Parents Are Furious at This Bestselling Author for Buying $23,600 Worth of ‘Hatchimals’

New York Times bestselling author Sara Gruen has a big problem on her hands — well, 166 problems, to be exact. The scribe hatched a plan that has backfired and drawn the ire of parents who believe she’s exploiting children to make a profit this holiday season, according to the Guardian.

It started with the best of intentions. Right after the Black Friday rush, Gruen learned that this season’s must-have gift is Hatchimals: interactive, battery-operated “animals” that live inside “eggs” that eventually hatch to reveal a surprise creature once you’ve nurtured and cared for your egg during its gestation. Gruen saw the popularity of the toy as a unique opportunity to raise funds for a cause she’s adopted: The author is spearheading a campaign to save a man who’s “run out of options while serving life without parole,” says the Guardian. “[Hatchimals] were already selling for double and triple their MSRP, but I figured I could still sell them at a profit and put a dent in the extremely hefty lawyer fees I’m accruing in my fight to get the wrongfully convicted man’s case back before the Supreme Court,” Gruen wrote on Facebook.

She claims in a Facebook post that she used her credit card to charge $23,595.31 for 166 of the toys from eBay, with the intention of marking them up and reselling them on eBay and other sites. Despite the fact that she herself bought them at “about three times their retail price,” she never had any doubt she could turn a profit on the Hatchimals, which are selling out to parents everywhere who are in a mad dash to get them under the tree this year. “They have become the top-selling toy in the U.K., Canada, and the U.S., after supplies from manufacturer Spin Master ran out,” says the Guardian.

She never anticipated the snag she’d run into, though: a safety feature built into the platforms of the sites on which she tried to list her Hatchimals. “I start listing them on eBay. When I tried to list my fourth item, eBay said in no uncertain terms that users can only have three auctions per week for Hatchimals. Yes, that’s right. No warning, no precedent, nothing. And there is no way around it, and they don’t care, and it is unprecedented, and did I mention they don’t care?,” Gruen wrote on Facebook. “Amazon won’t let me resell them without a letter from the manufacturer. Bonanza won’t let me sell them because I don’t have a history of selling Hatchimals (!!!!!). eBay won’t let me sell them because they don’t want to.” (Actually, eBay’s rule protects against counterfeiting and fraud.)

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Many parents are not feeling any sympathy for Gruen’s dilemma, accusing her of “price gouging,” and airing their grievances in the comments.

“It’s awful a person like her buys all these and then gets stuck with them while trying to make extra money off the parents,” commented one. “I don’t care what your cause is, your dirty greed put you in this mess because your ‘spidey sense’ told you. I sincerely hope you don’t recoup your losses and learn a harsh lesson. Wipe your tears with your Hatchimals cause God knows at these prices I won’t have one to wipe my child’s tears!,” another parent mercilessly wrote.

“Please donate these to families in need. Exploiting families whose children want these toys for Christmas is awful,” said a more tactful commenter, while someone wrote, “U robbed innocent kids of getting a gift that they want in the hopes of maybe getting a man out of jail. Sad and petty.”

Gruen claims to be cringing, hanging her head in shame, and feeling sick to her stomach over the debacle. “Now there are Hatchimals stacked up around every side of my office. I am having Hatchimal nightmares,” she wrote on Facebook. Gruen told the Guardian that she even waited a day to tell her husband that she’d ruined them financially. “He should have murdered me. I ran up the credit cards for this. But he feels sorry for me. He feels bad that I feel bad. I married a saint,” she told the publication.

Now the author has set up a storefront on the website Shopify to hawk the Hatchimals for $189 to $219 apiece (she already paid $151 per Hatchimal, according to Time, so her profit is not actually that steep), and — despite the scandal — she claims on Facebook that it’s doing well. “If you think I’m spamming you and hate me for it, I completely understand. But I have a fortune invested, only one venue to offload them, and in only three weeks they will magically transform into useless pumpkins that will take up space in my office FOREVER, and have caused my financial ruin,” she wrote with humility. “Oh, and I’ll still owe the lawyers.”

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Another commenter asked what many (including us) were thinking after reading Gruen’s open letter. “What wrongfully convicted man? I would love to know more.” On Gruen’s Shopify page, she elaborates just a bit more. “About a year and a half ago, by sheer happenstance, we became aware of this man’s situation and realized that if we didn’t do something, nobody would. We live by ‘The Golden Rule,’ and realized we wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves if we didn’t do everything in our power to help,” she writes, assuring that 100% of proceeds from sales of Hatchimals will go toward the cause.

With every purchase, Gruen will also include a signed copy of one of her books — either Riding Lessons, Flying Changes, Ape House, At the Water’s Edge, or, of course, Water for Elephants.

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