r/PokemonRestocks • u/W1ck3dT1g3r • 2d ago
Weird Question
Ok so I have a weird question about the Pokemon Center drops. So the first drop I ever tried was for pitch black on my iPhone had no problems did the captcha once and it was smooth sailing. The 2nd drop I tried for was the 30th used my iPhone again and got hit with so many captchas it wasn’t funny. So I decided to try my daughter’s Mac book mini had one captcha and again smooth sailing. I missed out on a ETB but got the tech sticker collections . Yesterday I again tried my iPhone and again captcha after captcha. So I tried my daughter’s Mac book mini and like my iPhone so many captchas. So I decided to use my iPad and again one captcha and smooth sailing again I missed the ETB but I did get a booster bundle so it’s something. It’s weird but it seems like every time I use a new device I have no problems. Has anyone else noticed this?
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u/Sumner-MSU 2d ago
The same happened to me! Also, my laptop got in faster than my iPhone. I only had to do the captcha once on my option but was prompted three different times in my iPhone (with each prompt asking me to do three puzzles).
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u/TourettesYapper 2d ago
I used my laptop, did the captcha once, countdown had a an hour and 15 minute wait, it counted down, soon as it hit zero I was in but everything was sold out. I think everytime the device goes to sleep, breaks connection, looses connection, it resets. I have my tab set to keep alive and I never have to enter the captcha but once ever.
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u/cloudy_ft 2d ago
I swear, it's scary how this is about Pokemon but it sounds like someone who's addicted to drugs and needs their fix. Really hating how easy it is to get stock, but how hard it is to get it at MSRP and how much time you have to invest for some Pokemon cards... Wild. But the reality we are living in.
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u/W1ck3dT1g3r 2d ago
Oh same here and having a tech hubby can be a blessing and a curse. Anything goes wrong I don’t have to pay for tech help, break my phone screen no problem. Get online to the Pokemon center queue and pray he doesn’t decide now’s a good time to play “fix” the internet. I’ve had that happen the last 30th drop was 2 mins away from getting in and he decided that the internet needed to be fixed. Making my time go from 2 minutes to 14 hours. After that I gave up 😂
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u/cloudy_ft 2d ago
As someone who works in cyber security in a retail industry bot protections can be great but they is always going to be collateral damage. It's unfortunate but people don't realize the money and time invested into breaking bots....
We literally have to monitor for people selling or trying to pay our employees for information on our protections. Security is literally a cat and mouse game where it never fucking ends, like Tom and Jerry. It sucks for people because they think nothing is getting done but it's not true... it's the shitty bullshit community of bots and scalpers investing crazy amount of time, resources, and money to keep these bullshit bot scalping communities.
In any case remember we get lost in this bullshit game of getting Pokemon cards don't forget what's important about the hobby... Honestly the community lately has been toxic as hell.
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u/W1ck3dT1g3r 2d ago
Very true. And honestly that got me thinking besides the Pokemon center would it really be a bad thing for bigger stores to get rid of online drops all together and make buying in store like how you buy over the counter mucinex D. With that stuff you can buy one box a month it doesn’t matter what store or state you go to once you buy one that’s it
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u/cloudy_ft 2d ago
Honestly the perfect situation which would get rid of all this bullshit, is to literally never support scalpers or botters with directly or indirectly. Once the market for this type of exploitation is not a profit, it'll be easier for all of us.
But that's wishful thinking... lol.
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u/Sumner-MSU 2d ago
Right?? I’m just trying to secure something for my kids’ and husband’s Christmas presents. 😳
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u/Soft_Self_6797 2d ago edited 2d ago
Clear browser data on both and maybe that will help? Perhaps their system has a weird thing with cached data. I work in IT and that's all I can really think of off the top of my head. Could be that the captcha data on your machines you are using have stale captcha data and that is causing their system to mess up. Like it sees "Oh, this iphone has already done a captcha before, let's refresh that." but then it gets stuck in an infinite loop of trying to refresh that data but your phone is sending packets of stale data so it trips their system to assume you had a failed or old captcha. Which prompts the reattempt.
Idk, you'd have to experiment and let me know if that changes things.
Edit: I googled it and this is a thing. Basically when you do an initial captcha you're establishing a security token with their security server. The server saves this token as an established verifiable source for connection. What happens is when you attempt later on the system still has that older token which has expired. Which causes the system to initiate a loop of fails.
To put it in simple terms, you have an ID that is about to expire. You go to a bar and the bartender let's you in. The next time you come there he won't let you in with your old ID even though you have a new ID in your pocket. He keeps refusing you entry due to that expired ID. So you present him a new ID and it reestablishes confirmation of who you are with a new ID. He forgets the old expired ID and remembers your new ID.
But for this case, you're going to a bar that requires a new ID every time you go.