A few months ago, Martin *, a bit nostalgic, wanted to buy some Pokémon cards online, to complete his collection and play them again, as young people and children have been doing for nearly twenty years.
To do this, he ordered a few used models on Vinted.
But once the package arrives, it's a disappointment.
“I immediately saw that they were fake, because of their sizes, their colors, or their lack of patterns.
This has happened to me twice in a row, ”says the 19-year-old, with photos.
Martin is not the only one to have been fooled.
According to several testimonials from online collectors, counterfeit Pokémon cards, especially the rarest, are becoming legion on resale platforms.
And can allow resellers to earn, sometimes, thousands of euros.
"In the 2000s, we often saw smaller cards, or self-adhesive, it was quite rude before," recalls Lorin, passionate card collector and moderator of the Pokécardex site, specializing in the matter.
With the popularization of the Pokémon Go game in 2016, many other collectors got carried away by the nostalgia.
A sort of Proust madeleine which has also attracted more qualified counterfeiters.
“Today, we are on photocopies that respect the standard format.
If you are given the wrong card and the real card flat, it is very difficult to tell them apart, ”laments Lorin.
On the left, a counterfeit (in English) bought by Martin * on Vinted.
On the right, a real Pokémon card from his collection, for comparison.
DR
It is therefore difficult for children - and their parents - or teenagers to know if they have the right cards in hand.
Some clues can still make it possible to distinguish them, such as the absence of certain logos, a slightly different size or font, captions in English (false cards in French are, for the moment, less common) or even a relief that does not shine in the same way as the originals.
Lots from China
These fakes are first purchased from manufacturers, most of them based in China, and accessible on sales platforms, such as AliExpress (where many fakes are wholesaled) or Wish.
In particular, there are lots of hundreds of rare cards for less than twenty euros, a bargain when you know the cost and the time invested to find only one in traditional shops.
“There is a ratio to finding a rare card in a pack of normal cards.
A holographic card, a GX card
(shiny cards popular with the youngest, Editor's note)
, a super-rare, we have a one in six chance of falling on it.
In view of the prices in tobacconists and stores, at around six euros a packet, to get a good card, you have to pay at least 36 euros, ”calculates Lorin.
The bundles of cards are first purchased on AliExpress or Wish, and are then found on Vinted or Le Bon Coin (Photo illustration).
These fake cards are then found on object resale sites, such as eBay, Le Bon Coin or Vinted, presented as real cards, sold individually or in lots at prices that seem attractive to buyers.
“All Pokémon cards on Vinted, real or fake, are still cheaper,” says Martin.
Buyers are also thinking of saving money by purchasing bundles of used rare cards, instead of acquiring multiple decks of sometimes unnecessary cards.
Thousands of euros to be won
For resellers of these fake cards, the earning possibilities are massive, according to Lorin, a seasoned market observer.
"We do not realize the amount that this represents, but we know that there is a lot of money at stake. On eBay, we see that the lots of cards are going very well.
In some shops, we see that for a year they have been selling 200, 300 lots, each at 100 euros.
All this, multiplied by the number of shops… It can amount to 500,000 euros minimum for France, ”judges the collector, who admits to being inundated with false ads.
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These dealers have indeed sensed a good vein: over time, the value of certain cards has soared.
Some, if they prove to be authentic, can be resold at a high price.
In mid-November, for example, a box of Pokémon cards dating from 1999 sold for 360,000 dollars (around 300,000 euros) at an auction in the United States.
On the side of the platforms where these counterfeits are sold, it is ensured that the problem is controlled.
“Our teams check the cards and their authenticity when users report a suspicious ad,” explains Vinted.
“If we have reason to doubt the authenticity of the cards, we can hide them or remove the announcement,” adds the company, which admits, however, that “reports from members concerning replica Pokémon cards are very rare”.
Doubts about the toxicity of the inks used
AliExpress and Wish, where many batch counterfeits originate from, guarantee that they have set up technology services to monitor and remove intellectual property infringements.
However, simple searches on their search engines provide access to dozens of ads every day.
On the customs side, it is impossible to know what proportion of their seizures represent these cards, even if their services note that games and toys were among the most seized objects in 2019, with 390,000 items concerned out of 4.5 million items. withdrawn from the market.
When contacted, the Pokémon brand was unable to answer our questions at the end of the week.
On the other hand, she seems to be aware of the phenomenon.
On its site, an entire page is dedicated to spotting counterfeit cards, proof that the phenomenon is growing.
“It has become more and more established, and many collectors themselves sell fake cards which they do not know what to do with, to make their purchases profitable,” Lorin still slips.
Enough to let counterfeits circulate everywhere ... Even on the stalls of garage sales and flea markets.
"By dint of seeing them on Google, people are no longer suspicious," he says.
He is also concerned about the ubiquity of these cheap and poorly controlled counterfeits in the hands of children in playgrounds.
"I'm afraid that inks from Asian countries could be toxic to children, if one day that happens there will be no recourse for the parents," he says.
An alert not to be overlooked as families begin to prepare for their Christmas shopping.
* The first name has been changed.