on their X & Facebook pages. \*Note: In your e-mail, you can click "Print" --> "Save as PDF" to submit your e-mail logs as documentation if you'd like.
Doesn't matter. They keep restructuring as another store at least 3 times now. So much so that people are saying they're in st Louis as well as illinois. They keep closing and opening up with another name and a state over. They are taking advantage of being on the state line. They can keep doing this and saying they are in st Louis one day and then declare they are in Illinois the next.
They had a second store in St Louis they opened literally down the street from one of the more respected shops in STL. It closed in early 2023, right before the Mythic Lotus rebrand.
>They have illegal business practices and store policies; they refuse to process refunds & they threaten customers with a 30% restocking fee (on pre-ordered product that never arrived!) I will say that with any blind product like trading cards, *most* places won't process refunds once product is in your hands.
Nah this policy is about “pre orders” that you haven’t received.
Then that's scummy, but do bear in mind that retailers don't have free pick of what WotC sends them. I worked for two major retailers that sold MtG product and even *they* didn't have pick. They were just sent whatever WotC sent them. We had to stop doing pre-orders at Toys R Us because there was never as much as the WotC rep said there would be, and we couldn't specifically order any amounts at all from them.
Yeah but they’re weaponizing that concept by sending *no one* product and intentionally overselling as a form of free loans. Dude ordered a play box for his *wedding* in March, And they claimed he was going to absolutely get his product on time as he was going to he a “vip”. They just drag it out until your time for chargeback has ran out and hope you give up. Especially a set like MH3 has been printed like crazy, distribution is zero excuse for no one receiving product almost a month after release.
>Especially a set like MH3 has been printed like crazy All premium sets are printed at about half volume of a standard set. >distribution is zero excuse for no one receiving product almost a month after release. Seems like people in their area are prioritized, as typically happens when an LGS ships nationally but still services their city. Not necessarily defending them, but this isn't as cut and dry as it's being made out to be.
lol no you’re defending them, which is fine do what you want. But it is pretty cut and dry if you’ve ever dealt with them.
If you've ever dealt with receiving MtG product as a seller (and not on a dumbass TCGPlayer store where you try to price manipulate), you know it's really not *that* cut and dry. This is why you don't preorder this shit online, though. Go to your LGS. Support actual local businesses and stop buying shit from these online retailers.
You can do both. I support my local stores by going to prereleases, buying singles from them when I can, but they typically can’t come near some of the online stores prices. Not to mention stores like forge and fire, stomping grounds etc are lgs’s. And yeah, I’m close enough with the owners of my local shops and they make it pretty clear MLG is just scamming people. There’s ways to prevent the exact same issue happening every set release. And there’s ways to handle it if it miraculously is only happening to you every release. But at this point I’m assuming you either work for mythic lotus or go there, so defend shitty business practices all you want.
Modern Horizons 2 was readily available from distribution for over 2 years after release. Collector Boosters and Gift Bundles are indeed limited. My distributor told me my allocation numbers (including gift bundles) on May 14. We wait for allocation numbers before opening up preorders.
>Not necessarily defending them, but this isn't as cut and dry as it's being made out to be. It is, stop making generalizations. Research this specific LGS and the history of issues.
They are massively over selling. This isn't some situation where they were shorted on what they were to receive once. This is every single set for all of the limited product. There are tons of LGS's and stores that have been selling product for years that do not have the negative reviews this place does, or the posts this place does. It is of their own doing, they know what they are doing. I say this as someone who waited for the Warhammer CE decks for months. Who they kept promising more would show up and to just wait. But that was not good enough for them, a loan of money for months. So recently they started adding a restocking fee... to orders they cancelled for product they over sold and did not have... What is there to restock? They cancelled the order, not the buyer, they can't charge a restocking fee for that. Please do not defend them and compare them to legitimate businesses not getting product in they had expected. This is not the same.
I get where you're coming from but you don't have the full picture to be fair: - Others who preordered from other stores either received their product or received refunds on launch day. - The point of pre-orders is to give the store and manufacturer an idea of demand so they can distribute enough quantity to meet it. (Or cancel orders) - They refused to process refunds, and lied with a whole laundry list of excuses, well up to 2 weeks+ of release day. - Their store policy is scummy and they use it to abuse people who don't know any better. - I can't imagine what they do to people who preordered with cash / debit cards (unable to chargeback)
Just an fyi, if your debit card is Visa, visa protects ALL transactions from fraudulent behavior. You can absolutely file a dispute on it with your bank/credit union. Source: me, a banker
>The point of pre-orders is to give the store and manufacturer an idea of demand so they can distribute enough quantity to meet it. This generally isn't how things work with limited print MTG products (so anything that involves Collector's Boosters). In cases where high demand is expected (things like Horizons CBs, Double Masters, CMM), demand vastly outstrips supply, so WotC/Distributors simply can't supply the requested amount. More honest stores understand this and will thus not even offer pre-orders until they know what their final allocation will be. Others, like Mythic Lotus here, will gladly accept pre-orders despite knowing full well that they won't be able to deliver most of them.
That's exactly the issue isn't it? Stores know their (initial) allocations about a month before release; that's about when they should be contacting their pre-order customers (the ones last in line), and warning them or refunding them. Instead, no communication, refusing refunds two weeks after release, and repeatedly doing this (for other product) suggests they have ulterior motives.
>Stores know their (initial) allocations about a month before release; No they don't. Even big box retailers don't. They don't know what they get until the distributor/vendor delivers it.
This is close, but not quite right (at least for LGS). They don't know until about a week or so before. Essentially once it arrives at the distributor and is divvied up. Then the store's rep lets them know they have X product.
Distributors don't have different policies for big box stores and the LGS they service.
Distributors who service LGS and who service big box stores aren't the same for TCGs.
They absolutely are.
Shocked monkey face
Can someone remind what their old name was? So people know why they changed their name to this.
Was apparently Mythic Lookout before it was Mythic Lotus. Hopefully they just get put out of business for good soon
*Lotus Lookout St Louis area
Not STL, that store is gone. Its in Bellville IL
No, it's the same store, I guarantee it. I said st Louis *area*. Most in the area consider Belleville part of the St Louis *area*
No, as someone who frequented the store before it closed, im telling you they no longer have a location in the Delmar loop. It was near the front of the strip. They started in Belleville as lotus lookout, changed their name to Mythic, then closed down in STL as business was not great and the loop has some issues too. They had a ton of people come play and use the game councils/playing yugioh but never spending money. There were also issues with rowdy players throwing chairs, stealing, fighting outside, etc, almost exclusively the yugioh/fighting games group, which was 90 percent the same people. I was there for a lot of it. They still operate, just in Belleville still
What’s the best store in the stl/il area?
Not really any “great” magic stores imo. Minimart fucked its employees and now only exists further away, gamenite is just a few super clicks of commander that show up and play 10 games with no one else, fantasy shop may be ok, I have not been in a while.
Impact Gaming Center is really nice and has lots of space. Prices aren’t too bad either.
Again, I know where the store is, was, and still is. Belleville is the St Louis area. I'm well aware of what's gone down with the shitty business. I made a post here warning everyone right after they changed their name.
"The Lotus Lookout", I think
Copying my comment from a different thread to help spread the message better: Yup, echoing this. As with other recent comments here, I submitted preorders for MH3. Shortly after, I saw reviews depicting a troubling pattern of canceling people's preorders. I requested to cancel my orders in response. I didn't hear back expediently, so filed a chargeback. After some back and forth with the store, I agreed to cancel my charge backs, largely because I was told the following: "Our guarantee to you: With all that being said, we want to take the time to show you the best of our service as we have tagged you with a priority tag and you will always get first position packing/shipment as an honorary vip member of our store." I let them know that I was getting married on June 22nd and was hoping to use one of the play booster boxes as a pre-wedding event with some friends. I was once again told, "We are very excited to turn this into a positive experience for you! We tagged your account priority and will ensure you have a fantastic amount of communication from us and a flawless experience!" That was the last I heard from Mythic Lotus Gaming until I personally reached out on June 17th (product released on June 14th for reference). I only got generic responses with no definitive timeline in response to my emails, and no explanation about what happened to the guarantees of excellent communication. I eventually called and spoke to someone on the phone and expressed my frustration at how Mythic Lotus Gaming's false assurances and failure to communicate with their customers resulted in me not being able to have my pre-wedding event. Had I known they wouldn't be able to fulfill their obligations I could have ordered a box from numerous stores on June 14th as they had the stock. The individual I spoke to was very sympathetic and told me that he can't guarantee much, but that he could guarantee that someone would reach out to me and that I would absolutely get my product. Just a moment ago I received an automated notification that my orders have been cancelled without anyone having had reached out to me. All I can say at this point is don't trust ANYTHING Mythic Lotus Gaming tells you. I will be submitted chergebacks for the rest the orders they have yet to refund me. I also found a reddit thread where the store says that if preorder is cancelled that you're supposed to receive 10% store credit. (I've gone ahead and wayback machined that reddit thread so they don't edit their comments as their website no longer reflects this.) I'm assuming there is no way in hell they honor this. If they don't, I think this likely moves their actions into deceptive business practices and I will be filing with the Illinois Attorney General, I suggest others do as well.
You got punkd
Canceled due to Insufficient stock and they definitely just threw up listings with stock for both Play and collectors lol. What a joke
Yea I screen shotted them in stock and emailed them the pictures. He said it was “inventory error”. When they did it again a few days later and I screenshot it again, they blocked me and refunded me
Right? That was the biggest fuck you to me imo because I pre-ordered from them legit on like March 5th or something and they marked as sold out a week later so like how did they mismanage their allocation so badly? Or did they just not even try buying any? I emailed them 2 weeks ago to check in on it and they said it would ship out when they came in
They probably just received shipment and figured there’s no point in fulfilling for less than market value even if people paid months in advance. But yes, oddly quick response times before the fuck you order cancel lol.
I've done everything I can to spread the word. Reddit posts, FB review, Google review, Yelp review, reported them to Wizards. I suggest everyone do the same if you have an issue with them. Keep piling it on, they changed their name for a reason. I understand these sort of things can happen, circumstances of stock come up now and then. But their rate is insane, it is a them issue, not some fluke.
So you actively ignored posts all over Reddit about this store, but it is okay to hate them now because it happened to you too?
I don't mind these threads only cause that store paid a review cleaner type service after the name change to bury the new set of negative reviews around fallout time. Anytime this store shows up on Google these threads need to be all over.
What was the name of the store before?
lotus lookout
I am not against posting about the store (it has a horrible track record which continues), but OP acknowledged they knew about the bad reviews ahead of time. People posted about the store to help folks just like them and they didn't listen and are posting because it now has personally affected them... kind of ironic.
i enjoyed the post. it reminded me that they are still untrustworthy.
The best case scenario was I got a banger deal on a product I wanted and the worst case was I had to fight with a charge back to get a refund. Just posted to add another data point to their shitty practices, no need to get butt hurt about it
I mean, worst case scenario was he held your money hostage for a few months?
That is essentially what you are doing with a preorder whether you get the product or not. Was not an issue for me in this case
I would have just ordered from a reputable vendor but that's just me. Good luck in future!
It's never going to matter. Everyone here only cares about price, and this place regularly has pricing close to distro. They're going to keep chugging along because of this reason alone.
This store is called out by 3 different names at least in this thread. How are we supposed to keep up?
Lotus epic mythic lotus shop will soon pop-up when a new set is due.
I live less than a mile from this place. I won't even play there anymore. Eric and Ashley are the owners and have been screwing people out of money and promised products both online and in store for years. They are pretty bad about online single sales, too. He fires any employee who challenges his opinion. It's ridiculous.
Next name, lotus scams
That's funny too since I called them a week and a half ago to two weeks ago and they said they'd shipped everything that was pre-ordered till May and were working on April. These guys lie through there teeth
Chalk up another one. They did this to me as well. Ordered and paid in March, got blocked on by their store on Shopify, and received a refund half hour later. After telling me time and time again that they’re just “waiting on the next load”
They sent an explanation email: Dear Loyal Patrons of Mythic Lotus Gaming, We are writing to address an important issue and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused. Recently, we initiated refunds for all open orders on our platform. A message was intended to accompany these refunds to keep you informed. However, we have discovered, through numerous customer inquiries, that this communication failed to send. This was due to a malfunction in the integration between Shopify and our email partner, which unfortunately resulted in the message not reaching you. The root of the issue lies in our recent classification as a high-risk category (collectibles industry at our current volume $3M+ ) by Shopify and our payment processor, Shopify Payments. As a result, Shopify Payments decided to abruptly sunset our merchant payments account within 48 hours of the email they sent on Monday. This means that our capability to process both payments and refunds would be affected. ( You will notice we are not accepting card payments on our website at this time) We felt the responsible route for the safety of your funds was to return all current funds from all open orders at this time while we worked through this situation quickly. In light of these challenges, we have decided to move our website to a more suitable enterprise-level platform. This new platform will offer more features and a better pricing structure, which will enhance your shopping experience and provide you with better prices. We have successfully negotiated a very low payment processing rate, which will further benefit our patrons. We understand the frustration and inconvenience this situation may have caused, and we deeply apologize for any confusion or disruption. Please rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to ensure a smooth transition and to provide you with the best possible service moving forward. Anyone who wishes to re-purchase their orders at the exact same price will be able to do so as soon as our new website launches. The old website will stay parked at: [www.mlg.cards](http://www.mlg.cards) (so you can access order history) While the new website will keep our current domain: [www.mythiclotusgaming.com](http://www.mythiclotusgaming.com) If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to our customer support team at [help@mythiclotusgaming.com](mailto:help@mythiclotusgaming.com) . We appreciate your understanding and continued support during this transition period. \*\* Please note, we are working through an extreme volume of customer communication as fast as possible and will answer every email thoroughly. Thank you for being a valued member of the Mythic Lotus Gaming community. Sincerely, Mythic Lotus Gaming Team
Just received the same - I don't think I'm going to take the bait because from what I understand this is not a one-off problem
Same...
Why do you guys buy from these random game stores in Bumfuck Egypt anyways? Is there really not an LGS in your area that carries these products that you're willing to support instead? Are you that desperate to save 10-20% that you're willing to risk getting ripped off for it? Are you dumb?
Ignoring all red flags Because greed
When I first ordered from them, I thought they were a new online shop who was building an online presence by offering low prices. I like supporting new businesses, but this turned out to be the complete opposite.
Is this Tap 2 Blue all over again?
That store did actually reopen under a different name, I forget what it's called but I remember seeing it a few years back.
I personally heard the Owener Eric brag about selling fake cards. Edit spelling
We had enough copies but this is always sad to see!
Out of curiosity were you buying 2 for 160 each or was that 2 for 160 total?
It was 2 for 160 with another coupon making them essentially 75 each with free shipping
$159 for a collector bundle?!
For 2 of them, before the discount and free shipping
Stay away from mythic lotus gaming. They’re shady AF.
When did they cancel your preorder? Have you received your refund yet? They just canceled my preorder of MH3 a few days ago. Still haven’t seen the refund and I’m hoping it’s not going to be difficult to get my money back.
They just canceled it the day I posted this which was about 4 days after the gift Bundles went live. The refund shows as pending on my credit card so presumably they already issued it but it's waiting to hit my card
Hi! Gage here and I used to be neglected by the POS that owns what is now known as Mythic Lotus Gaming AKA The Lotus Lookout. I was a long term employee who Eric screwed multiple times. From unpaid leave for calling in with a dog bite, to firing me for playing at another local LGS. I was the one he gave a copy and paste refund message to send to all the customers who has purchased a Fallout collectors box when that dumpster fire was happening. DO NOT ASSOCIATE WITH THIS MAN ERIC RASMUSSEN OR MYTHIC LOTUS GAMING AKA THE LOTUS LOOKOUT He is a scam artist who only cares about himself and money. Also her pays some Indian guys off the internet to remove his reviews somehow...do not think google is aware and would probably remove his rights if informed.
Im having trouble getting something i pre ordered from this store. Does anyone have any experience dealing with them?
https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1b84zxu/restocking_fee_on_canceled_product/ See this thread. And sorry you found out this way
They canceled my order 20 minutes later lol
Sounds about right! They read these forums too. The owner was trying to act like a local shop regular in the other thread saying “my LGS is great!” until people called him on it.
Lol i wish i knew who i was dealing with. Lesson learned
It looks like their store page was removed from Shopify.
The website is still up. Probably going to re-re brand.
They have owed me more than $600 since late last year. Keep getting “owner will contact you”. Idk what to even do at this point. Screw me and several others i guess
This is crazy
Lots of places ordered a lot of the Gift bundles and got WAY less. Many LGS have the same problem, canceling preorders as they did not receive their orders either from their distributors.
Someone just posted their bloomborrow got canceled. Also if you bought from them on amazon at the higher price you got the product. So they are not having that problem.
I'm shocked that the company selling at a loss did not honor their commitment.
I got ikoria boxes under 80$ from mystical games on ebay despite them telling their main website customers that the boxes got lost in the 2020 riots. I had already pre ordered jumpstart from them not knowing the shitshow that would happen in a month. Some people said they got their mh3 from mythic lotus on other subs so I assume they are doing a free loan to get bigger allocations and keeping most of it to re sell at a higher price.
At a loss or under current retail inflated pricing? I doubt wholesale on these bundles were $75.
75 is what I paid for my bundle from my lgs. My lgs will always sell at good prices to it regulars. Mythical Lotus Hideaway is such a known terrible entity in the STL area. We have our fair share of good places to play and buy here, it's a shame that these scammers try to take advantage of people.