Scalpers resell McDonald's Hello Kitty plushies online for up to $88 after toys sell out island-wide

Just one day after McDonald's Singapore launched their new Hello Kitty plushie collection, multiple listings reselling the soft toy at inflated prices have popped up online.

In celebration of the cartoon character's 50th anniversary, the fast-food chain released the first of four limited-edition plush sets at 11am on Thursday (Feb 15), which features a 50th Anniversary doll and McD Crew doll.

They were quickly snapped up by eager fans — as well as some scalpers.

The first set of the Hello Kitty plushies are currently sold out island-wide, announced McDonald's in a Facebook update yesterday.

A quick check by AsiaOne on Friday afternoon found multiple listings on online marketplace Carousell reselling the plushie set with prices ranging from $25 to $88.

For context, the Hello Kitty stuffed toys retail for $9.90 along with the purchase of an Extra Value Meal, Feast, two Value Meals or Family Meal in a single transaction. A limit of two sets per customer applies.

A clip posted to Facebook page Singapore Incidents on Thursday showed over 10 people waiting in line outside a McDonald's outlet to purchase the collection. It is unclear which outlet the video was filmed at.

One commenter under the post added that there was also a long queue at the McDonald's outlet in Compass One.

Meanwhile, several netizens took to the fast-food chain's social media page to lament the small quantity of plushies available, sharing that the merchandise had sold out in an hour.

"Went to Tiong Bahru branch at 11am, sold out already when it haven't started," said one Facebook user.

Questioned another: "What's the point of launching it if its just going to be on sale for one hour, or worse, less than an hour? Giving opportunities to scalpers to sell online for profits."

App down during earlier redemption of toys

Earlier this month, several customers were left disappointed when the McDonald's mobile app crashed during the redemption of a Golden Pass, which allowed customers to redeem all four sets of the Hello Kitty plushies before its official launch.

When customers tried logging in at 11am on Feb 5, the app displayed a message stating that its servers were "temporarily overloaded", according to Stomp.

"I went in at 11am exactly but could not redeem. I restarted the app multiple times over the next few minutes but all I got was an error message," recounted a contributor.

"When I tried again at 11.07am, I clicked 'redeem' and there was loading for a while. I got hopeful, only to be told that the plushies were fully redeemed. What a bust!"

Those who'd failed to snag a Hello Kitty plush set this time round may want to keep an eye out for the three remaining sets, which will each be launched at 11am on Feb 19, 22 and 26.

ALSO READ: 'Distance and time difference won't be a problem': Hello Kitty chats with Carol Cheng about romance with Dear Daniel

lim.kewei@asiaone.com