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The story
The “Chiikawa” collab prizes (figures, can badges, etc.) that Kura Sushi had been rolling out since August 21 were found listed on Mercari even before the collab started, revealing that an employee had embezzled and leaked the prizes. Kura Sushi has gone so far as to consult the police over the matter. Amid this, 5channelers’ anger has also turned toward Mercari, the platform where the resold items are being offloaded. Especially prominent were comments like “I reported the illegal listings multiple times, and instead my own account got suspended” — sparking debate over just how much responsibility the platform itself should bear.
Popular conveyor-belt sushi chain Kura Sushi abruptly announced the cancellation of its hugely popular “Chiikawa” collaboration campaign. The reason: internal misconduct — prizes embezzled and leaked by an employee. As the matter escalates to the point where Kura Sushi is consulting the police, the anger of Chiikawa fans and ordinary consumers — who are themselves the victims here — is now being directed at flea-market apps like “Mercari.”
The collab campaign launched on August 21. As prizes for the “Bikkura Pon!” capsule lottery (won by feeding in your finished plates), five types of Chiikawa figures, eight types of can badges, and eight types of acrylic magnets were prepared.
◼ Listed before the Chiikawa collab even started → sold out
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
We need a law that can actually hold Mercari liable too.
Give these scalpers hell.
Current law could already punish this, but it's tough when prosecutors are incompetent.
Claiming they "couldn't have known" it was stolen/embezzled goods being resold, after receiving reports multiple times, is pretty rich.
On top of the reports, the tea cups (yunomi) were listed before the distribution date even started — saying they "didn't know" doesn't hold up by any common-sense standard.
Maybe I should try it…
No — it's the person who REPORTS that gets their account frozen.
I reported it multiple times and got frozen myself.
Guess from their side, reporting counts as "interference" that costs them fee revenue.
Motorcycle and car parts listings are pretty sketchy too, now that you mention it.
Same with convenience store scratch lotteries.
It's just like festival stall games.
The winning tickets get pulled out beforehand and you're left with nothing but duds.
What a joke.
It's like blaming JR for not checking luggage when a criminal uses the bullet train to transport stolen goods.
By that logic, NTT would be at fault for phone scams too.
Don't they have a reporting system?
If you're going to deal in secondhand goods, shouldn't you actually screen listings properly?
Being used to transport stolen goods and actively providing a platform to sell stolen goods aren't remotely comparable.
Right?
First Chiikawa, now some sticker thing or whatever —
parents are right there with their kids making a huge fuss.
Didn't know that.
"Skims"? It's a business, not a charity.
Mercari: "Sure, go ahead and prove — to a level a court would actually accept — that we knew it was a criminal resale."
They can dodge it that easily, so at this point the only real fix is changing the law.
Their credibility was already at zero, so there's nowhere left to fall.
The content: any item a manufacturer designates as resale-prohibited stays banned from resale for a set period (say, 1 to 5 years). Sellers and buyers who violate it face penalties.
That alone would be enough to stop scalping.
Seriously, this.
Also ban random/lottery-style sales while you're at it —
get rid of Ichiban Kuji lotteries, and claw machines too.
Mercari's so dominant at this point that basically nobody uses Rakuma anymore.
I honestly don't get that urge in the first place.
Maybe it's different if you're someone who really wants it?
Sounds like you've just never come across something you truly wanted. That's kind of sad.
You learned this in elementary school, remember?
Supply and demand.
When demand>>>supply, the price skyrockets.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
When it comes to flea-market apps, how far the operator should go in identifying and removing listings of stolen or fraudulently obtained goods has long been a recurring debate, and this incident followed the same pattern. Where opinions on the thread split was over where responsibility lies: some argued that “since Mercari is providing the platform where stolen goods are traded, they can’t claim to have nothing to do with it,” while others took a more limited view of the operator’s responsibility, comparing it to “blaming the bullet train for not checking passengers’ luggage” — so it wasn’t a simple case of one side being clearly in the right. One point readers might easily misread is the assumption that “reporting will get illegal listings taken down right away” — but according to accounts on the thread, the opposite happened in some cases, with the reporting user’s own account getting suspended instead, and the platform’s actual screening standards and how it handles reports remain largely opaque from the outside. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the prize leak itself originated from internal misconduct by a Kura Sushi employee — serious enough that Kura Sushi consulted the police — and this was not an incident in which Mercari was directly involved.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5channel (News Speed+) thread ““I reported it so many times” / “Total liars” — Users direct their anger at Mercari over Kura Sushi’s Chiikawa scalping scandal and its “slow response”.”
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