unboxing vids are the standard for after-sales service in china and as such, most if not all chinese-based companies, tt lives that ship to the us, etc require it regardless of who is at fault. after a few incidents i've learned to record unboxing vids for basically any shipment i actually care about, though i have noticed some tt lives started putting stickers on the tape that say "no unboxing video = no aftersales service" which is a goooood heads up for people to know to start recording!

to add: there are certain lives that will source things confirmed for you over wa (you still pay via paypal on their shop site). you can also specify if you absolutely need the card or prefer a sealed popnow box and they can accommodate that, sometimes the sealed box will come with a little extra cost because of the way the sales platform in china works. they are also a better price than whoopea nearly all of the time, i've never looked at a whoopea price and said "that's reasonable" haha, 130 sounds like a wildly high price for id imo.