Online selling giant eBay has been forced to change its bidding policy for trading cards due to the craze surrounding the Pokémon Trading Card Game recently. As these rare cards continue to pop up on the online bidding site, the fervor surrounding them has prompted eBay to make a new set of changes to the policy in order to protect the sellers from being targeted and having bids retracted.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game is a physical card game that began in the late 90s. Players buy packs of cards, which can have a number of different Pokémon from a pool of options. There are all different kinds of packs, booster boxes, promo cards and sets, with the older ones being the rarest and most expensive as they are no longer in print. Older packs also contain the rarest kinds of cards, foils and reverse holographic. While the original point of the Pokémon Trading Card Game was for players to use their collected cards as a deck and battle opponents in Pokémon battles, the act of collecting these Pokémon cards has taken over as a craze in recent years. Some rare cards have even sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars online to collectors, prompting others to jump into the hobby.
According to an article on GameSpot, eBay will be making an update to the bid retraction policy in regards to the trading card selection on the site on June 30. This change will mean that people who have placed a bid on a trading card will not be able to retract it without the express permission of the seller listed. This change is mostly due to the enormous growth the trading card section has experienced in recent months, with not only Pokémon cards but also MLB, NFL and NBA cards all being sold in higher quantities and for bigger prices on eBay. This new policy will mean that if someone requests to pull a bid, but the request is rejected by the seller, the person who placed the bid on the trading card will have to pay. This is, of course, if the bid is the winner of the auction when time runs out.
The exact reason behind eBay making this update to the policy has not been revealed as of yet. The change seems to be aimed at protecting sellers and preventing bidders from trying to drive prices up and then retreating, causing the card not to sell and potentially be made available at a lower price later.
The Pokémon TCG craze is sure to stick around for a while longer, at least as long as there is money to be made. Reselling sites such as eBay need to make sure that policies are in place to ensure trading is done in a fair and legal way. The increased demand for these cards has resulted in surprising and violent scenes as scalpers try to buy up cards. With this much money on the line, what should be an innocent hobby can end up turning outright dangerous.
Source: GameSpot