Pokémon Scalpers Buy Up Cereal Boxes For Cards

Childhood fantasies of earning Pokémon cards from cereal boxes are being crushed as full-grown adult scalpers are stealing cards and ruining the fun.

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Scalpers are reportedly stockpiling and even stealing special cereal boxes in an effort to scalp limited edition Pokémon trading cards. An ongoing promotion between the Pokémon Trading Card Game and General Mills is part of the Pokémon’s 25th anniversary celebration, with other partnerships in 2021 including McDonald’s, Post Malone, and Katy Perry.

As part of the cereal box promo, there are 14 total Pokémon cards to collect from three-card Pokémon packs in specially marked General Mills cereal boxes. Some packs can include a Pikachu, Ponyta, or Gossifleur, each with special holofoil treatment. There are six total holofoil cards and eight regular cards to collect, but scalpers have made it extremely difficult for anyone to actually find the boxes in stores. While valuable Pokémon cards have always been highly sought after by collectors and investors alike, scalpers have begun to take too far since the trading card game’s sudden revival in popularity.

As reported by Nintendo Life, scalpers have nearly ruined the latest Pokémon promotion by buying up excessive amounts of the promotional cereal, hoarding the limited edition cards, and then reselling them for a profit. From real estate investors buying up entire pallets of cereal boxes to everyday scalpers stealing cards in the cereal aisle, scalpers have completely stripped the General Mills promotion of its fun and mystery. Now, eBay is filled with promo cards and packs, all of which are of course being sold for higher price than the cereal boxes they came from.

The wealthy family in my hometown owns a card store and last week i went to their rummage sale. There were literally pallets and pallets of years old cereal boxes that came with free pokemon cards originally, but there was a sign that said all the card packs had been taken out pic.twitter.com/zOdrN6YM6d

So-called investors have bought cereal boxes in bulk to ensure fewer people can get their hands on the entire set, bumping up the price of certain individual cards. The tweet above shows a wholesaler stockpiling boxes and stripping them of their promo cards before reselling the cereal. The wrongdoers will likely hold on to the cards until the prices skyrocket since few people aren’t able to afford this tactic. Instead, they’ll likely go on eBay to fill out their collection.

A trend also has scalpers breaking open cereal boxes in stores, ripping the promo cards from within before leaving the tampered box. Most supermarkets are forced to throw those boxes away, losing the profit from the cereal and wasting food. It’s a horrible tactic and ruins the fun of collecting.

As of late, stores like Target have been forced to limit purchases of Pokémon card packs to prolong stock amid the card game’s sudden and aggressive resurgence. However, the ongoing cereal box and McDonald’s misbehavior takes the scalping way too far, ripping the joy of finishing a cereal box and earning a reward from children’s hands. Scalping has quickly grown into an industry-wide problem, and something needs to be done from the top-down to prevent this and other forms of scalping.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/pokemon-card-game-packs-cereal-box-scalper-trix/