It looks like Fun Publications are following Hasbro Incs lead and are now starting to take action against eBay auctions for samples of this years Botcon toys. The following was posted on this thread over at talk.transformers

" 寄件人: "Brian Savage" <brian@mastercollector.com>
收件人:
標題: Stolen BotCon items
日期: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:43:20 -0500
This is going out to each Ebay seller who has recently tried to auction
BotCon toys. All of they toys you are selling are stolen. You know
this
when you buy them out of the package.

As you see, I have the power to cancel your auctions and I have each of
your personal information provided by Ebay.

If you do not want us to continue prosecuting you through the police
and
Ebay (who will cancel your account), you need to return the stolen
property to me or to Hasbro in China.

If I don't here back from you that you have shipped our items back in
48
hours, I will press forward with both Ebay and the police. Consider
this your only warning.

You can send the items to me at:

Brian Savage
Fun Publications, Inc.
225 Cattle Baron Parc Dr
Fort Worth Texas 76108

or

Antony Bao
Hasbro
$)AIn[Z;*GH3G6+2?9$R5Gx6~:E3'7?NeB%/ Antony Bao/ 0755-26901222-693

Thanks for your attention in this matter. Even if YOU didn't steal it.

Selling stolen property is a punishable offense.

Do not ever purchase ANY Transformers from Chinese auctions or vendors
as Hasbro is also looking to prosecute.

Regards,

Brian Savage".

The responses have been quiet interesting with some comments talking about the difficult to take legal action against non-US residents, mentioning that the earlier auctions were not stopped and sold for more money, and that, outside of Botcon, there are many other pre-releases being sold on ebay.

Whether this has any affect on the auctions or not we shall see, though we expect the trend will continue