McDonald’s is “working quickly” to restock Pokémon 25th Anniversary trading cards after scalpers rapidly drained supplies.
McDonald’s has been facing a lot of unhappy customers finding out that there are no more limited-edition Pokémon trading card packs available to go with their Happy Meals. The commemorative 25th Anniversary cards can now instead be found online, with bulk-buying scalpers listing boxes full of packs on sites like eBay for as much as $1500 US dollars.
Yes, you heard that right. But hey, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been floored by the price of Pokémon cards.
Now, McDonald’s has hit back at scalpers and employees in an official statement:
“We love seeing fans’ passion for our limited-time Happy Meal promotion celebrating 25 years of Pokémon. With such significant demand for our promotional Pokémon TCG cards, and some fans even going to extreme lengths to get them, we’re working quickly to address shortages and also strongly encouraging restaurants to set a reasonable limit on Happy Meals sold per customer. We want to offer the full Happy Meal experience to as many families as possible, and help ensure everyone is able to get in on the fun!”
It appears that each McDonald’s restaurant had a different policy on how the packs were sold, with the company now requesting the enforcement of reasonable limitations.
Scalpers have so far been able to acquire the cards by various methods, from arriving at 5am to purchase enough Happy Meals to last a lifetime, to simply rocking up and asking to buy whole boxes of the packs before they even hit the store.
@McDonalds @Pokemon I sure hope you do some form of inventory control for your promo Pokémon cards as some of your stock is being sold in sealed boxes which means they’re not even making it to your stores 😳 Though same thing happened with Tim Hortons Hockey too. Retail $1.99 😳 pic.twitter.com/kX8qZyRX2V
— redphoenixsportscards (@redphoenixcards) February 9, 2021
US Pokémon fans looking to get their hands on a random four-pack of the 50 limited-edition trading cards can rest assured that McDonald’s is working with its supply chains to restock sold-out restaurants and stands against reselling Happy Meal toys for profit. It seems that some unspecified locations will still be able to offer standalone pack purchases, however they shouldn’t be slinging you a whole box regardless.
It’s rumoured that the Pokémon Anniversary Happy Meals will be hitting Australian shores later this year, but let’s hope McDonald’s can sort out a system before then that will give all of us a chance to catch ’em all.
While you’re here check out the newly-announced open-world game, Pokémon Legends Arceus.
