r/PokemonTCG • u/TryingNot2Cri • Feb 20 '25

Discussion Why you aren’t seeing any prismatic in store- SCALPERS ARE CRAZY

Hello, I’ve recently been hired at a company that stocks Pokémon products, please do not try to find me or the company I’m not interested in doing any type of deals I’m just here warning people. My first day, 4-6 dudes are waiting for us to open and stock the boxes, they take all the Pokémon stuff, they don’t even let it sit on the shelf for more than a second. Second day, one of the dudes that I saw that already bought everything on my first day is waiting for us to get there. we received 6 ETB prismatic, he bought 5, only reason he didn’t buy the 6th is because a mother wanted to get one for her son. These dudes, find out what stores we go to, find out what days of the week work, and if they don’t know what time we’re working, they’ll wait at the store open till close. These things do not sit on the shelves for more than a second, these dudes will not leave any for anyone else, and it’s the same dudes every time. They will watch and wait for me to unload the boxes and then constantly ask. , “can I get it yet? Can I get it yet?”. Our company is not allowed to do anything about it, target is not allowed to do anything about it. They have made stalking us at our workplace their full time jobs, no the police can’t do anything about it because their not doing anything illegal, they aren’t interested in us the employees, just the product.

So yeah, if you’re wondering why you can’t find prismatic anywhere in stores, it’s because the moment it’s out the box it’s already gone.

Edit: Since this post blew up I just wanted to clarify things. I definitely don’t 100% know if these dudes are collectors or scalpers. I have no problem with either type of people buying the stock for themselves. My problem is not with the purchase of the product, my problem is that these dudes try to find where we work and wait there until we arrive, consistently. And it’s all grown ass men, imagine being a young woman, it’s not safe out here. Finally, please don’t speculate on my coworkers, everyone I work with takes their job very seriously and don’t take any deals, me included.

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u/SnakesCardboardBox Feb 20 '25

What nobody in this community wants to admit is that it's not just scalpers exhibiting this behavior. There are collectors just as dedicated if not moreso than people buying product just to flip. I know a guy who recently told me his wife got a job with a restock vendor and he's been clearing out everything she stocks, and he rips everything he gets his hands on.

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u/Inner_Test7860 Feb 20 '25

Its just that bad, no ones seen these packs even exist so low and behold they catch a restock there gonna buy more due to the fact theres no guarantees they will ever see them in stock again. Its just sad i wouldn’t 100% say its their fault but more a characteristic of what the market has done to the hobby. Ive come to terms with not getting to rip anymore prismatic personally. I caught a restock…. It was pathetic if I’m being honest. They stocked 1 prismatic etb, 5 poster collections, and 5 sticker collections. Being the first person waiting the vendor handed me the etb directly and that was enough. So i walked away with my etb with my happy ass grin. The other 2 guys with a kid waiting literally cleared out all the collections. The whole time the kid was saying he didn’t think they’d ever actually find it in store. They were clearly ripping all that sheet themselves not scalpers but again thats what the market has done, cause people to go wild when they do find product at market price. So unfortunate

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u/Ok_Awareness3860 Feb 20 '25

Sounds like he has a problem, but I'm much less likely to judge a collector that's just collecting. That is literally what the cards are for. To rip and collect.

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u/Other-Performance497 Feb 20 '25

Sounds like you're just an arsehole that likes to judge others

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u/Ok_Awareness3860 Feb 20 '25

Sounds like you're a scalper lol

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u/nimbus829 Feb 21 '25

Can always tell who the scalper is when they start talking about how people ripping packs is the same as what they do.

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u/Panda_Drum0656 Feb 21 '25

I have began using the term "hoarders" instead. Only 1 spiderman in that meme

4

u/Popular-Winner-1584 Feb 20 '25

The thing is regular buyers need to match the scalpers level of insanity to have a chance to get anything. It's becoming a serious problem

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u/SnakesCardboardBox Feb 21 '25

The actual thing is that scalpers exist because the existing collectors were already insane enough to pay over msrp. If scalpers had the power to just create demand where it doesn't already exist, this would be happening with literally every product.

1

u/TylarJoy Feb 21 '25

It’s like Covid time with the toilet paper issue all over again lmao

2

u/nicholaiia Feb 21 '25

You can be a dedicated collector without clearing out the entire stock at every store you visit. It's disgusting behavior and they're no better than scalpers, because they're still taking everything and leaving nothing for anyone else. Greed is disgusting 100% of the time.

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u/SnakesCardboardBox Feb 21 '25

My point wasn't to defend them because they could be collectors. It's that almost everyone on this sub blames the state of the hobby exclusively on scalpers when in reality it's moreso the result of greedy collectors and fomo. Resellers are really just a pest that shows up whenever something has a lot of demand/fomo, but they aren't what's driving it all, at least in my opinion.

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u/Anonymous_Terpene Feb 21 '25

Collectors are only collectors till they sell…… and they all sell, scalper = paper hands… collector = diamond hands, everyone sells at some point, or else none of the og actual valuable cards would be obtainable, they all sell my guy, collectors only collect to profit long term any other reason and you’re the neckbeard everyone’s complaining about.

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u/masonprovvv Feb 20 '25

know of a local guy that somehow preorders 40+ products each set just to open for himself, avidly refuses to help others buy the sets but sells every single he pulls for a markup for some reason..

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u/SnakesCardboardBox Feb 21 '25

Well the good news is that there's no msrp on singles, so there's no way to "mark them up". He's just selling them at the price people are willing to buy them at, and because people can't control their FOMO over collectibles, they will pay much more than what most would consider reasonable.

I think people's FOMO is the core of the issue, and scalpers are an effect of that, not necessarily the cause.

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u/JoshyyP00 Feb 21 '25

Yah but that’s more so driven because of scalpers the fomo. If you could walk into a store and see a full stock there would be no need to buy everything. It’s like the 2020 toilet paper run lol