Break FAQ & Group Guidelines
Break Schedule
We do not broadcast all night long while we wait for breaks to fill. All of our breaks are pre-filled before we go live and have scheduled break times. We believe it saves you AND us time when you don’t have to guess at what time your break might fill and open. Please refrain from “any breaks today?” posts, we receive dozens per day. Our day shifts go live at Noon CT and our evening shifts go live at 7pm CT. We host breaks every night of the week as well as most afternoons and our most common schedule is as follows:
Friday – Tom and/or Ryan
Saturday – Titus (AM) & Emil (PM)
Sunday – Tom (AM) & Bone (PM)
Monday – Titus (AM) & Tom (PM)
Tuesday – Evening Break Battles with Titus & Emil
Wednesday – Tom and/or Ryan (New Product Release Day)
Thursday – Emil (AM) & Titus (PM)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a “group break”?
A group break allows a group of collectors to join together in the purchase of a large volume of sports cards (usually a case or multiple boxes) and split the cost by purchasing a share of the teams/spots. The case and/or boxes are then opened LIVE on our page and each participant receives the cards for the teams/spots they purchased. The two most common types of breaks are (1) Pick Your Team breaks where each team is assigned their own price based on their demand and the product checklist and (2) Random Team Breaks where all spots are the same price and random teams are assigned (using an online randomizer) after the spots have all filled.
Why should I join a group break?
Group breaks have a variety of advantages over purchasing your own boxes or packs of cards. Group breaks are a social event that you can enjoy watching with others on an interactive, online LIVE stream. You can cheer for your friends when they get big hits and they can do the same for you! Group breaks can allow you to focus your buying on a specific team(s) or player(s) instead of gaining a bunch of cards you may not care about in a box/pack. Group breaks also allow you to experience high-end products that may be cost prohibitive by sharing the cost with other participants.
Why should I join group breaks with Real Breaks?
We provide entertaining and educational videos in a family friendly environment that is safe and inclusive for all ages and collectors. You’ll always be treated with respect whether you buy our breaks or just love to watch and we’ll never pressure you to participate. All of our breaks have scheduled break times so you don’t have to hang out all night online wondering when the break will fill and the product will be opened. As much as we can say about our page, it all boils down to our members. Our members make us who we are and make this the best place to do group breaks on Facebook or any other platform.
How do I buy into a break?
We sell 100% of our breaks on our Facebook page. We currently host 70+ breaks per week by creating a post on our page with all of the details of the break including: Product Information, Price, # of spots, Payment information, and a scheduled break time. You can claim a spot in the break by commenting on the break post. For Pick Your Team (PYT) breaks you should comment your desired team (first come, first serve). For Random Team breaks you should comment how many spots you would like on the break post. Our breaks fill very quickly so we recommend turning on your notifications for our page. This will alert you when we have posted a new break and alert you when we go LIVE for a break. We have limited posting on our page to Admins only so you will not receive a bunch of spam notifications for people trying to sell other things, asking questions, or other random posts. We accept payments via PayPal which includes all credit cards. Payment is requested at the time you reserve your team(s)/spot(s).
General Rules
1) We are a family-friendly group breaks page. This means we expect all posts, comments, videos, and video chat to contain language and topics that are safe for children and respectful to everyone. We have a zero-tolerance policy on this rule. Violations will result in your removal from our page. We don’t care or judge how you speak at home but we ask that you respect our expectations for this community.
2) We do not tag people on break posts. The list of people desiring to be tagged is simply too large to manage in a fair way. The best way to receive prompt notification of our breaks is to turn on your notifications for our page. We have restricted all posts to Admins only so you will not be spammed with numerous notifications from other people. If you still do not wish to turn on notifications, we recommend you use the “buddy system” where you arrange with a group of your friends to tag you when a new break is posted.
3) Your address MUST be correct in PayPal. We often ship 100+ packages in a day using PayPal’s multi-ship application. This is automated and pulls the address information directly from your PayPal payment. Also, our seller protection is only in place if we ship to the address on the transaction record. If you request a different ship-to address we will request that you resend your payment with the correct address.
4) Your Facebook profile must be a personal profile and not feature advertisements for other businesses or groups that are visible to the community. We ask that your profile image does not contain anything profane or controversial that might be disruptive in our family-friendly community.
Reselling/Trading Spots
Due to the high demand of our PYT and Random breaks we do not allow the resale of PYT teams or Random spots before teams are assigned. This is simply to prevent a “scalper” effect where people online grab teams purely with the intent of flipping them for profit.
In the event someone wants to transfer their spot to another participant we will refund the original owner and receive payment from the new owner. This allows us to more easily track shipments and delivery. If a random break has a waitlist, the vacated spot will transfer to the first person on the waitlist and NOT to another party.
We do allow trading of teams in a Random break after they are assigned. Actually, we highly encourage it, that’s a big part of the fun!! If you trade your random team we need a PM from each party in the trade. Trades are not completed until both PMs are sent to the host and confirmed.
Minis & Fillers & Megas
Some group break pages use contests called minis/fillers/megas to raffle off unsold spots in their breaks. We have chosen not to use this break filling strategy because industry lawyers have concluded that these online games of chance are illegal. Federal and state laws prohibit online games of chance where people pay for a chance to win a prize (eg. 10 people each pay $10 for a chance to win a $100 prize). We believe that using these tools puts our families at risk and we are blessed with such amazing membership we don’t need them to fill our breaks!
Group Break Protocol
1) All videos are hosted in our group using Facebook LIVE and are saved to be watched or reviewed at a later time. Breaks will also typically stream to YouTube, Twitter and Twitch but may be limited on these platforms when two hosts are live concurrently.
2) Random Team Assignments are performed on www.random.org using the Multi-Round Giveaway Service and broadcasted using Facebook LIVE.
3) The number of times a participant list is randomized is decided using the Roll Dice feature on the Multi-Round Giveaway Service and must be a minimum of four times. A dice roll of less than four will be re-rolled.
4) An excel or other spreadsheet containing alphabetized teams (by name or by city) is used for Random Team Assignments. The final randomized list of participants is copied and pasted into the spreadsheet to match participants to their team. The team list is NOT randomized (this does not make it “more” random), ask a statistics expert).
PayPal
We only accept PayPal payments via “Goods & Services”. This is for protection of both the buyer and seller. This form of payment also provides us with the necessary shipping information for your purchase. Please do not send payments via “Friends & Family”.
Refund Policy (Updated 05/07/19)
PayPal no longer refunds the fees portion of a payment. If you make a payment in error (wrong amount, spot was not confirmed, wrong host, etc) you will have two options, (1) You may request a refund less the PayPal fees or (2) You may keep the full amount as break credit to be used on a future break with the host who received it.
Shipping
All product is well packaged in bubble mailers or boxes to protect your purchase. Our default method of shipping is USPS First Class but may be upgraded to Priority Mail at the seller’s discretion. We strive to ship all breaks within 3 business days of the LIVE break and often before then. We may charge an additional fee for international shipments. Please ask about international shipments before purchasing your spot in a break. Tracking is automatically emailed to the PayPal email used for payment any time a shipment is created.
Questions?
We’re always happy to chat.