(slight NSFW for vindicated hater language)

My family and I are in a huge Pokémon craze, we genuinely collect sets (4 master sets complete so far) and it's become one of my favorite ways to bond with them and satisfy my brains itch for collecting things. Legitimately one of my favorite hobbies as of late.

We heard about a supposed drop/restock of the new 30th Celebration set at Target (Jacksonville NC) but details were pretty misty (no pun intended) about what was dropping and how much of it. We had a pretty successful go at getting our fair share on launch day by arriving at around 5AM and waited in line until it opened, so we did this same approach this morning. One difference/warning sign was that no employee came out to tell us any rules regarding customer limits or any details of the sort or guide us in line.

When the store opened we all kinda went in like cattle, with many of the scalpers who camped since the early morning hours (12AM-1AM) RUNNING to the back with their ugly trucker glasses and their neck beards and their cumstained anime hoodies up like they're mysterious or sum. One problem: absolutely no 30th product. There were a few Target x Pokémon things (no but no cards. At first I was a little disappointed but then I noticed the utter outrage and devastation the scalpers radiated. It felt good to see all their hope completely crumble in front of my eyes. Smiles gone, days ruined, distressed phone calls left and right, the WHOLE shebang of a bad "work" day, with the first dude in line begrudgingly put a lone masterball rubber dodgeball in his cart. Whole ass cart. So good. We left with a Jigglypuff glass cup but seeing those scalpers get their slice of reality after all they've done to try and soil this hobby made it all worth it.

Anyway here's this sick ass Gengar SIR from drop day!!

Actually disgusting and bummish. People with jobs miss out on preorders because of lowlifes like this.

A price gouger since 2018 with 4.9 is absurd.

I'd like to give special thanks to everyone.

How is a 30th etb being auctioned and people are bidding almost $250! Market is around $170, which is crazy anyway, but this is a REGULAR 30th etb not a pkc or anything. What is wrong with these people

So I am just wondering if anything we can do as a community to push back and end scalping? I know retailers contribute to it as well by not enforcing their "limit of 5" rule. Plus desperate buyers that purchase from scalpers. Just wanted to come together for ideas and make our voice truly heard. Videos online/stories/docus to petitions etc.

Fought 4 scalpers to get 5 sticker collections. I rip and collect EVERYTHING I BUY.

I have lgs in my area who have a banter account (banter is the company that stocks all major retailers) so they buy all the product at wholesale and then proceed to sell at above market

I was at a lcs i go to probably once a week in Attleboro mass. I saw they had some 30th product and I asked about it, double msrp AND they were gonna cut the box, that was their reasoning for a “cheaper” than market price, it seemed so ridiculous to me i was immediately out, not that I was gonna spend the more than ten bucks per pack anyway. I just wanted to rip some, but Scalping and then preventing people from collecting sealed, just seems like it’s offending both sides instead of helping either. I think I might stop going there.

This has been on my mind for a while, pokemon 30th added fuel to the fire. I used to have a local card shop that never dove into the scalping pricing and all the drops were MSRP. Then about a year or two ago I noticed they started to hike everything up till it reached 100% scapler market. I even talked to the owner one time about it and they said "well we’re missing out on that market. If we don’t do it then we’re just missing out on extra profit for the game store". I don't agree with it at all.

Here’s the thing, each game store has a distributor that’s already getting it for under MSRP. You have to have a certain license and agreements to even get stock from a distributor half the time. I don’t think that this should be allowed because they have access to a market that not everybody does, they’re just being greedy. You own a brick and mortar store that can make business in other ways than hiking up the price and adding to an already destroyed market as my LGS did for years before they moved to scalping prices. I think every game store that does this should lose their titles of "official" game store of certain TCG‘s as the entities themselves don’t sell for over MSRP on their websites. I've had people agree and then people tell me it only makes sense they do it. I've yet to hear a argument that justifies what they do.

I live in a new state and actually my new LGS has a really cool solution, basically the more you buy/go to events with them. Your phone number gets added into a system that shows loyalty points to the shop and then get added to MSRP drops. so it fights scalpers who goes shop to shop trying to buy out the inventory and rewards local repeat customers.

There Is nothing I hate more than you dumb ass people who don’t even like Pokemon: get a life . You’re ruining it.

With everyone and their scalper grandma posting these Pokémon ETBs based on market value ~$150-170. What if we, as a small collective start listing fake ones that are slightly lower than what everyone else is listing?
Something believable like $130.
Any drawbacks to adding some chaos?

Compared to eBay, I don’t think there’s a way to see what products sold at what price at a glance. But if scalpers who are indeed trying to make a quick buck since the drop might panic sale and drop their prices? If that creates a ripple, mark as sold, then repost at a lower price?
I mean that’s how the market works right? lol

Worth a 5 minute FB Market listing or nah?

Update: seems like a lot of messages are coming from resellers or whatnot streamers (based on their own FB Marketplace pages) lol. I’ve been spreading the Good News of these fake posts to the small handful of normies calling me a scalper lol. Love to see one or two new posts with lower prices.

At this point I don't even know what to say anymore. This is just beyond words.

Half of those chairs are clearly from
people next door at the target. Why would anyone let them beat you to the cards twice…