Burger King SpongeBob Scalper Controversy 2025

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I wanted to know what was going on with Burger King's current promotion with the new SpongeBob movie Search for SquarePants and I learned that there is a controversy involving scalpers buying & re-selling the Kids' Meal toys on eBay!! !

Is this true?!?

I hope it's true. I know nothing about this.

Scalpers? You mean like cutting off someone's hair with their skin still attached?

A brief skim of the 'net indicates that yes, people are ordering multiple toy meals just to scoop the toys, to then later sell on the secondary market. Pokemon and MTG cards are having similar issues with scalpers scooping up limited product to flip it and price gouge.

@lostonearth - "scalping" in this context means buying up a limited resource, and selling it at an inflated price for profit.

How did you find this info @uncommondenominator?

I asked google "are people scalping the spongebob burger king toys", and read a few articles that confirmed that yes, it is occurring. Sadly, it's been happening a lot with any sort of limited release items, as with the pokemon and MTG cards. Similar things with other fast food promotions as well. Japan and china are offering pokemon related promotions, and they're having big problems with people buying the meals to get the toys, and just throwing the food away as well as scalping with the more rare items.

Hmm...very interesting...


EDIT: Wasting food just for toys is inconceivable!! !

Burger King needs to do what McDonalds does and offer the toys by themselves without having to purchase a full meal which would have prevented all of this!

Or make it so the only way to obtain the toy is by NOT purchasing a meal, even though that sounds counter-intuitive

Unless...this is a VERY clever publicity stunt by BK and Paramount Pictures/Nickelodeon (Viacom)?!?

Perhaps they have artificially created scarcity thus driving demand?

For anyone who was lucky enough to try the food, how was it?

Not just SpongeBob's Krabby Whopper but also Mr. Krabs' Bacon Tots, Patrick's Star-berry Pie & Pirate's Frozen Pineapple Float?

Gonna try to convince Cathy to stop by BK tomorrow after my brother's physical therapy session and ask directly what's going on with supply shortage...

UPDATE: I managed to successfully convince Cathy to take me to Burger King and I managed to be able to try out the Pirate's Frozen Pineapple Float drink but without the cold foam topping!! !

Now I am satisfied!

The drink was pretty good even without the tropical-flavored cold foam topping although that would have elevated it higher I think

It was essentially just a Pineapple slushie or Icee

I didn't get to try the pie because they were sold out of it at my BK location but maybe Burger King can bring it back in near future without the SBSP license?

Here's to hoping...