According to Yee, the “bots” are a computer script used by resellers to buy out inventory. “It is way faster at buying than what a typical human can do,” he says. “Resellers pay for the service of the bot, and then that’s how they would secure it.”

Blind boxes from the Exciting Macaron, Have a Seat, and Big Into Energy cost £17.50 , but MacGowan has seen them priced resale from £30 to £45 each at specialty stores in the US, while StockX can cost you even more. If you don’t want to deal with blind-box gambling, you can even buy a secret Labubu from resellers, but it comes with a hefty price tag. “A ‘secret’ can probably run you up at least £300,” says Yee.

Another drawback to resale is the risk of purchasing a fake. Dubbed by fans as “Lafufus,” bootleg Labubus have become more and more common — and convincing. Yee says he knows of one-to-one replicas being sold in reused packaging with fake QR codes that direct you to a lookalike Pop Mart website.

MacGowan, who has spent around $400 on her collection (around £300), has cross-referenced her dolls with authentic Labubus. “Checking the barcodes, looking at the eyes, making sure their feet move and heads can move all the way around,” she says. Despite this, MacGowan isn’t 100% certain all her dolls are genuine. “They could be really, really good dupes. When it’s not from an authorised retailer, there’s no authenticity guaranteed.”

However, it may be possible to land a genuine Labubu from resale. Lulu, a 21-year-old based in North Carolina, is considered one of the most reliable resellers online. Through her Instagram and Facebook accounts, and platforms like StockX and Mercari, Lulu has sold more than 1,000 Labubus.

“There’s often confusion between official distribution sellers, third-party distributors, and individual collectors just reselling extras versus people who buy with bots and sell at extremely high rates,” she says. Lulu considers herself a third-party distributor and works for a “sub-company of an official Pop Mart distributor,” which she claims handles international sales. Some of Lulu’s buyers order more than 1,000 sets of Labubus, though she doesn’t work with them directly. “I’m on a smaller-scale, 1-to-100-cases kind of girlie.”

If you don’t want to deal with the tricky online market, buying a Labubu from one of Pop Mart’s few US stores isn’t any less difficult. On restock days, fans used to wait overnight in lines for blocks, but now Pop Mart requires them to reserve their purchase through its app first, then pick it up in store. According to Yee, Pop Mart has also recently implemented a purchase limit per account.

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The frenzy is so intense, some collectors are starting to wonder whether sellouts are actually real. “My conspiracy theory on this is that the bots are Pop Mart,” Nguyen says. “They’re making this false scarcity. I one hundred percent believe that these are not selling out as much as we think they are. They have so much inventory, but they’re only putting out maybe 20 boxes here, 20 boxes there.”

In a statement to GLAMOUR, Pop Mart denies any “artificial inventory manipulation” and maintains the company is trying its best to keep fans happy. “From a go-to-market perspective, we prioritise getting products into fans’ hands as soon as inventory becomes available,” the company said. “Our teams continue to explore ways to minimise the impact of bots and resellers, with the goal of delivering a fair, creative, and joyful experience for our community around the world.”

In the meantime, the company encourages fans to explore the Pop Mart portfolio featuring other options like Crybaby, Peach Riot, Hirono, and SkullPanda. “It’s important to remember that Labubu is just one part of Pop Mart’s growing universe of collectible characters,” the company adds.

In her post-Labubu clarity, Nguyen is taking that idea one step further: “The feeling of wanting something you can’t have is addicting, rather than the item itself,” she says. “Because honestly, I’m staring at my Labubus right now and they’re just cotton, they’re just vinyl. They’re just little plush toys, right?”

Ariana Yaptangco is the senior beauty editor at GLAMOUR.

This article originally appeared in GLAMOUR (US).