WotC may have sent the Pinkertons to a magic leakers home. Update: WotC confirms it and has a response.

[darjr]

Magic: The Gathering Fan Allegedly Set Upon by Pinkertons for Unreleased Cards

A YouTuber revealed dozens of cards from the new set March of the Machine: The Aftermath without realizing just how embargoed they were.

gizmodo.com

The person who’s home it was does seem to want to play it down somewhat? He did get a hold at somebody at WotC and they mentioned compensating him for some if the cost of product taken.

Wizards Of The Coast Raids YouTuber’s House To Take Back Magic: The Gathering Cards [Update]

A Magic: The Gathering YouTuber found Pinkerton agents at his front door on Saturday morning

bit.ly

Looks like WotC confirmed they hired them.

When Magic: The Gathering cards turned up on YouTube last week, publisher Wizards of the Coast sent private investigators from Pinkerton to retrieve them. The resulting confrontation reportedly frightened one woman to tears, and resulted in the confiscation of nearly two dozen boxes of cards by private investigators. Wizards confirmed the incident to Polygon. Meanwhile, the presenter denies anything illegal occurred.

Magic publishers sent Pinkerton agents to a YouTuber’s house to retrieve leaked cards

March of the Machine: The Aftermath isn’t due out in stores until May

www.polygon.com

Update.

@ersatzphil notes the polygon article has a response from WotC.

Official statement from WotC on the matter:

As part of an investigation into the unauthorized distribution and disclosure of embargoed product, we repeatedly attempted to contact an individual who had received unreleased cards. After that outreach was unsuccessful, an investigator visited him and asked that he reach out to us as part of our investigation and return the embargoed product and packaging. He agreed to do both. The unreleased product will be replaced by us with the product he intended to purchase. We appreciate the individual’s cooperation and the investigation is ongoing.

Updating with a newer ish article

Magic: The Gathering YouTuber Says Pinkertons Threatened Him With $200k Fines, Jail

The content creator would have been in a lot of trouble if he didn’t hand over Wizards of the Coast’s trading cards

kotaku.com

 

[darjr]

@Morrus

 

[jdrakeh]

Jeezus. How did anybody at WotC or Hasbro think that this would play out well?

 

[Argyle King]

Well... jeeze...

Maybe I do need to worry about WoTC raiding my house and stopping me from playing old editions of D&D.

 

[CleverNickName]

They called in the Pinkertons? Like, the Pinkertons?

 

[J.Quondam]

To stop a magic leak, I'd have thought sending an arcane plumber would have been more appropriate.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Honestly WotC and the Pinkerton's should be criminally charged for what they did, it was straight up theft, harrassment, threatening people with authority they did not possess.

 

[trappedslider]

“He was very apologetic about making my wife cry first thing in the morning by sending these heavy-duty lawmen [to] come collect stuff and talk about stolen products and jail time,” the presenter said in the video. “But they don’t believe we stole anything — which we didn’t. I don’t know if they believe anybody really stole anything or if it was just an accident or whatever. But they wanted the product back so they could try and figure out where the hole was so they could plug the hole"

 

[Tonguez]

Honestly WotC and the Pinkerton's should be criminally charged for what they did, it was straight up theft, harrassment, threatening people with authority they did not possess.

Why? Knocking on a door and asking for return of stolen goods seems fair enough, despite being rather heavy handed

 

[trappedslider]

They called in the Pinkertons? Like, the Pinkertons?

Yes and no

Honestly WotC and the Pinkerton's should be criminally charged for what they did, it was straight up theft, harrassment, threatening people with authority they did not possess.

why?

Engaging private investigators to retrieve stolen or missing trading cards is not a particularly new or novel strategy for game publishers. Just last week, Polygon reported on another similar incident dating back to 2021 involving products from The Pokémon Trading Card Game, which were also retrieved with the help of a private investigator.

WotC reached out and said hey here's some actual product that you're allowed to have.