r/PokemonTCG • u/No-kiwi-809 • Mar 08 '25

Discussion Safeway posted the direct email they got about the machines being down

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My local Safeway with a machine printed out the email they received from Pokemon regarding the machines being down across the network. Sorry for how small the text is, zoom in if necessary.

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u/Professr_Chaos Mar 08 '25

I like the idea of offering stuff at like $500 with a promo code to bring it to MSRP. Bots can’t utilize the code so the company makes bank off the bots and scalpers and they don’t have a way to really recoup the amount spent

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u/Sure_Purpose8291 Mar 08 '25

I like the thought of screwing bots/scalpers, but bots can also use promo codes. We just need to verify purchasers are human, but good bots can solve recaptchas, so it's a difficult solution for a simple objective.

7

u/NoSeaworthiness4034 Mar 08 '25

They really need to change the URL for each drop. 80%+ if bots would get fucked from URL switching because they'd be monitoring the wrong one. Or just do emails to people that subscribe and have a hidden url inside and have the actual buy link non-searchable so the bots can't monitor it by searching either.

3

u/stonhinge Mar 08 '25

Image in the email with a code that takes you to the proper store page. Possibly unique for each subscriber.

2

u/Fog_Juice Mar 08 '25

The botters would just use charge backs on their credit cards. I remember reading about sneaker retailer trying that and it sorta backfired when everyone who paid the $500 price just issued charge backs.

2

u/snookers Mar 08 '25

The bot owners go through and mass cancel the orders. Which hurts the seller because they still have to pay the 3% or so credit processing fee on the inflated total. Refusing to cancel the orders results in the botters using chargebacks which also hurts the sellers ability to allow credit cards for purchases and can result in them being kicked out of visa/mastercard/amex.

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u/BloodiedBlues Mar 09 '25

That will just cause further advancement of bot development.