OK, so I think I searched through about up to 60 pages to check if this thread is a duplicate. I wasn't willing to go past that.
Also, if you live in Europe, none of this will come as a shock (well, most of it won't), but still, it is a total load of bull crap.
And to those who will say,
"This has been going on for years, you're now just noticing it?"
Yeah, but it is getting worse now.....
Let's begin.
First off, I don't care who you are, if you play video games, you have been to GameStop. And chances are, you hated it, but you have to continue to go there because other than Wal-Mart and Best Buy, it's the only place to buy video games (usually). This has been brewing inside of me ever since I first went to a GameStop. Well, it didn't get bad until my friend Tyler told me what happened to him. He was in a GameStop and one of the employees was being a real prick to him so Tyler starts to talk back to him (it was barely anything I would consider disrespectful, he just asking him why he is being so rude). So he goes to get his Dad, and when they come back, Tyler gets banned from the store? WTF?
Then, I started to notice it too. When I went in there the next time I went to buy a game, the Co-Manager was being a real jerk to this guy who was reading a GameInformer. It was not his it was the stores. Here is what this idiot said to the guy reading that GI:
"Sir, if you're not gonna buy a subscription, then don't read it or get out! This is not a library."I literally stood there in shock. Where the hell does this guy get off talking to an innocent customer like that? Granted he was sitting on the floor reading, but still, that was totally uncalled for.
Here is a few business practices that GameStop uses and stuff that I notice when I walk in there.
1) GameStop guts their games (supposedly they only do this to one of each copy; I find this hard to believe)
2) They put stickers on the games, up to 3 per game, which leaves sticky residue all over the case after removing them, thus making it dirty looking and impossible to put with other games because it will ruin those cases as well (they can use a heat gun to remove these stickers, but do they ever offer to do so? Hell No)
3) Every GameStop I have ever been to, (I live by 5 of them, no joke) the employees are rude and never know jack shit about the games. This may vary from store to store. Some GameStop's have an excellent staff, most, unfortunately, do not. What's worse is that all of them looked depressed.
4) No offense, but it's usually the white employees that are jerks and are really anal about store rules. The black employees don't give a care about the rules. Hell, my friend Destin said that one time one of the black guys that worked there once bought 3 of his games for $60 because he knew that the store was not going to give him the actual worth of the games.
5) GameStop allows their employees to "rent" un-opened, un-used games for up to 3 days. Guess what? They have the balls to tell you that the games have never been played before and it never has been opened before. So, if you go and buy a DS game and there is already a saved game on it, now you know why (that's if you bought it at a GameStop)
6) Every time I go in there, somebody will ask me, "Do you want to reserve a game?, "Do you want a GI subscription?", "Do you-
-SHUT UP! I know it's their job, but if I want to do any of that, I will tell you, don't constantly pester me about it.
7) They can shrink wrap the games, but do they ever offer to do so? Absolutely not.
8) I have heard of some GameStop's taking in
STOLEN merchandise. I don't know if they call the cops or not.
9) The 360's that are in the demo cases always Red Ring for some reason.
10) Refurb fees. Fees that pay for the refurbishing of the game. Guess what? If you trade in a game for 2 bucks and the refurb fee is 3 dollars, then you will end up owing GameStop money. Way to f over the customer. These refurbished games looks like a monkey with a razor refurbished it, so you're basically getting screwed.
11) Some stores will sell reserves if there are too many people coming in off the street. Nothing can be said to justify this.
12) Finally, it is obvious that most GameStop's do not a give two shits about the customer.
Stuff that has happened to me while at GameStop:
- I went to buy a 360 about 6 months ago. One of the five stores I lived next to only had Elites in and I didn't have enough money for an Elite. The 4 other stores were out of 360's as well. How the hell could ALL of them be out of 360's? We're talking about 5 stores here people, 5.
- At that exact GameStop they would not take my PS2 that I wanted to trade in because there was crap jiggling on the inside of the controllers, leading him to believe that they were broken (
Sure...). He asked me if I wanted to buy controllers for it so that they would accept the PS2. I know that is the only reason they wouldn't take them. He thought that he could get me to buy controllers to go with the PS2, instead of taking the perfectly good conditioned ones that I gave him to trade in.
The funny thing is that jackass probably knew that the controllers worked, he just wouldn't let me trade it in. And aren't they supposed to test all of that before making that kind of decision?
So screw GameStop. Seriously, go buy your video games somewhere else, hell, a pawn shop is better than GameStop.
