Every time you think Pokemon scalping can’t possibly get any worse, something comes along to prove you wrong. Today, that something is a Magikarp fishing rod. A popular toy for cats that scalpers have bought to the point of it selling out so they can try to sell them for a huge profit.

Pokemon's Magikarp Cat Toy Targeted By Scalpers

The Pokemon Company

If you know Pokemon, even if it’s only a little bit, you’ll know by now that anything officially licensed by The Pokemon Company will fly off the shelves immediately. That even applies to pet toys. Pokemon recently released a new line of products specifically for your Poke-pets, and the Magikarp Pokemon Playful Partners Fishing Rod Cat Toy is so popular that it has already sold out.

Turns out we have scalpers to blame for that, at least in part. The lowlifes that continue to ruin the TCG for everybody have taken a break from fighting outside Costco to raid the Pokemon Center website and buy up all the Magikarp cat toys. We know that scalpers are to blame because a slew of those cat toys are now available to buy on eBay.

The Pokemon Company

The Magikarp fishing rod retails for $29.99, but naturally those trying to offload theirs want quite a bit more than Pokemon was asking for them. One ambitious reseller seems to think their fishing rod is worth $1,249. Throw in the $98.93 they want for postage, and that makes this second-hand cat toy almost 45 times as expensive as it would be to buy one brand new from the Pokemon Center.

The step down after that is a steep one, as their fellow cat toy scalpers are only asking for slightly north of $200 each for the Magikarp-themed pet paraphernalia. Still an outrageous amount to try and get for a toy that costs $30. Again, a toy for cats, in case you needed reminding. This is the level of scalping we’ve reached in the Pokemon fandom, and sadly, it doesn’t seem like there’s any end in sight to this sort of thing.

No One Will Pay Those Prices, But That's Not The Point

The silver lining, as tends to be the case when scalpers slap a ludicrous asking price on an otherwise relatively cheap product, is that none of these rods have bids on them. There are a few being “watched”, but I hope that, like me, those watchers are just looking in out of morbid curiosity to see if anyone is silly enough to cave to these ridiculous demands.

My take-home message, as always when it comes to scalpers, is don’t cave to these people. Whether it be trading cards, consoles, concert tickets, or yes, even cat toys, don’t buy something from someone for an inflated price. As much as Pokemon and other companies try to counteract it, customers and fans refusing to buy scalped, second-hand products for inflated prices will be the only way these practices are ever stamped out.

Pokémon Like Follow Followed TV-Y7 Animation Adventure Anime Fantasy Release Date 1997 - 2023 Network TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TVh, TVQ, TSC Directors Shigeru Omachi, Koji Ogawa, Fumihiro Ueno, Hideki Hiroshima, Maki Kodaira, Makoto Ooga, Ayumi Moriyama, Keitaro Motonaga, Shigeru Ueda, Fumihiro Yoshimura, Minoru Ohara, Yoshitaka Makino, Kiyoshi Egami, Makoto Sokuza, Bjarne Heuser, Naoki Murata, Kenichi Nishida, Tomoe Makino, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroaki Takagi, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Ryohei Horiuchi, Yoshihiro Oda, Hiromichi Matano Writers Junki Takegami, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hideki Sonoda, Yukiyoshi Ôhashi, Yuka Miyata, Takeshi Shudo, Shouji Yonemura, Shinzo Fujita, Michihiro Tsuchiya, Deko Akao, Reiko Yoshida, Aya Matsui, Junichi Fujisaku Franchise(s) Pokemon

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  • Rica Matsumoto Satoshi (voice)
  • Ikue Otani Pikachu (voice)
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