Week 5: got scammed and almost lost everything

Breakdown summary

Nett profit

Time Spent

Difficulty

Worth it?

€ 260

12 h

Must Read

To get the cash flow going, we tapped into the second-hand market. During our 30-day challenge, we scraped together €300 and discovered that the Pokémon Emerald GBA market was surprisingly liquid. Deals closed within days, and solid copies traded for €250–€300.

We bought three:

€220 (good condition)
€180 (decent condition)
€260 (good condition)

Potential sales value: €840. Easy win? Nope.

One cartridge never arrived — instead, we received an empty case. The second deal was a bundle: €100 + a PSA 7 Gold Star Jolteon. Except… it wasn’t Gold Star. It was a Championship Edition, worth just €50.
After pulling it from the case and make good quality pictures, we sold it off for €120 to someone who probably also didn’t know the real value (we showed every detail off the card so he could know it).
The third Emerald sold for €280, so that one worked out.

We managed to bait the scammer by pretending to buy another listing. That trick got us our $260 back — but not without a serious time drain.

Earnings

Total earned: €100

Pokémon Emerald (good condition): sold for €280
Pokémon Emerald (decent condition): sold for €100 + Jolteon (we managed to sold for €120)
Initial investment of -€400,-

Time Spent

Total: 12 hours

Product photos, listings and reselling: 2h
Dealing with scam, Jeolton negotiations and the drama: 10h

Top Lessons

The second-hand market is fast but risky.
One scam can erase a week’s worth of profits.
Pokémon card valuations are often overhyped — always double-check edition types and condition levels.
If something feels off, trust your gut.
Other victims shared similar stories: this market is full of traps.
Focus on only one thing at the time.

Marketplace Flipping – Fully Breakdown

Nett Profit of €100. Not what we hoped for but money is made. We could make more money when we spend more time on it. We started this hustle to get some fast money and want to focus on bigger side hustles.
We spent 12 hours on this side hustle to earn €100 dollar. If everything went perfect, I would took us probably 2 hours.
Difficulty only 2 out of 5. When you know a niche to start, get started there. When you don’t know: Find something you like and spend some time watching transactions. You will notice in one week what different conditions are worth.
We think this wasn’t worth the time (because of the drama), but is was good to try and to learn from it. The biggest problem is that your profit can be gone with one scam. But if you need some quick money to start, this is definitely the way to go.