Pokemon Go Craze Hits New York City (Photo : Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
A legendary Pokémon accidentally get into some Pokémon GO players' collection. Niantic removed the said character to preserve the game's integrity. It all started when a player said that she caught the legendary character.
A Niantic representative told Polygon said that they have recently noticed that some Legendary Pokémon got into few players collection. The representative added that they have to remove the legendary Pokémon from the trainers' accounts to preserve the integrity of the game and to be fair to other players.
It all started when a player from Ohio named Kaitlyn Covey's statement that she got an Articuno, a legendary bird Pokémon. She went viral in just few hours since most of the Pokémon GO dedicated community members thought that catching such character is impossible. Most do not believed her and claimed that she cheated.
To defend the allegations, she showed a screenshot of what appears to be an email from Niantic. However, they fail to properly spell the name of the legendary Pokémon and write "Articundo" instead, and she showed it while doing a livestream along with a friend.
Niantic confirmed that Covey's assertions are all faked, and there is no way she can have an Articuno at the present. However, some players started to come out and claimed that they got an Articuno. Their stories matched with Covey's account: they filed a complaint to Niantic then received a rare or legendary Pokémon, Geek reported.
A Niantic spokesperson said on Tuesday that the users were hacking. Then the company went back on the issue the next day and said that they had made mistakes. On their Facebook page, they admitted that players had "erroneously been granted" legendaries.
It is still unclear why rare Pokémon had been sent to some players, but Covey said that her life has been turned upside down after all the harassments that she has received. At the moment however, Covey and her family and friends have gathered enough proof to clear her name.
Covey's Pokémon Go account is still active and she has been credited some tokens for her trouble. She even retained a Pokedex entry for Articuno.
