The Phantasmal Flames expansion of the Pokémon Trading Card Game won’t be available for purchase for another few months, but a group of scalpers has already managed to buy it out. Earlier today, the Mega Evolutions-centric set was announced to be coming to the West on November 14 this year.
Though the release date is still two months away, PokéBeach reports that a group of scalpers has managed to hack the Pokémon Center and trick it into selling them the packs early. Packs were apparently pre-loaded into the official website today, which has allowed the group to buy out the sets before they even officially appear in the store to the general public.
Scalpers Boast Huge “Success” In Buying Out Phantasmal Flames Stock
“This Is Our Holiday Season”
Screenshots from the private Discord group Hidden Society show members boasting of their success at bypassing the online store’s safeguards and successfully checking out the upcoming sets. In the screenshots, a user named robyewest reports that the group’s collective efforts resulted in the sale of over 42,000 Phantasmal Flames products. The user goes on:
“This is OUR holiday season, let the criers cry and whiners whine, they can go tell their moms what happened today and break their monitors while we reap the benefits.”
It’s unclear at this point if the Pokémon Center will actually honor these purchases, as reports of alleged cancellations have already started to circulate. The company will likely pull and cancel the orders since they were made before the official release. Despite this, there seems to be nothing much stopping scalpers from repeating this massive haul when Phantasmal Flames officially arrives in November.
Pokémon TCG Scalpers Are Getting Out Of Hand
Despite The Company’s Best Efforts, Scalpers Prevail
Scalpers have become a serious issue for many products, and Pokémon TCG cards in particular are being targeted by resellers looking to turn a quick profit. Renewed interest in the cards has driven up demand, which makes it easy for scalpers to create artificial shortages and resell the products for huge markups.
This issue was especially prevalent with the incredibly popular Prismatic Evolutions set released early this year, which even caused fights to break out. Many Pokémon TCG fans fear that scalpers are making it not fun to collect what is, in essence, a children’s game and a fun collectible.
The Pokémon Company has taken several steps to try and reduce the effect of scalpers, including an anti-bot queue, but most efforts have failed to stop resellers from buying huge quantities of products out from under real fans’ noses. Despite the poor behavior of the Hidden Society group, many fans remain hopeful that the Pokémon Company will use this opportunity to ban its members.
Even if they do, though, there are ways to bypass bans. At the end of the day, the best method of dealing with scalpers is not to buy from them. Unfortunately, as long as reselling Pokémon Trading Card Game cards remains lucrative, it will continue to be difficult for real fans to actually enjoy their hobby.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
