Gotta catch ’em all—apparently literally. A Las Vegas man is going viral after filming a Walmart shopper who cleared out an entire display of Pokémon cards while management allegedly just stood by and let it happen. The TikToker, fuming and filming, calls the scene “pure greed.” He accuses the manager of playing favorites as he’s denied a single pack himself.
The video shows at least 150 packs being rung up by the cashier, but it is unclear whether more were already bagged. Meanwhile, the mystery buyer hides his face like he’s smuggling state secrets, clutching enough cards to start his own tournament.
Do Pokémon Cards Have Resell Value?
In recent years, Pokémon cards have crept up on the resale market, with rare cards reaching up to six digits. While it may not be common knowledge to everyone, Mike Romano (@mromano2003) and his whopping 7,000,000 views definitely know. His one-minute clip is saturated with frenzy and fury, as he directly showcases the hundreds of items about to be rung up by the Walmart cashier.
Mike can be heard behind the camera saying, “This is all being sold to one person. This is the manager. He didn’t ring any of these up yet, but won’t let me buy them.” The Walmart manager then interjects and says the items have been rung up, but when Mike asks if the card has been swiped, he doesn’t respond. He simply says, “Sir, you will not be able to purchase those items.”
Mike then says, “Zay, the main manager at this Walmart Royale Grande is letting one guy buy all these because he knows them.” Zay refutes this statement and then tells Mike he cannot record this interaction. This is where the clip ends. If the buyer was able to pay for all the packs shown in the TikTok, that means he acquired at least 1,500 cards by paying upwards of $1,500.
What are Scalpers?
This is a common question that has surfaced at the same time reselling Pokémon cards became popular. A 4-year-old Reddit post on the subreddit r/PokemonTCG asks: “Someone explain the whole scalping situation to me?”
The most upvoted response was, “In the case of Pokémon cards, the demand has grown in the last year or so (probably pandemic related, time on people’s hands, expendable income). People (scalpers) understand this and are buying all the product at retail value and selling it for a profit online or on FB. People can’t help themselves and cave on paying these inflated prices.”
Mike’s viewers also reference this phenomenon. One viewer says, “Them resellers are ruining everything.” While another wrote, “Scalpers are the greediest parasites to exist. tcg scalpers are the worst.”
One even calls Mike himself a scalper, saying, “Scalpers mad at scalpers lol.” But Mike responds, “Nah went to buy 1 box out of 100. Nice try though.”
On the other hand, some viewers are calling out both men involved. One viewer says, “Grown men arguing over some Pokémon cards.”
Another laments, “Weird that the grown adults took away a fun hobby from the kids…”
Some accuse the Walmart manager of being in on the scam. One says, “Manager is 100% getting paid.” One speculated, “Oh they 100% friends! Walmart is so gross for allowing this.”
Did Walmart respond?
Mike tags Walmart and Pokémon in his caption, but has yet to get a response. He does a follow-up TikTok, which already has 422,000 views, where he explains the situation more clearly and drops the Walmart location.
He says, “It’s really hard to find Pokémon cards in Vegas. So when I heard they were doing this drop at Walmart, I got kinda excited. My friend told me they dropped and we got there in like five minutes. I asked ‘Can I have one box?’ and they said it’s all sold out. What do you mean all sold out? They say, ‘Yeah, this guy’s buying all of them.’ So he’s [the buyer] like, ‘Don’t worry man, I’ll give you some.’”
Mike was appeased until he asked for a box, and the buyer said he’ll only give him two tins. At this point, Mike gets frustrated and says, “I was like ‘Dude you have thousands of tins there. What are you talking about two tins? So we went back and forth and then I just decided to grab a box…I went to self-checkout and started scanning and then Zay ran over and shut my register down. So that’s where the video starts.”
Mike accuses the Walmart manager being in cahoots with the buyer, and reveals that he was allegedly threatened by Zay that the cops would be called on him if he continued the argument.
@mromano2003 This is what pure GREED looks like!! #walmart #pokemon @Walmart @Pokémon Company Int’l ♬ original sound – Mike Romano
The Mary Sue reached out to Mike via TikTok direct message and to Walmart via media contact form.
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