Hey Guys,
I started listed my PS2's just a few at a time and they were being snatched up quick so I thought there was going to be a big rush for Christmas. My bad, I guess I got a little too excited with the quick sales. Plus I've heard a few rumors that Sony might drop their price to $200 with Nintendo to try to undercut the Xbox. I can't do it right now because the system is down, but I might cancel a few tomorrow. Sellers beware, however, there are a lot of deadbeat bidders out there now. I think I've sold maybe 12 and it looks like 7 of them are deadbeats. If you guys see "0" ratings or sunglasses you might do well to cancel their bids. Its such a hassle, especially now because you don't know what your true inventory is.
As far as the 5k thing goes, I think its like this. You really have to look hard to find that in small print. I think its their to keep some people from going into a Virgin and whiping out the whole store at once or at least in a very short time. This would hurt Virgin because other customers would stop coming. With this "so-called" limit in small print, Amex can step in quickly and put a stop to it. I don't think its there for the casual offender, because they could easily put a electronic limit on the cards.
What do you guys think about the Costa Mesa store? Those guys there are a bunch of punks. Its the slowest of all the Virgin's (have you ever seen them busy?) and they act like they have no time for you. I'm sure most everyone has had their card not go through at least once. All they have to do is call Amex, tell them they don't want the approval code and reset the machine. They do this at The Block, Hollywood and Burbank. At the Costa Mesa store when it happened the guy just said "sorry man, there's nothing I can do". I asked him to call Amex and he said "Hey Man, its your card, you can call them". I then told him how to do it and he just shook his head. Another time I'm down there one of the guys say they can't do it. He finally says, hey I'll call my manager. He gets off the phone and says "My manager says they can't do anything after 7:30 (its now 7:45). Does anyone here ever remember a credit card company shutting down at 7:30? The latest time was just this morning. This guy just backs up and says "sorry man, nothing I can do". I again, tell him how to do it and he just walks away saying "hey maybe somebody else will do it for you". Then this other guy comes over says "shi_t" under his breath and proceeds to dial Amex. He "actually" only pretends to call and hangs up the phone and says you're just denied and that's it. I asked him what they said and he said it was an automated response. First of all, the authorization department is not authorized, and second of all, he did not punch in any information that a computer could have interpreted anyway. This is five different guys involved in 3 different transactions. I never made any big purchases at this store, so it wasn't some employees not liking me buying a lot. Every other Virgin I went to the people were totally cool. Even when I bought 10 PS2's at once at the LA store they even offered to help me and had one of their guys get a dolley and wheel them out to my truck. I mentioned these rude guys to a couple employees at the Orange store and they said they went their as custoers and were given similiar treatment. Its a wonder they are so slow and already have closed down half the store. And believe it or not I remained cool throughout the whole ordeal at Costa Mesa because I didn't want to burn any bridges for any good shipments they may get in. Some of you here must have experiened this somewhat. I know this paragraph is long, but as you can tell, I was really ticked off. I wanted to jump the counter and punch those punks in the face so bad it was all I could do but restrain myself. My friend I was with was surprised I didn't go off on them.
It seems different stores and even different cashiers make up their own rules about things. I go to the Orange store during the day and pick up four Final X's and then go back later for four more and a different guy tells me their is a 3 game limit. At Orange I was buying 6 and another cashier comes buy and grabs 4 of them as say I can only have 2. The La store doesn't care at all but keeps them all behind the counter. At one end of the store at Orange the cashier tells me how its no problem to call Amex to get them to fix the machine and then on my way out at the other entrance I hear a cashier telling a custumer there is nothing he can do. And then there's the tax and discount descripences at every store, and every cashier.
Another thing I think is kinda weird is that the Gamecube has been the system in the shortest supply yet has commanded the least return. You could find Xbox's everywhere until the end of this week and they held more profit for awhile. I can't believe they are not selling for much of a premium right now either, since there probably won't be any until next year or at least until after Christmas.
Here's another little thing that happended with Amex too. When I first received the card, it would have to be called in for authorizations a lot because it was new, which I understood for security reasons. I didn't want to miss out on anything so I paid off my card right after I spent. I called Amex and the computer said everthing was paid and my full balance was available to me. But this is not the case. It actually takes an exra couple days before it clears to be able to use it at the retail level. My card was still being declined. I figured the best way to prevent this from happening again is to over pay and not worry about it for the rest of the year. Big mistake! My card never works anymore. Every time I called, customer service would assure that there would be no problem. I would get down there and it would still be declined. I finally go a hold of a supervisor at American Express and he told me that overpaying locks up your card so you can't use it. I asked him what I should do now. He said to wait a few days and maybe on Monday the computer will reset itself. What a joke! The day before Christmas! Maybe I'm just different, but if I owned a bank and a customer wanted to send me money to hold onto for awhile I'd be ok with and make the experience pleasant. Its a good thing I have two cards.
And once again I want to apologize for flooding the market like I did. I did a disservice to you guys and myself. I just starting being a "volume" seller a little over a month ago and I'm still learning the ropes.
and in the immortal words of Forest Gump: "And that's all I have to say about that"
I can pay you $250 if you can help me out with the PS2, I'd really really appreciate it. Please let me know 
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