Without a doubt, the Pokemon Trading Card Game is one of the most popular and successful trading card games in the world. Rare cards have been known to go for thousands of dollars at auction, which means that counterfeit cards can be a real problem for fans. Now, a YouTuber is accusing Walmart of selling fake Pokemon TCG products to scam card collectors.
This isn't the first incident that has occurred which is connected to Walmart selling Pokemon trading cards, but it may be one of the biggest. During the pandemic, Walmart and other big retailers began focusing more on online sales. However, this may have made it easier for one sponsored seller to distribute fraudulent Pokemon cards.
One of the many Pokemon TCG products currently being sold on Walmart's site is the XY Evolutions Booster box. However, this particular box is a scam containing counterfeit Pokemon cards - and it's being sold by one of Walmart's sponsored sellers, a third-party account approved to sell products through the Walmart online store. YouTuber Deep Pocket Monster revealed the scam in a 12-minute-long video titled "HUGE Pokemon Card Scam EXPOSED."
The issue came to Deep Pocket Monster's attention when a member of his Discord community, fellow collector JediMasterSquirtle, reported a relative being scammed. They had purchased the box for $169, only for him to discover when opening it that an in-demand Charizard trading card was named Caterpie instead. Deep Pocket Monster decided to buy the box himself to confirm its fraudulent status. After being sent the fake collectible, he contacted the retailer and confirmed that the XY Evolutions Booster box was being sold through a third-party account by the name of JoyBuy. Things took a strange turn when he reported that JoyBuy was tied to JD, a Chinese online retailer that partnered with Walmart in 2017.
According to Deep Pocket Monster, Walmart now owns about 12% of JD's stock, meaning that JoyBuy isn't just a random account scamming Pokemon fans online. The YouTuber claims he sent Walmart the evidence to try and get the product removed, but the retailer has yet to respond. Apparently, Deep Pocket Monster was eventually refunded for the fraudulent purchase, but the process was very challenging and required him to speak to a number of employees before it was finally approved. In his video, he declares that Walmart's attempts to compete with Amazon have opened up the Pokemon TCG community to being scammed. At the time of writing, the counterfeit XY Evolutions Booster box still appears to be available on the site.