AITA for taking Pokémon cards from a scalper at Walmart?
So I'm unsure if I was the asshole or not so I'd like some insight.
I (17M) was doing some last minute Christmas shopping for my mom. She was busy so she sent me out to do it myself. I have a younger sister (8F) who is obsessed with Pokémon. She loves to collect the cards and has a lot of the games.
So I was at Walmart because that was the closest place to us that sold the cards. I had to ask a worker beforehand what the restock schedule was so that I could get there as soon as possible and get my sister her Christmas gift. While I was there, I caught a scalper in action trying to hoard a bunch of card packs to resell.
This wouldn't do. So I decided to just reach into this scalper's cart and grab one of the bigger packs he was hoarding. He looked completely dumbfounded for a second before trying to get an employee to accuse me of "theft". He didn't pay for it yet, so it belonged to the store as far as I was concerned. And this worker didn't speak english very well so nothing really came of that.
So I go about my day trying to get the rest of the stuff on the list for Christmas dinner, when I noticed that the scalper was FOLLOWING ME. This was starting to get insane and out of hand. I did my best to ignore the scalper, and went home.
However, when I got home, I noticed the scalper had followed my route somehow. I must not have gotten to my car fast enough or something, but this guy was parked in our driveway and demanded that I hand over the cards. I did the only sensible thing and called the police, stating a creepy guy followed me, a minor, home. When my mom found out about this, she blamed me for taking stuff out of a guy's cart instead of just going to another store. Was I really in the wrong?
Luckily Walmart employees don’t speak English very well or OOP might’ve had to give back the cards he took out if someone else’s cart. However the Walmart employees do speak English well enough to let OOP know when they’ll be restocking the shelves with Pokémon cards.
The most realistic part of the story was definitely the Walmart employee doing nothing
I've never experienced such mediocre customer service like at any Walmart in the US. It's uncanny. It's like they train people to be as useless as humanly possible.
Doesn't Walmart lock their cards up now specifically because of scalpers getting into fights? And it being a high theft target
Most have them behind the tills now I believe.
So yeah I'm sure this dude just had thousands of dollars of locked up merch in his cart.
Also what the fuck is a restock schedule lmao. You ask a Walmart employee what their restock schedule is and you'll just get a resounding "??????" from everyone.
And lastly scalpers don't give two fucks about 95% of pokemon card merch. They specifically target limited and rare items, like boxes that contain rare limited booster packs or sets with said rare limited booster packs. Which is fairly uncommon. Normal cards are worth next to nothing and are made in high volumes.
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AITA for taking Pokémon cards from a scalper at Walmart?
So I'm unsure if I was the asshole or not so I'd like some insight.
I (17M) was doing some last minute Christmas shopping for my mom. She was busy so she sent me out to do it myself. I have a younger sister (8F) who is obsessed with Pokémon. She loves to collect the cards and has a lot of the games.
So I was at Walmart because that was the closest place to us that sold the cards. I had to ask a worker beforehand what the restock schedule was so that I could get there as soon as possible and get my sister her Christmas gift. While I was there, I caught a scalper in action trying to hoard a bunch of card packs to resell.
This wouldn't do. So I decided to just reach into this scalper's cart and grab one of the bigger packs he was hoarding. He looked completely dumbfounded for a second before trying to get an employee to accuse me of "theft". He didn't pay for it yet, so it belonged to the store as far as I was concerned. And this worker didn't speak english very well so nothing really came of that.
So I go about my day trying to get the rest of the stuff on the list for Christmas dinner, when I noticed that the scalper was FOLLOWING ME. This was starting to get insane and out of hand. I did my best to ignore the scalper, and went home.
However, when I got home, I noticed the scalper had followed my route somehow. I must not have gotten to my car fast enough or something, but this guy was parked in our driveway and demanded that I hand over the cards. I did the only sensible thing and called the police, stating a creepy guy followed me, a minor, home. When my mom found out about this, she blamed me for taking stuff out of a guy's cart instead of just going to another store. Was I really in the wrong?
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People twisting themselves in knots to justify this because it’s a subset of humans they can metaphorically spit on is such a typical aitah thing.
He must be a scalper! There is absolutely no way he could want those cards for himself or as a gift. (Even though I want them as a gift)
And then he followed me home! (Because he would totally abandon the cart full of cards instead of paying for them in order to get that one pack back)
How would he even know what the guy intended to do with cards?
Luckily Walmart employees don’t speak English very well or OOP might’ve had to give back the cards he took out if someone else’s cart. However the Walmart employees do speak English well enough to let OOP know when they’ll be restocking the shelves with Pokémon cards.
And luckily that was the only Walmart employee in that entire store.
The most realistic part of the story was definitely the Walmart employee doing nothing
I've never experienced such mediocre customer service like at any Walmart in the US. It's uncanny. It's like they train people to be as useless as humanly possible.
i mean walmart pays so little that a lot of their employees are on food stamps so its probably a "i dont get paid enough for this shit" mentality
I worked retail for years, that's just standard.
I got paid by the hour. I was happy to help people cuz it made the day go faster. It's just a bizarre attitude to stand around jerking off instead.
Amazing how everyone there is just believing OOP that the other person just had to be a scalper without any actual proof.
Doesn't Walmart lock their cards up now specifically because of scalpers getting into fights? And it being a high theft target
Most have them behind the tills now I believe.
So yeah I'm sure this dude just had thousands of dollars of locked up merch in his cart.
Also what the fuck is a restock schedule lmao. You ask a Walmart employee what their restock schedule is and you'll just get a resounding "??????" from everyone.
And lastly scalpers don't give two fucks about 95% of pokemon card merch. They specifically target limited and rare items, like boxes that contain rare limited booster packs or sets with said rare limited booster packs. Which is fairly uncommon. Normal cards are worth next to nothing and are made in high volumes.
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https://youtu.be/1oJmGLLDpp0
Isn't there a movie with a similar premise? Crazy wheelchair lady follows a dude from Walmart because "he stole something".
Love it.