McDonald’s ‘Strongly Encouraging’ Restaurants to Prevent Happy Meal Pokémon Card Painting

McDonald’s has revealed that it is “working fast” to recharge Pokemon 25th Anniversary trading cards following reports that scalpers are taking advantage of the limited-edition packages – and strongly encourages restaurants to set a limit on how many packages they offer individual customers sell. Yesterday it was revealed that the commemorative Pokémon cards, which are only supposed to be picked up when customers buy a McDonald’s Happy Meal, are bought in large quantities by scalpers and sold for ridiculously high amounts online. In some cases, complete boxes of the parcels are posted for more than $ 1500 on websites including eBay.

@McDonalds @Pokemon I sure hope you do some sort of inventory control for your promo Pokémon cards, as some of your inventory is sold in sealed boxes, which means they do not even pick it up in your stores. It also happened with Tim Hortons Hockey. Retail $ 1.99 pic.twitter.com/kX8qZyRX2V

– redphoenixsportscards (@redphoenixcards) February 9, 2021

Have you played Pokémon Trading Card Game?

YESNO

A McDonald’s spokesman responded to IGN’s request for comment, saying the restaurant franchise was distributing more packages to the stores and that restaurants would be strongly encouraged to limit how many packages they could sell to individual customers.

McDonald’s statement reads: “We love to see fans’ passion for our limited temporary Happy Meal promotion celebrating 25 years of Pokémon. With such a huge demand for our Pokemon TCG cards, and some fans even go to great lengths do it to get it, we’re working fast to address shortages and also strongly encourage restaurants to set a reasonable limit for Happy Meals sold per customer.We want the full Happy Meal experience to as many families as possible offers, and helps to ensure that everyone is able to enjoy! ”

McDonald’s has confirmed that the company is working with its supply chain to repair restaurants sold out of Pokemon card packs and does not approve of selling Happy Meal bonuses for profit. Some restaurants will apparently be allowed to offer stand-alone purchases in unspecified cases.

Happy meals with rugby toys are offered when the Pokémon trading cards are no longer at restaurants, and our McDonald’s has made it clear its policy that full boxes of Happy Meal toys should not be sold to customers, and that toys should be distributed in stores become by employees only.

In light of Pokemon’s 25th birthday, The Pokemon Company has partnered with McDonald’s to distribute 50 limited edition trading cards while stocks last. The packages, which contain four random cards, celebrate the franchise’s legacy with all 24 starter Pokémon and the series icon Pikachu in standard and foil versions.

In other Pokemon news, Post Malone will perform a virtual concert on February 27 as part of the franchise’s long-standing anniversary plans.

Tom Power is a freelance writer in the UK. Follow him further Twitter.