SINGAPORE: Kenny Ang thought he was making just another purchase of Pokemon cards from a reseller in January. But his order never arrived.
Now, after almost a month and losing about S$10,000, he wants to help other victims of the same Pokemon card trading scam, which has allegedly been traced to the same individual, according to Ang.
In recent years, trading cards from the billion-dollar Pokemon franchise have made headlines due to a surge in interest in such collectibles. That massive interest has resulted in eye-watering amounts of money being spent, but also lost to related scams.
Most of the products that victims had ordered in cases like Ang’s are known as Elite Trainer Boxes, from the newest of the Ascended Heroes set of English-language Pokemon trading cards, which were released on Jan 30.
On online marketplace Lazada, the Ascended Heroes box of cards is still available at the official Pokemon store at $109.90 per box.
Ang told The Straits Times he had paid $1,080 to pre-order 10 boxes of the cards.
On Feb 25, Ang took to his TikTok account to share his experience and warn Pokemon card collectors against such scams. Subsequently, he said, he received a flood of private messages from people sharing that they, too, had been scammed by the same reseller.
None of them knew what to do, said Ang, adding that transaction receipts sent to him by victims totalled more than $700,000 in unfulfilled orders.
“Some of the victims were students in secondary school and polytechnic,” Ang told ST. “Some are just kids who purchased cards with their pocket money, and some work part-time to fund this hobby.”
To help fellow victims and encourage them to share information with one another, Ang created a channel on messaging platform Telegram on Feb 26. As at 5pm the same day, it has 292 members.
In the channel, named Scam Support Group, victims are urged to make police reports and come forward should they require any help.
Checks by ST found that the Telegram channel consisted of discussions among victims on how to make police reports, with some checking if there were updates on the cases.
Others were also seen comforting one another on their shared losses.
Many of them had contacted the reseller on Telegram or Carousell, but to no avail, they said.
“Some people are still holding out hope that they will get their orders,” Ang, 37, told ST on Feb 26.
Recounting his own experience, Ang, who started collecting cards of the mega-popular Japanese game only in the past few months, said there were initially no signs to indicate that the reseller was a conman.
“When one of my orders did not come in, I asked for a refund of $7,000 and (the reseller) gave it to me,” Ang said, adding that the reseller had said he was unable to procure the product Ang initially wanted.
Since that Feb 16 transaction, however, his other orders have been unfulfilled, though Ang said the reseller was still accepting pre-orders up till last week via online listings.
Checks by ST on Feb 26 found that the listings on Telegram or Carousell have since been deleted.
“I want everything to be transparent and if anyone needs help, they can use the Telegram channel,” Ang said. “Some of them don’t know how to make a police report, so I tell them how.”
The police confirmed that a report had been lodged and investigations are ongoing.
Keith (not his real name) is also a victim of the same scam.
Together with a friend, he had placed a group order with the alleged scammer on Jan 10. The order amounting to $335 has not been fulfilled. While Keith did not make a police report as he deemed the amount lost negligible, he lamented the damage to the reputation of the Pokemon collector community in Singapore.
“Cumulatively, a large sum of money is lost. The $700,000 (lost by the victims so far) is as much as the cost of an HDB flat,” the 27-year-old said, adding that he hopes this will serve as a lesson for all collectors.
However, both Ang and Keith told ST that their bad experience will not deter them from buying Pokemon cards from resellers in the future.
While physical shops tend to be more reliable, Keith said, buying from resellers is inevitable in this hobby. “Do your due diligence and check reviews before purchasing from someone,” he advised.
On Feb 25, ST reported that Pokemon trading cards made up 13.6 per cent of all e-commerce scam cases in 2025.
The total amount lost to e-commerce scams involving Pokemon trading cards was at least $1.6 million in that period. More than half of the Pokemon card scam victims were aged between 30 and 49, while 40.8 per cent of the victims were 20 to 29 years old.
The police said scammers exploited the growing demand for new and exclusive releases of Pokemon trading cards and rare cards with high resale value. - The Straits Times/ANN
