Scalpers Have Found A Way To Ruin McDonald’s Of All Things

McDonald’s is celebrating Pokémon’s 25th anniversary with a special Happy Meal box. Good luck getting one though, because scalpers are ruining everyone’s fun – again. 

Of all brands in the geeky, collectible arena, Pokémon rules them all, often fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars for booster packs and even single cards. So, with this in mind, McDonald’s latest promotion just opened itself up to scalpers.

Over in the US, the fast food chain is marking the anniversary with Happy Meal boxes that can turn into Pikachu’s face. These also come with 50 collectible cards, some of which are of the rare, holographic nature.

Now, if you have a look on eBay, you’ll see plenty of listings of the boxes and cards, selling for tens, hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

One user tweeted, ‘My mom works at a McDonalds in southern Indiana, and her store is limited to only selling five packs per person per day, because someone bought 3 cases (around 450~ packs) from another area store, which was all they had.’

Another wrote, ‘Yo, everyone on eBay, Facebook marketplace or where ever else selling the McDonalds 25th anniversary Pokémon packs for 10 bucks are a special kind of scum.’

A third tweeted, ‘Hey @McDonalds, everyone is buying the happy meals and leaving the food since all they want is the Pokémon cards. Why don’t you take those extra profits or food and donate it to shelters. Your making a killing for some Pokémon!’

To be fair, not everyone hoarding the packs is doing it for the money – some people just really love Pokémon. One user wrote, ‘Most people at 5am: waking up early to go to the gym or making breakfast for their families. Me at 5am: going to McDonalds for Pokémon cards.’

Another user urged people to donate the food they didn’t eat, writing, ‘I decided to go to McDonald’s to grab some of the new Pokémon Card packs! Since you couldn’t buy the packs separately I bought 10 happy meals and I’ll be giving out the food to homeless in the area… if you only want the cards then do the same!’

It’s simple: don’t be a scalper.