McDonald’s ‘Strongly Encourage’ Restaurants to Avoid Scalping Pokémon Cards for a Happy Meal

McDonald’s has revealed that it is “working quickly” to replenish Pokémon’s 25th anniversary business cards after reports that money changers are profiting from limited edition packages – and is “strongly encouraging” restaurants to set a limit on how many packages they have sell to individual customers. Yesterday, it was revealed that Pokémon greeting cards, which should only be obtained when customers buy a McDonald’s Happy Meal, were being purchased in bulk by money changers and sold for ridiculously high amounts online. In some cases, boxes full of the packages were being posted on sites like eBay for more than $ 1,500.

@McDonalds @Pokemon I hope you do some form of inventory control for your promotional Pokémon cards, as part of your inventory is being sold in sealed boxes, which means that they won’t even reach your stores. Although the same thing happened with Tim Hortons Hockey as well. Retail $ 1.99 pic.twitter.com/kX8qZyRX2V

– redphoenixsportscards (@redphoenixcards) February 9, 2021

Have you ever played Pokémon Trading Card Game?

YEANO

Responding to IGN’s request for comment, a McDonald’s spokesman said the restaurant franchise is moving to distribute more packaging to its outlets, and said that restaurants would be “strongly encouraged” to limit the amount of packaging that can sell to individual customers.

McDonald’s statement says, “We love to see the passion of fans for our limited-time Happy Meal promotion, celebrating 25 years of Pokémon. With such a significant demand for our TCG Pokémon promotional cards, and some fans going to extremes to get them, we “are working quickly to address the shortage 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 that everyone can join Fun! “

McDonald’s has confirmed that the company is working with its supply chain to help replenish restaurants that have run out of Pokémon card packs and does not tolerate reselling Happy Meal bonuses for profit. However, some restaurants will apparently be able to offer standalone package purchases in unspecified cases.

Happy Meals with reserve toys will be offered if restaurants run out of Pokémon collectible cards, and we, McDonald’s, make clear their policy that boxes full of Happy Meal toys should not be sold to customers and that toys should be distributed in stores by employees only.

In view of Pokémon’s 25th anniversary, The Pokémon Company teamed up with McDonald’s to distribute 50 limited edition business cards while supplies last. The packs, which contain four random cards, celebrate the franchise’s heritage with all 24 initial Pokémon and the Pikachu series icon in standard and foil versions.

In other Pokémon news, Post Malone will perform a virtual show on February 27 as part of the franchise’s one-year anniversary plans.

Tom Power is a UK based freelance writer. Follow him on Twitter.