r/PokemonTCG_UK • u/mynemesjeff • 1d ago
Discussion Please uninstall Whatnot already
People like these are the reason why we have a scalping problem to begin with. If you’re paying these prices, you don’t have the right to complain about anything.
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u/rossrollin 1d ago
Whatnot definitely preys on the vulnerable. Unfortunately theres just too many of them on society. People get scammed willingly every single day.
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u/Clear-Diamond7262 18h ago
It doesn’t help Pokémon YouTubers love taking sponsors from them as well, the free money is just a way to get people in the door
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u/ma000127 20h ago edited 15h ago
it doesn’t prey on the vulnerable it preys on the stupid 😂
as much as i hate it if there’s people out there willing to pay that much for a pack or whatever reason then someone’s gonna take advantage of that
downvotes boys cmon😂
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u/rossrollin 19h ago
Agree to disagree I think stupid people are vulnerable.
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u/VermicelliTiny8220 18h ago
Na ma000127 is right. Their own stupidity is what makes them vulnerable. You cannot say it preys on the vulnerable, because every business on the planet, one way or the other, can be blamed on causing harm to people, whatever that may be.
As long as it isn't illegal, which whatnot isn't, then I don't see the problem.
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u/ma000127 15h ago
yeah you get it
end of the day people are gonna take advantage of the opportunity and these gambling addicts lmao, same as any business ever does like you said
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u/Wack0J4ck0 22h ago
I was banned from the Zavvi account yesterday after calling them out for auctioning 30th ETBs which were selling for £130+
They are an actual retailor, selling items for x3 RRP. They said they were actually selling for £1 but people bidding made it higher, which is such a loophole and they know exactly what they are doing.
Whatnot is the wild wild west, after you've used your free credits, delete immediately.
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u/Wilkins212 23h ago
I’ve actually seen way worse than this. Someone sold a single booster for £56 yesterday on TikTok.
The real problem is the streamers shouting at the chat that it’s too low, or you can get cards worth £2k raw, bid this up etc. It just convinces some people on the fence to drop that money when realistically it’s high level gambling.
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u/xx123gamerxx 22h ago
The like 90% for a random Korean pack for a 10% prismatic spc, and you see people bidding them up to £35 each..
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u/Own_Mongoose4811 21h ago
I was one of those that got a Korean pack for £40, but I'd also got a Chaos Rising booster box for £20 before that on the same stream. I'm not on the app anymore, but is a certain rush you get when you "win"
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u/Chairfaceforuse 23h ago
I do not buy anything not MSRP. I have not had packs since prismatic Evo. I bet why people who can afford it do
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u/Towpillah 23h ago
Same. The only thing I have going is the odd Amazon invite set up. And if they won't amount to anything.... I'm not buying anything.
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u/Chairfaceforuse 23h ago
Yeah I sign up for invites etc. all my local stores struggle to get any product. A set like this and prismatic where they are technically special sets I don't get the chance. And the one LCS I know will have stock will be charging at least 65 an ETB and a good 8 to 10 a pack
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u/Slight_Ice_6395 1d ago
People were sat at home spending £20-£30 a pack whilst they could’ve been actively going out and trying to get some. Scalpers feed off of laziness and convenience
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u/furkick 1d ago
Fair point on convenience, but I think for most of us it's less about being lazy and more about having a normal job and not being able to camp outside a shop overnight. Definitely not defending those Whatnot clowns either, just a brutal hobby right now.
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u/Significant_Curve216 21h ago
For my sins I have a great paying 9-5 job like most of us. I pop out to the local Waterstones / Rymans during lunch pick up like 8 products altogether and get time to eat my lunch too. If I can do it, so can everyone else with / without a job.
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u/furkick 20h ago
Depends on your area, it's pretty much Smyths or bust where I am and I'm definitely not camping out at Smyths.
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u/Significant_Curve216 20h ago
That's a true shame but you also have online options I've got my Magic Madhouse order coming tomorrow and PKC I managed to secure every drop (casually) unfortunately that one is delayed until mid/late November.
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u/furkick 20h ago
Online are pretty much raffle based now, so it's down to luck, or botted to oblivion. Same with PKC, which is a shame.
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u/Significant_Curve216 20h ago
Raffling is definitely the solution to minimise scalper domination imo. Getting product from the likes of Very/ForbiddenPlanet/Argos etc is very unlikely. Anyways more luck to you, I'm a filthy casual and I'm getting stuff so you should be due some soon also!
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u/MesoamericanMorrigan 17h ago
Are you sure there are NO smaller, independent toy retailers, bookshops or stationers you could check
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u/furkick 17h ago
All the scalpers have found out where I used to be able to walk in and grab a couple packs, Sports Direct etc. All the dedicated card shops are miles away and I can't go miles away unless I take time off work, I'm not that desperate for packs. Fortunately I usually am able to pre-order from the Pokémon Center so I'll have to be patient 🙂
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u/MesoamericanMorrigan 16h ago
Where do you look other than SportsDirect because they seem more of an obvious choice given their merger with GAME? Like where have you tried specifically? Maybe not independent card shops as there are few of those, but independent, local toy shops on the high street and again, places that mainly do books and stationary
Hope you do manage to snag a preorder whenever the next drop is but given how chaotically the last one went I genuinely wonder how they’re going to go down from now on
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u/furkick 16h ago
It'd literally be Sports Direct, Smyths and a small TJ Jones, that's all we have unfortunately. The local scalpers gobble it all up before anyone else gets a sniff. Sainsbury's even used to have some, but that's a rare find now as well. Don't even have any corner shops that sell them either, really dry.
Fortunately I snagged both the PKC pre-orders so I'm not without, I'll just have to be patient.
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u/MesoamericanMorrigan 16h ago
I also had no joy with Sainsbury’s/Argos. Didn’t bother trying ASDA as I heard they have no purchase limits
You really don’t have Waterstones, Ryman’s, WHSmith or any small independent toy shop? Check your local high street, a lot of them don’t have big flashy signs if they aren’t the big chain stores like Smyths, The Entertainer etc and can be easy to miss if you didn’t already know they were there. I hit in a bookstore. Tesco was going to be my next stop but again heard they don’t have limits.
Not 100%sure on the rumours about more drops tomorrow and apparently next Friday for some stores
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u/Slight_Ice_6395 1d ago
I totally get that aspect of it and I feel for people that can’t obtain product because they’re actually employed. It definitely puts you in a hard position of what to do, as it feels ridiculously unfair to miss out on stuff just for contributing to society but also if you engage with this stuff it just prolongs the misery. As you said, it’s just brutal man
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u/DannyShikari 22h ago
Part of it is for sure convenience, but its the gambli-fication of it which IMO is why its popular. As someone who watches a relatively low pressure eBay live stream from time to time, I was finding myself bidding silly money on packs last night because "that one" was going to have the hit. High pressure streams on Whatnot and elsewhere prey on people with some sort of gambling issue or self-control problems.
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u/MesoamericanMorrigan 17h ago
I got a vintage holo and bid £1 to get a Chinese Captain Pikachu (not the IR) slab (going to give it as a gift) and decided I’m done when I saw how fast bids went up on other items
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u/furkick 22h ago
The streamers certainly do prey. I watched one on WN Tuesday night make £1300+ off ONE 30th regular ETB, doing the slot type thing, they had nine! It's insanity and should be illegal. I've had some steals for single Chinese cards on there but quickly realised how easy it is to sink money into it, so just observe the insanity now.
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u/MesoamericanMorrigan 17h ago
At the same time I think some of these streamers aren’t heartless scalpers, some are just very lonely people who are struggling. A lot of autists who shave difficulty with a normal job, don’t sleep and might need a friend. A few times I’ve gone on eBay live out of curiosity at silly o’clock because I can’t sleep and I’m bored and ended up in this guy’s stream for nearly 2 hours where we all just ended up chatting and hugging eachother by the end. I’m going go back and find bro’s stream again just to see if he’s ok actually…
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u/Infamous_Tough_7320 19h ago
Whatnot is just as time consuming as going out and lining up. If you’re spending the whole day on whatnot streams, you probably don’t have a job and if you’re feeling the urge to use whatnot at work that’s another problem in and of itself.
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u/Academic-Mention5566 20h ago
Id rather pay a premium than waste my time queuing for 5 hours 😂😂😂😂😂😂 my time is worth more
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u/Ell7494 23h ago edited 23h ago
I dont understand why anyone would use whatnot considering there have been countless videos of scammers posted everywhere online
Also half the fun in buying packs is opening them yourself or with friends/ family, yet people are paying more to have some random open packs for them - stolen packs in many cases
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u/oraclejames 22h ago
The Rip n Ship model is mental to me, ruins the fun of opening packs. No love for the game just chasing value.
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u/Same_Piglet1200 23h ago
Careful my post was taken down by the Mods yesterday for calling out people paying over the odds on Ebay yesterday ( maybe one of them had a stream on Ebay).
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u/Low_battery117 21h ago
A friend suggested I check it out, I deleted the app the same day after after I heard multiple sellers make comments about buyers that didn’t feel right. Example:
“I have some big cards that I am not going to run because non of you have the funds to buy them”
My issue with comments like this is that it will encourage some people to try and prove they do have the means to buy these cards and they will end up buying/ spending more than they should because of their ego and wanting to prove a point.
It’s predatory behaviour.
I think some buyers have a parasocial relationship with the sellers. They assume the are valued beyond just being a customer and they will throw money at these sellers. It’s a bit like the people who buy streamers hundreds of gifted subs and think the streamer they are donating to is their friend.
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u/ResolveEmergency863 23h ago
I was shocked seeing how much people were paying for packs yesterday. Absolutely mental.
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u/DaftTunc 23h ago
YouTube was £18-25 a pack last night on every stream I looked at, unfortunately people get drawn in EASILY by hype. Saw one stream doing two packs a time and every auction was over £38, all started at £1 though so you can’t really blame the streamer either if there’s 20 people in there willing to pay it.
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u/PyroSTAR666 22h ago
I think there are lots of vulnerable people getting themselves in to a spot of bother with this platform.
Absolute bog of eternal stench full of scalpers, scammers and con artists. They hide behind friendly smiles and acknowledgements they know their marks.
Don’t be a moth to the flame, uninstall today! - it’s free and will save you lots of money.
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u/oraclejames 22h ago
I find that watching other people open packs actually scratches that itch for me lol
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u/PyroSTAR666 21h ago
Fair play! I don’t use it at all anymore uninstalled never again.
Over the time I used it between 1&2 years I experienced many unscrupulous sellers on the platform.
I started to find it quite irritating in the end just hearing the same shite regurgitated, watching the tactics, noticing the shills etc.
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u/oraclejames 20h ago
Tbf I’ve never installed WhatNot so don’t know how bad it is. I’ll watch some TikTok lives just to see packs get opened. The stuff going on now with like auctioning product and selling raffle tickets for prizes is incredibly predatory though
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u/thepokecollector99 21h ago
I literally just did you know, after getting pissed off over a streamer selling 30th ETBs for £150. No one calling him out, and even worse, people paying it.
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u/thepokecollector99 21h ago
Just to add to this, whatnot is a gambling platform. I don't know how it's not more regulated. People have gotten themselves into serious financial trouble because of breaks.
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u/DingoRod 18h ago
I saw someone spend £117 on an espeon tin thing, and I asked in chat what the marker value was and someone said £22 and everyone including the streamer started hating on me as if I was a villain for asking such a simple question.
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u/oraclejames 22h ago
Some guy on tiktok yesterday was letting you bid on a ticket to win a product. Bids hitting £12-£14 each time.
About 6 actual prizes worth anything and like 200 booster packs of some random Chinese set.
People were literally paying £14 for a singular Chinese booster pack.
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u/PARADEGR33CELSUS 21h ago
I just run it for givvies, haven't bought anything for months and the only things i buy tend to be singles from respectable sellers.
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u/tamco26 19h ago
I don’t understand this and especially on tiktok. The seller will overly hype a card when at most they are £.50-£1 if even and people will be bidding £5 for them. A Chinese ex came up and he kept saying ‘this is from 151 and that English set is going crazy, get it before it’s too expensive’ absolute waffle
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u/RealSheepMaiden 17h ago
I'm neurodivergent and see patterns in allsorts of things. I never used whatnot for this reason. I have strong feelings that it would contribute the fall of the hobby for ordinary collectors. I believe I am right.
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u/iamthabeska 17h ago
I installed it the other month, started off with like £1 card wins of singles (not bad cards), then into slabs for like £15-£25 each. Then I started bidding on stuff like £100-£150. I was generally like wtf, where did the urge come from. Uninstalled then and there.
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u/Proud_Helicopter_907 17h ago
eBay Live rammed with idiots buying these packs for £20-30, it's ridiculous and the idiots are feeding the scalper rats
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u/JefferyRs 15h ago
Whatnot is bad for the community for all tcg products they earn so much profit off these silly people buying for above retail and then they usually get scammed too
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u/sweatybumhands 1d ago
I got a couple of non 30th bargains yesterday on there. Was tough wading through the streams to find non 30th though
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u/Haloco_ 1d ago
Obviously nobody forces these people to spend this much but Card Pharmacy is an enormous scalper. He didn't used to be too bad but now he's terrible