2011 Topps Chrome USA Sets — Piss Off.

One of the neater things about 2011 Topps Chrome were the redemption cards for a 2011 Topps Chrome USA Set.

It harkens back to the day of scoring the AFLAC Sets in various colors. It was terrific in 2005 and it’s terrific now. I actually bought one maybe a year ago but have left it unopened.

Anyways, Topps fires out an email:

Topps is clarifying that the redemption card in the just-released 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball stating “ You have just received a set of 2011 USA Baseball Collegiate National Team Autograph Cards” is good for either a 5 or 6 card pack of USA Autographs and not all 22 subjects.

All USA Autographs are incremental hits on top of the 2 on-card Rookie Autographs guaranteed per hobby box.

USA Autographs are also featured on the following parallels:

Refractor

Blue Refractor

Gold Refractor

Atomic Refractor

Red Refractor

Superfractor

Printing Plates

It’s Not Like There’s A Bunch Of Sets Ending Today, Right?

To me, this sounds like Topps originally intended on doing one of those: SURPRISE! KEEP YOUR 2011 TOPPS CHROME PACKS, WE’RE DOING A REDEMPTION PACK GIVEAWAY AGAIN!, but decided that they’d pull a switcheroooo but were incredibly lazy and decided to completely eliminate the redemption cards for a set.

Topps clearly knew about this complete and utter bullshit months ago, but they waited until the product was live to release the image.

If I received one of these redemption cards, I would do everything in my power to demand a set unless it was thoroughly advertised on the packaging or advertising material.

Topps will continue to pull this type of bullshit until enough people genuinely call them on it. It’s free to file a complaint with the BBB and any number of state and federal organizations that regulate advertising.

I certainly cannot be the only one infuriated that Topps continues to wait until the actual release date to update the product information through every channel EXCEPT at the point of freakin’ sale.

There are a lot of people that will open trading cards regardless of their content, but guess what? Most people just want to know what the hell they’re opening. Topps continues to get more brazen with their bait and switch tactics with each release and eventually the collector is going to have to stand up and call BS.