EB/Gamestop 'Rentals'

[Modeps]

Today, I went down to my local gamestop to get rid of some 360 games I dont play. Yah, I know, I can get more on ebay... whatever, I'd rather not have to deal with people on ebay. Anywho, I've got an edge card (+10% value on trade-ins, -10% on used game purchases), trarded in 4 older games, got enough to buy one... about par for the course.

I decided that I wanted to play Overlord, whose demo I really enjoyed... so I got that used, and have $12 left over on my card. As I'm getting rung out, the clerk reminded me that if I dont like the game, I can return it within 7 days and get something else.

Welp, I brought Overlord home, and while its not without its charm, its just a "devilish" version of Pikman, which I've already played and got bored of quickly. I think I'll just have to take this guy up on their offer and return it next Saturday so I can pick up something else.

I'm not one to take super advantage of this type of thing, but I'm wondering if they have some system in place to prevent people from stringing combos together and just keep 'renting' games, a week at a time. Not a bad deal.

Blurred, I think you worked there or something... any insight?

 

[purbeast0]

not sure about currently but I do remember back in the Babbages day they had a 30 day return policy type deal where you could exchange any opened game w/in 30 days for another game, and that would start another 30 day period.

my friend in 6th grade did that all through the school year off of 1 game basically heh.

i'm not sure how it works now, but I would think that it is only 7 days from the initial purchase. like if you bought it 2 days ago and swapped it for a new game today, you would have 5 more days to make a final decision.

but again, not positive.

 

[UpgradeFailure]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
not sure about currently but I do remember back in the Babbages day they had a 30 day return policy type deal where you could exchange any opened game w/in 30 days for another game, and that would start another 30 day period.

my friend in 6th grade did that all through the school year off of 1 game basically heh.

i'm not sure how it works now, but I would think that it is only 7 days from the initial purchase. like if you bought it 2 days ago and swapped it for a new game today, you would have 5 more days to make a final decision.

but again, not positive.

That sounds like the smart way to do it. I just checked a gamestop receipt and it says you can return or exchange used games in 7 days, so I guess you can just get cash back and use that cash to buy a diff game so you can get a full 7 days again

 

[Tegeril]

Might need multiple Gamestops in your area to "pull this off" because the people who work there might figure it out.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: Modeps
Blurred, I think you worked there or something... any insight?

Ahh yes, the good ol' 7-day "rental" policy 🙂. Indeed, this is a policy at all Gamestop stores, anything that you purchase used (excluding consoles I think) can be brought back within 7 days with the excuse that you simply do not like it.

When I worked there, I never told people about this, because they would take advantage of it all the time. In fact, I was told once by my manager to keep it to myself if they don't ask about it, which I was fine with. My particular store had a couple of people that knew this policy very well, and we eventually shut them down on it. One lady in particular would buy about 5 used games at a time (a combination of GBA and PS2 titles), and on the 7th day after buying them, she was bringing them back while her kid looked for more. After about 3 or 4 weeks of this, I told her straight out that this was her last time doing this, and that she could only return games for exchanges if they didn't work from now on. I didn't see her in there ever again.

Not that I care what you do Modeps, but when I worked there, I hated people that treated it like a rental store. People took advantage of the policy, and it was more of a principle kinda thing to me than it was protecting the company's bottom line 😛.

I have to take a shower right now, but I'll post more a little bit later telling you about how they might flag you for doing this.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

i thought it was a one time exchange only.

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
Not that I care what you do Modeps, but when I worked there, I hated people that treated it like a rental store. People took advantage of the policy, and it was more of a principle kinda thing to me than it was protecting the company's bottom line 😛.

Oh, I wouldnt completely take advantage of it (meaning I wouldnt be going in every 7 days for a new title) I'm just not that kind of guy... I just thought it was an interesting policy, and that it could benefit me at least this time around considering the fact that I know i'll get bored of the game I got.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: Modeps

Originally posted by: blurredvision
Not that I care what you do Modeps, but when I worked there, I hated people that treated it like a rental store. People took advantage of the policy, and it was more of a principle kinda thing to me than it was protecting the company's bottom line 😛.

Oh, I wouldnt completely take advantage of it (meaning I wouldnt be going in every 7 days for a new title) I'm just not that kind of guy... I just thought it was an interesting policy, and that it could benefit me at least this time around considering the fact that I know i'll get bored of the game I got.

Ya, it's one of the few good things about Gamestop...it's a nice return policy if you just completely hate the game you bought. Since the game is used, it afford Gamestop a little more leighway in what they can do with it. You bring it back, and they stick it right back on the shelf 🙂.

As far as how they might be able to flag you, here is what I know. When I first started back in mid-summer, the only system each store had in place was a simple piece of paper taped behind each register with names on it. These were written down according to people we wouldn't take trades from (people we were sure were bringing in stolen games) and people who we wouldn't let return or reserve stuff (people who abused the system). If you had a customer coming in multiple times returning stuff under the 7-day policy, you wrote their name on the list. When you return something, you have to give your name and address, this is how we got people's names. However, this sytem was only good if all the employees remembered every name on the list (there were atleast 200 of them at my store, so this was impossible), or if you recognized the person when they came in. The 3 managers at my store basically knew everyone when they walked in, so a lot of people were stopped.

However, right before I quit, they started to update the POS software to where we could automatically flag people so that when we put in their name and address, it would automatically pop up and tell us that this customer wasn't allowed to do something in particular, like reserve, return, or trade in. I think this was a combination of manual refusal entries from the manager to a computer-based auto refusal based on the algorithm they placed in the system. However, I quit about a week or two before the flagging system went into effect, so I'm going off what I was told and what I saw before I quit.

 

[MonKENy]

how can I put this..I dont condone theft buuuut with things like this. if the system gives you a loop hole i say use it, now dont get me wrong do go overboard w/it but heck its there take a little advantage of it. I plan on using this glitch when assasins creed comes out (and a few other games this season) in case they turn out to be suck fests. but im not one to do it to every game.
1, its going to ruin it for everyone else and
B, its going to ruin it for me when they stop letting me do it.

And I agree modeps, if you know your gonna get bored but you still want to try the game out then go for it. theres nothing wrong with it every once in awhile. personally I think more things should be like that. I dont know how many times ive boughten something to find out in a day or 2, its not what i expected, it doesnt live up to the hype, its doesnt do what i thought it was going to, ect ect. but couldnt return it because it was opened/whatever. no matter what more power to you.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: MonKENy
how can I put this..I dont condone theft buuuut with things like this. if the system gives you a loop hole i say use it, now dont get me wrong do go overboard w/it but heck its there take a little advantage of it. I plan on using this glitch when assasins creed comes out (and a few other games this season) in case they turn out to be suck fests. but im not one to do it to every game.
1, its going to ruin it for everyone else and
B, its going to ruin it for me when they stop letting me do it.

And I agree modeps, if you know your gonna get bored but you still want to try the game out then go for it. theres nothing wrong with it every once in awhile. personally I think more things should be like that. I dont know how many times ive boughten something to find out in a day or 2, its not what i expected, it doesnt live up to the hype, its doesnt do what i thought it was going to, ect ect. but couldnt return it because it was opened/whatever. no matter what more power to you.

It is a loophole... but it is a loophole created by a company's effort to provide GOOD customer service. Taking advantage of it to use it as a rental service is wrong IMO. But what you describe in the last half of your post isn't really "taking advantage of it" - that is, using it in a way that it was not intended to be used. It is intended to give you the peace of mind to buy a game that you're not sure if you'll like. And you're doing exactly that.

I've never used their return policy, but there are times I would have if I had played the game within 7 days of purchase. GRAW is a recent example. It got great reviews, but I just didn't like the gameplay. I started playing it right after I played R6: Vegas, and I liked Vegas a lot better.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

Well now they do not do this for new games. I've had that told to me several times. You can still bring it back, but you get the same game in return. Which is nice because the thing I hated the most when buying games from there was paying new game price and getting an obviously opened and returned game.

The policy is still in place for used games and I sure have used it to my advantage, but I think now they might put something on the receipt or "track" your purchase in the computer to stop you from doing it too many times. Although with used games who cares, they're already opened and used to most probably don't care.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: MonKENy
I plan on using this glitch when assasins creed comes out (and a few other games this season) in case they turn out to be suck fests.

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
Well now they do not do this for new games.

New games are exchange only after they are opened with receipt, you can only get your money back if they are still sealed in the package.

Besides, it's not a glitch, it's one of their policies. It's been around for quite some time apparently, but not many know about it. I didn't know about it until I started working there, and I've done a lot of business in there over the years.

 

[tfinch2]

What I hate is when you buy a brand new game and it's not sealed. They reach under the desk and take the disc out of a fucking sleeve.

 

[nycxandy]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
What I hate is when you buy a brand new game and it's not sealed. They reach under the desk and take the disc out of a fucking sleeve.

Yeah, they've done that to me before. It was stupid. Looking back at it, I should've refused the purchase.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: nycxandy

Originally posted by: tfinch2
What I hate is when you buy a brand new game and it's not sealed. They reach under the desk and take the disc out of a fucking sleeve.

Yeah, they've done that to me before. It was stupid. Looking back at it, I should've refused the purchase.

Ya, I always hated giving people the last copy of the game, because it was already open. Most people didn't give a shit, though, but I did have a few proto-typical gamer guys who refused purchase because it wasn't shrink-wrapped. Anytime I buy a new game now, I ask if they have one shrink-wrapped. That's partially the reason I don't have Warhawk yet is because the Gamestop near me only keeps one copy on hand at all times for some reason, so the opened box is always on the wall.

EDIT: Another reason I will not buy an opened new game is because the employees can take home games anytime they want, new or used. In my time there, I can think of 2 or 3 games that checked out and took them home with the shrink wrap still on them. I played it for 2 or 3 days, brought it back, and it will be sold as new.

After doing that a couple of times, I started feeling guilty about it and refused to take home any new games from there on out. Nobody else cares, though.

 

[MonKENy]

i like the way you think. you seem like a stand up guy. I try to act that way as well towards ppl in gen. +1 to you sir!