What do I have to do if the card fails the inspection?

Nothing. The order is cancelled and refunded in full, and the card is not forwarded to Thailand. Mercari's result is final and neither buyer nor seller can dispute it.

Can Pokemon cards and cards from other publishers all be inspected?

Trading cards are one of the categories Mercari opens the check to, alongside branded goods. What decides it is the individual item, not the publisher, so the same card from two sellers can differ.

I ticked it and changed my mind. Can I take it off?

Until you confirm the order, yes: press the same checkbox again and the fee goes back to grey. Once the order is confirmed with the service on it, it cannot be cancelled or changed under any circumstances.

How much does the check cost?

The figure comes with the item. You can see it on the item page under the authenticity-check badge, and on the same row as the tick at checkout, before you confirm.

Cover graphic on telling a genuine Japanese card from a fake, on a yellow background scattered with Pokémon cards. The top summarises that listing photos only tell you so much, and that Mercari's authenticity service sends the card to an inspection institute in Japan, takes one to three working days, and cancels and fully refunds the order if the card fails. The left column lists the three things to check before ordering — real photos of the front and back, a seller with over 100 reviews and a four-to-five-star rating, and a price far below the same listing elsewhere. The right explains that the checker is neither the seller nor Tama-Chan but an institute Mercari appoints, quotes 99.6% accuracy, and notes that a card which passes carries a certification badge. It closes with the two places the service can be chosen — the checkout page and the search filter — and a warning that once confirmed it cannot be cancelled and the result is final.

Before You OrderAugust 11, 20265 min read

Real or Fake Japanese Cards: How to Tell, and Who Checks

Listing photos only take you so far. The rest is settled by an inspection in Japan before the card leaves the country: 1-3 business days, and if it fails, the order is cancelled and fully refunded.

A single card runs from a few hundred yen into the high thousands, and the expensive end is exactly why fakes are worth making. From Thailand, all you ever see is the photos the seller took.

At the moment you order, the card is not in your hands. Two things are left to lean on: what the item page tells you, and having experts in Japan inspect it before it leaves the country — Mercari's own service, ticked at checkout.

Read the listing before you order

Photos say more than people expect. Someone who has shot the actual card, front and back, is not the same as someone posting a single promo image from the publisher. A promo shot does not mean fake — it means you have not seen the thing you are buying. Want another angle? Ask an admin on LINE to put the question to the seller before you order; the item page says as much under Condition.

The other half is the seller. The seller rating sits at the bottom of the item information box, so scroll — stars, then the review count in brackets. Tap the question mark beside it and you get the threshold Tama-Chan suggests: roughly 100 reviews or more, at 4.5 to 5 stars.

The seller name above it opens their profile. Someone listing cards steadily by the hundred and someone whose first ever listing is a rare single are quickest to tell apart there. A tick beside the name means they have verified their identity with Mercari.

A price far below every other copy of the same card is not proof of anything. It is a reason to use the check in the next section.

The authenticity check: who inspects, and what happens if it fails

The inspector is not the seller and not Tama-Chan. It is a leading institution in Japan that Mercari sends the item to, at 99.6% accuracy, and a card that passes comes back with a certification sticker.

So the card takes one extra leg: inspection first, one to three working days, then on to the warehouse.

What separates this from guesswork is what happens when a card fails — the order is cancelled and you are refunded in full. You are not left holding a fake and chasing it afterwards.

The tick lives on the payment screen, one of the last steps in the guide to ordering from Mercari. Look for the authenticity-check row under the service charges. If the item does not support it, the row simply is not there. Its fee sits at the end of that same row, and it is separate from the purchase service fee and the freight home, both on the fees and rates page.

The first time you tick it, a terms dialog opens and has to be accepted. You can reopen it any time from the button beside the row.

Two lines are worth reading before you confirm: once confirmed the service cannot be cancelled or changed under any circumstances, and Mercari's result is final, with neither side able to dispute it. If a card fails, there is no second opinion and no option to take it anyway.

Finding listings that offer the check

On the search page, hit the filter button at the end of the search box — on a phone it collapses to an icon. The panel drops down; tick the authenticity-check option under the guarantee heading and search.

Not every listing offers it. On 11 August 2026, of the first 12 results for ポケモンカード, nine could be sent for inspection and three could not. Cards in that sample ran ¥700 to ¥8,000 (about ฿150–1,680). Yen, because that is what the seller set and it is the same whoever looks — the baht figure is worked out from your own membership rate, so it differs by account. The baht in brackets is a rough conversion at about ฿0.21 to the yen, for scale only.

There is a category layer too: the check only covers the categories Mercari opens it to, such as branded goods and trading cards.

If ticking it brings up a notice that the authenticity filter is unavailable and all results are being shown, the filter is down for the moment and what you are seeing is unfiltered. Open items one at a time and look under the price instead — anything eligible carries the authenticity-check badge with its fee beside it.

Search from the Japan shopping page. If you are chasing the latest One Piece set, the detail is in the OP17 article.

The filter panel on Tama-Chan's Mercari search, open on a search for ポケモンカード, showing a Guarantee heading with an authenticity-check tickbox beside the Condition and Price range headings — The tickbox sits under the guarantee heading in the filter panel. Tick it and the results narrow to listings the check can be ordered on.

Frequently asked questions

It means that item does not support the check, and it cannot be added later. Either search the same card again with the filter on from the start, or, if you really want that one, look at the seller rating and the rest of what they have listed before deciding.

Looking for Japanese cards? Start here

Search Japanese card listings yourself through Tama-Chan, or message an admin on LINE.