Scalpers Continue Raiding Costcos Across The Country

Apparently scalpers and hoarders are continuing to raid Costcos across the country for Pokemon 151 tin boxes! You keep stumbling across more and more posts about scalpers in the Pokemon community these days…

Here’s another example…

scalper bought entire pallet of 151 mini tin boxes from costco

I was able to get this screenshot before this post was presumably deleted. So somebody while on a trip apparently went to Costco, saw a fresh pallet of 151 Pokemon tin boxes, and decided to buy the entire pallet and somehow got it into their hotel room. Now they want a way to ship it home. I would be skeptical but that door and light do in fact look kind of like a hotel room… so this may very well be real.

This is not the first or last incident of what I like to call “raiding” of Costcos for Pokemon 151 product. And with the holidays coming up incidents like these are only going to increase as Costco sets out more pallets with Pokemon product meant for the holidays.

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We haven’t even seen what Costco is going to put out Pokemon product wise for the holidays or Black Friday. I imagine it’s going to be something pretty good and I’m afraid people might start fist fights over Pokemon. Because I really am guessing that Costco is going to have something like a 151 12 pack collection box available for Black Friday. They’re going to have something good if they’re already setting out 151 mini tin boxes is my thinking.

Or maybe the Pokemon 151 mini tins are Costcos Black Friday product and they’ve just decided to have an extended sale period. I haven’t really heard anything definite. But at the same time a Temporal Forces / Paradox Rift / Stellar Crown (or similar) 16 pack collection box would be great for the holidays and seem very up Costco’s alley. So maybe that’s it, a small collection box and a large collection box of the most recent sets and or 151.

But you know it is absolutely amazing to me that Costco has yet to implement purchase limits on Pokemon products. Anecdotally I’ve heard of a few implementing limits but then other Costcos flat out refusing to implement limits. Can they not see how bad it looks to let a single person purchase an entire pallet worth of Pokemon product?

And another question, can scalpers and hoarders really not see how bad their behavior is? They’re turning a genuine hobby into a meaningless grab for cash. Collectors and players get gouged while scalpers and hoarders sit on their butts doing nothing. They haven’t brought ANY value to the hobby, they have merely raided stores and seized product before anyone else had a chance.

I think at the end of the day people are going to behave worse and worse as we come upon Black Friday and Christmas. I’m not sure it’ll even matter if the special Pokemon products set out by stores this year are even good… my bet is people are going to scalp and hoard and fight over stuff.

Ultimately scalping needs to stop, hoarders need to calm down, and we all need to be polite this holiday season.