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[February 9] Polygon: The Pokémon Happy Meal at McDonald’s is getting ruined by greedy adults - Good luck finding any!

Deleted member 3812

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Polygon has found tweets of people reporting that they are finding unopened boxes of Pokemon merchandise being auctioned off on eBay that is supposed to be included with a special McDonalds Happy Meal:





The Pokémon Happy Meal at McDonald's is getting ruined by greedy adults - Polygon

Right now, select McDonald's are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Pokémon with a promotion that turns the iconic Happy Meal box into Pikachu's face. Bundled with this cherubic container are 50 collectible cards, including some rarer holographic cards. And some people are mass buying Happy Meals to get their hands on them.

The McDonald's promotion, in other words, never stood a chance. Folks are waking up early to stake out what McDonald's are selling the new Happy Meals. Some are apparently buying the Happy Meals in mass numbers in the hopes of getting all the collectibles, and just throwing out the food. Some McDonald's are even placing restrictions on buying the Happy Meals, though scalpers are reportedly already turning around and selling the individual cards for a markup. Some customers are going around to multiple restaurants, unable to find a single Happy Meal. On websites like eBay, entire boxes of the cards or sealed packs are going for hundreds of dollars. It's unclear if the boxes are being bought behind the scenes, or if they're being swiped by employees.
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pvin626

pvin626

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Nov 16, 2017
839
All I see on TikTok is people buying hundreds of happy meals just for the cards. The whole flipping Pokemon cards really took a turn for the worst.
 
Mario_Bones

Mario_Bones

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Oct 31, 2017
3,521
Australia
The state of the TCG is a mess at the moment because of YouTubers and scalpers, it's really frustrating. I can't imagine how much worse it must be as a kid to try and wrap your head around how all the toys can be gone on the first day of the promotion.

The crazy thing is that McDonald's promo cards usually aren't even worth much, all these jerks just think anything with Pokemon on the box is gonna make bank.
 
CheeseConey

CheeseConey

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Oct 27, 2017
1,996
This pretty much sums up the current Pokemon TCG situation. Scalpers do the same at places like Target/Walmart, clearing out all stock and flipping it on eBay.
 

FPX

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 25, 2017
2,273
How the hell did pokemon cards become such a big thing again? In the past couple months I see a bunch of YouTubers and Twitch streamers upload videos of just opening pokemon card packs out of nowhere
 
Sandfox

Sandfox

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Oct 25, 2017
24,743
The same thing has been happening with sports cards. People think they can make money off the cards so they are buying all the product as soon as it comes off the truck by either camping out in front of the store or having a connection that prevents the product from either hitting the shelves.

xero93 said:
How the hell did pokemon cards become such a big thing again? In the past couple months I see a bunch of YouTubers and Twitch streamers upload videos of just opening pokemon card packs out of nowhere
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You answered your own question.
 
RockmanBN

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Sandfox said:
The same thing has been happening with sports cards. People think they can make money off the cards so they are buying all the product as soon as it comes off the truck by either camping out in front of the store or having a connection that prevents the product from either hitting the shelves.


You answered your own question.
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I'm guessing it's happening to most Trading Card Games. Samething happened with the new Digimon TCG. Targets getting cleared and local card shops having low stock ain't helping.
 

Dis

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,948
TheInfinityGauntlet said:
Yeah lets dump on those minimum wage employees by calling them greedy
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While I'm very much against the shitty pay places like McDonald's pay their workers, and hate that in the usa they've been allowed to give workers even less than they do outside the USA in terms of benefits and paid time off etc due to shitty worker laws there, let's not act like that makes it ok to steal boxes of shit to resell at profit. By that logic no one should have been pissed at amazon delivery drivers making fuck all during the pandemic with their lives at risk when they stole a bunch of ps5s and xbox series x, yet everyone was very openly not ok with that.
 

FPX

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Sandfox said:
You answered your own question.
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But why did a bunch of YouTubers start making videos at the same time out of nowhere? Did one person make an inordinately popular video then a bunch of people saw that and jumped on the bandwagon at the same time?
 
CheeseConey

CheeseConey

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Oct 27, 2017
1,996
xero93 said:
How the hell did pokemon cards become such a big thing again? In the past couple months I see a bunch of YouTubers and Twitch streamers upload videos of just opening pokemon card packs out of nowhere
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Not gonna lie the new cards are pretty sweet. Got hooked into collecting again a few months ago. Finding those chase cards is a stressful/fun hunt. But this is mostly due to Youtubers and vintage card prices sky rocketing.
 
WhiteRabbitEXE

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Oct 25, 2017
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Ever since streamers started buying and opening massive amounts of cards, Pokémon cards have been completely out of control and the market has become almost fully taken over by resellers. Most retail locations are constantly sold out, and grown-ass dudes will spend upwards of, I shit you not, 10 hours a day at a *single* store to buy up everything the moment the vendor comes out. These people are fucking trash too. We deal with them at my store all the time and they cause arguments every single time, try to bribe my employees, they've tried to sneak into off stage areas, they've threatened team members, and they're generally a massive hassle for other guests as well. They've taken to huddling up in women's clothes at my store, so we have to keep kicking them out because they were making women uncomfortable.
 

suaveric

Member
Nov 9, 2017
361
Bah! Back in my day we camped out at McDonalds for Bennie babies. Now those were worth big bucks!
 
Hours Left

Hours Left

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Oct 26, 2017
18,414
Like, McDonald's and The Pokémon Company had to know this would happen, and they did it anyway.

They want the hype and the drama.
 
CheeseConey

CheeseConey

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Oct 27, 2017
1,996
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
Ever since streamers started buying and opening massive amounts of cards, Pokémon cards have been completely out of control and the market has become almost fully taken over by resellers. Most retail locations are constantly sold out, and grown-ass dudes will spend upwards of, I shit you not, 10 hours a day at a *single* store to buy up everything the moment the vendor comes out. These people are fucking trash too. We deal with them at my store all the time and they cause arguments every single time, try to bribe my employees, they've tried to sneak into off stage areas, they've threatened team members, and they're generally a massive hassle for other guests as well. They've taken to huddling up in women's clothes at my store, so we have to keep kicking them out because they were making women uncomfortable.
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Damn that's crazy. I remember my brother and I found some ETBs for Champions Path one night at Target and bought one. We went back an hour later to get another but the 10+ boxes they had there had vanished.
 
Wanderer5

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Oct 25, 2017
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My local McDonalds went out of stock fast, and won't get more till next week. Might try getting a pack on Sunday, but yeah, this is definitely a sucky situation, especially for kids.
 
MegaXZero

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Jun 21, 2018
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WhiteRabbitEXE said:
Ever since streamers started buying and opening massive amounts of cards, Pokémon cards have been completely out of control and the market has become almost fully taken over by resellers. Most retail locations are constantly sold out, and grown-ass dudes will spend upwards of, I shit you not, 10 hours a day at a *single* store to buy up everything the moment the vendor comes out. These people are fucking trash too. We deal with them at my store all the time and they cause arguments every single time, try to bribe my employees, they've tried to sneak into off stage areas, they've threatened team members, and they're generally a massive hassle for other guests as well. They've taken to huddling up in women's clothes at my store, so we have to keep kicking them out because they were making women uncomfortable.
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What the fuck. That's crazy.
 
Milk

Milk

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One thousand fucking dollars? I pray no one gives these greedy shits that money.
 
Curler

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Oct 26, 2017
15,604
It's not employees doing this. Maybe some, but scalpers are openly admitting on Reddit that they "demand" to buy cases or lie and say "they know the franchisee" and other tactics.

It's bad, and rough for adult collectors trying to collect the cards, and kids who like Pokemon and want a fun treat :/ Some guy on Reddit posted a haul of up to TEN cases across several locations. Some places are sold out and it's no wonder why. We've been talking about it on the Pokemon Merch OT and it stinks :/
 
Sandfox

Sandfox

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Oct 25, 2017
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xero93 said:
But why did a bunch of YouTubers start making videos at the same time out of nowhere? Did one person make an inordinately popular video then a bunch of people saw that and jumped on the bandwagon at the same time?
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It's because Logan Paul(who already collected Pokemon cards) bought a Charizard card for 150k after his dog ate his old one. Then you had Logic spend over 220k on Charizard and start buying packs because he couldn't afford to growing and up and wanted the experience, followed by Logan Paul opening a 200k box on stream that got over 11 million views. A bunch of people tried to copy them and now we have the current situation.
 
My Blue Heaven

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imagine "staking out" mcdonalds for fucking anything let alone a toy for actual children. the pandemic has destroyed peoples' brains lol
 
Josh5890

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I remember when collecting was a fun, innocent hobby.
 
Curler

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My Blue Heaven said:
imagine "staking out" mcdonalds for fucking anything let alone a toy for actual children. the pandemic has destroyed peoples' brains lol
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They are selling for big money. Dunno who is spending the peak value pricetags on them, but some are. Cards also are ONLY available in NA, so could be other global fans trying to get them. Bottom line is demand is there, and where there's money to be made...
 
My Blue Heaven

My Blue Heaven

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Curler said:
They are selling for big money. Dunno who is spending the peak value pricetags on them, but some are. Cards also are ONLY available in NA, so could be other global fans trying to get them. Bottom line is demand is there, and where there's money to be made...
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the fact that a free toy included in a kids meal is now i guess a commodity for a bunch of scalpers and/or internet amateur speculators says a lot
 
Sybil

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Oct 27, 2017
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I'm always one to say that Pokemon is for all ages... but can the scalpers not ruin it for the children who just want to have a few cards with their lunch, my god. Most of the singles seem to be cheap too, just let the kids have some packs.
 
CupOfDoom

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Dec 17, 2017
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It sucks that we are in a place where if any thing is even slightly popular and, supply constrained that scalpers will just buy all the supply.

I get that on some level, it is the basic economics of supply and demand, but it sucks big time for normal people who want the thing and, don't want to pay 10x retail for it.
 
OP
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Here's an article reporting that there's certain McDonalds locations that are allowing people to buy a single Happy Meal and order multiple card packs as a "side item" to the single Happy Meal and embedded a tweet of a person bragging they got a single Happy Meal with 1 card pack then got 15 more card packs "on the side":



Adults are acting like children and ruining the Pokémon 25th anniversary McDonald's Happy Meal promotion (msn.com)

You see, some McDonald's stores let you order a single Pokémon Happy Meal and then add additional Pokémon card packs as a "side item" to the order.
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Curler

Curler

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Oct 26, 2017
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My Blue Heaven said:
the fact that a free toy included in a kids meal is now i guess a commodity for a bunch of scalpers and/or internet amateur speculators says a lot
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Doesn't matter if it makes money. You can buy toys on their own, but some locations are limiting it. If you can buy a whole box of QTY 150 (so $300+tax) and flip it for like $800-1200 (rates on eBay) than it's like PS5 profit territory and no different than scalping those. It's a product that people don't care what it is, makes money.
 
Danby

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Mario_Bones said:
The state of the TCG is a mess at the moment because of YouTubers and scalpers, it's really frustrating. I can't imagine how much worse it must be as a kid to try and wrap your head around how all the toys can be gone on the first day of the promotion.

The crazy thing is that McDonald's promo cards usually aren't even worth much, all these jerks just think anything with Pokemon on the box is gonna make bank.
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Yeah, they're dummies.
 

Jerrod

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Dec 24, 2017
193
KSweeley said:
Here's an article reporting that there's certain McDonalds locations that are allowing people to buy a single Happy Meal and order multiple card packs as a "side item" to the single Happy Meal and embedded a tweet of a person bragging they got a single Happy Meal with 1 card pack then got 15 more card packs "on the side":



Adults are acting like children and ruining the Pokémon 25th anniversary McDonald's Happy Meal promotion (msn.com)
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You can normally just buy the toys separately, don't need to buy anything else, they ring up at $1.99 each or whatever. Most stores are limiting that or no longer allowing that now (manager's discretion to do this) because so many people are buying just the cards that they don't have enough for happy meals. I went to 2 stores myself yesterday, one wouldn't sell them to me separately as nearly 200 had nearly been sold by noon but the next store let me buy a maximum of 5.
 
ash32121

ash32121

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Oct 27, 2017
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KSweeley said:
Here's an article reporting that there's certain McDonalds locations that are allowing people to buy a single Happy Meal and order multiple card packs as a "side item" to the single Happy Meal and embedded a tweet of a person bragging they got a single Happy Meal with 1 card pack then got 15 more card packs "on the side":



Adults are acting like children and ruining the Pokémon 25th anniversary McDonald's Happy Meal promotion (msn.com)
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This is normal for McD though, you can always buy the toys separately. Have to pay extra and the manager has to be cool with you doing that but that has always been the norm lmao.
 
KeyboardThug

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Oct 27, 2017
286
I bought 60 from a local mcdonald's to open because they look cool and I wanted the full set. I was feeling shitty for buying so many but seeing ebay now I don't feel so bad.
 
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