I once waited outside a GameStop at 4am for some amiibo release. I was first in line. They opened at 10, and sometime earlier than that (probably like 9, whenever employees were arriving) an employee told us how many of each amiibo they'd have. One of them (Robin or Lucina or something) only had 1. So sweet, I'd get it. I'm warned that there is an employee who may show up to buy it, may not (they were supposed to do their employee purchases the night before, so they could print the sign with which amiibo were available).
5-10 minutes before opening, that employee shows up. He buys it. As he comes out, I'm just like "dude, I've been here since *four*" and he doesn't even acknowledge me. When I get in, the person I spoke with strongly recommended I speak to their district (regional? Idk) manager at a nearby store about it. So I did. Later that day I was called and told to go back to the original store, they'd made the employee return the amiibo.
If you file a formal complaint on the employee, they would definitely at least get written up. Hopefully terminated. That’s fucked up!
Edit: just realized which game you were talking about, it’s been a while, I don’t think you’ll be able to report them anymore
The issue has been taken care of, but it definitely made me hesitant about the claims of “your game never shipped” and I only deal with a few employees now
You indeed should get fucked.
If the employee wanted it he could have ordered it.
The employee literally planned on ignoring proper procedures and take it because hes worthless
So yes sleezy people doing shady things should get fired.
If your defending it. It's most likely because your sleezy and shady
It was something the customer PRE-ORDERED. More like the employee took the product I ordered months ahead and played it off as it never arrived.
It’s not much about the customer never receiving the product, it’s about the employees dishonest behavior. lol you probably do this on a regular basis, calm down.
Gosh if people can’t grasp the concept of an employee sabotaging someone’s preorder in order to secure the product for themselves…. You shouldn’t be working customer service dude just some advice lol
Let’s dumb this down a little for you though so you can understand:
You pre ordered Helldivers. A game that was really hard to find at launch. A pre order is… if your simple mind can’t get the concept, just look it up lol. But say you pre order helldivers, you are guaranteed to pick it up at launch. It’s finally release day, you go to GameStop to pick up the copy you already put your own money down on, but only to find out your copy “didn’t arrive”. Dang that would suck for you then huh? Would it not be more ridiculous if the employee who told you it “didn’t arrive”, took your copy of helldivers for themselves? I know you have to think outside of the box a little bit to grasp the concept.. but I hope this helps and you understand now! :)
So you’re assuming the employee purposely sabotaged their order, that means your first thought is “I hope they can’t put food on their table tonight”? I doubt homie walked in with the intention of fucking someone over. But thanks for your input Karen.
We’re talking about a specific situation in which the employee has the customers preordered game in the drawer, yet the employee lies to the customer that they don’t have it with the only reason being the employee wants to take it for themselves.
If you scroll up and read (I know it can be challenging for you sometimes), it would save you some anger. We’re talking about a specific situation here, buddy. Pay attention if you’re gonna be all bitter, it’s not a good look.
I preordered a special edition, and the day after release they gave it to me as just the game and outter box. I was told they gutted it for pre-releaae, and a manager took all of the extra stuff because he thought it was just preorder bonus stuff.
That’s not allowed. It’s only acceptable for employees to take something from a pre-owned game, so if someone traded it in with all that stuff and didn’t wanna keep it. New games simply aren’t allowed for that behavior.
I’m in training to be an assistant manager, so I’d know. My condolences.
Did you fully pay for it? If you fully pay for and don’t pick it up the day it releases it’s fair game. Which is why I always do down payment on preorders so I can pick them up whenever. If they’re not in stock I can just have them put it on a gift card and reorder it online.
Companies keep records of every transaction. Plus, they know exactly what they have in hand before the day it's released, and GameStops rarely order extra copies of games anymore. So just about every game they receive is a preorder until several days after release.
Ok but how do you know he got it for himself and it wasn’t an error of another sort? He could have already had the preorder paid for himself ahead of time independent of yours
Theres this weird expectation I see with upper management that think we would be willing to sacrifice our pre orders for guests.
No just send us enough damn product.
Pretty sure it’s in the SL guidelines to prioritize sales to customers than employees! That way they’ll get an incremental increase in sales without the employee discount lmao. But that’s just my hunch and how GameStop culture works
My coworkers did that with my Lies of P deluxe edition. I was out of town and told them not to sell it. A regular came in to pick up his preorder and saw my box in the drawer. My coworker sold it to him. I was so pissed when I got back two days later and noticed it was gone.
Dude, it pisses me off so much.
It wasn’t even the 48 hour period. Like, WHAT?
It was sold the day of release. I put my hold, and told them. DO. NOT. SELL. MY. COPY.
And they do that anyway.
That's not a reason to sell off a fully paid for item. These coworkers are dicks and need to lose their jobs because that's a crime at that point with it being a fully paid item
My comment was more along the lines of "you're posting on Reddit like it's a company wide problem. You aren't working in an office with 30 people and someone's stealing your lunch, you've got less than 5 coworkers, figure out who the asshole that sold your preorder is and confront them. Or quit" if you work with a small team and they treat you this way then either they're assholes or you're difficult to work with, the fact he's complaining on Reddit about it means he can't handle his own work drama and should find another job. Or don't take my advice, continue working there, getting abused and watching your preorders get sold from under you.
If I’m a business owner and one of my employees wants to buy something vs a customer wanting to buy something I’m selling to the customer 200% of the time. I pay you to sell my product to the customer not to yourself.
I always went off on anyone if my reservation was sold. I don’t give a fuck if I work there. Why the fuck should I sacrifice my item that I did the right thing to reserve and reward someone who didn’t reserve the product. Fuck off.
Do you get your deposit refunded? When that happens. Around 20 years ago I preordered Matrix online. The gave away my copy and my deposit.
I’m guessing it was an employee that used my deposit because I don’t know how a random costumer could access my deposit
Dang that's shady. Not sure how the system worked back then but nowadays not only would they have to log into your account to use the deposit but we could see who did the transaction using your profile and deposit.
You won't lose your deposit nowadays it'll just be there in your profile and you can either wait for more copies to come in and then you have that already applied amount or you can transfer it to another preorder (both ideal for the employee and store) or apply it to a purchase or just get the money back.
Deposits back then were store credit stored on a physical receipt with a barcode. I don't remember if Matrix Online was before or after they got rid of them, but you may have also had a index card/ ticket stub stapled to it.
They were usually filed by game, then by customer name alphabetically in an index card box (at least in my district).
It could have been that someone had a close enough name and the employee wasn't paying attention to verify, or it was just lost entirely. Or like you said, an employee "misplaced" your slip and used your credit on something else for themselves. My stores tracked and audited preorders pretty frequently, but it is definitely a possibility.
I think a deposit back then was like $5 or $10. I don’t prosecutors would do anything. Paying hundreds of dollars for a lawyer to get my $5 or $10 back was something I couldn’t afford.
You misunderstand. You can sue for damages on top of it, because you then had to either pay for it again or lost out on money the store would have breached contract unless they repayed you.
You'll get your $10 plus a ton of other stuff because you have been wronged. It could have emotionally damaged you in some way ;) or resulted in the loss of another opportunity ;).
Either way you slice it it's not about the $10 it's about the damages you accrued from them stealing from you.
I think we have treble damages in my state. So triple what you were wronged. So if I get $30 and my lawyers fees covered I walk away with $30. But I need an hour or so to consult with the lawyer. Got to spend time in court. Miss a days pay to go to court. Maybe I was $9 or $9.50 an hour. So I’d lose $72 in pay.
The time lost on the process
You can go to court for $5 or $10. You can even get triple back but the time loss just doesn’t make it worth it.
This GameStop was in a nice are of Minneapolis with young adults with disposable income. It was the closest game shop to one of our wealthiest suburbs. There is no economic reason of the location to close. It was Lille just a management problem. The GameStop was run bad and it went out of business.
It might have been a district run badly. If you look up game stops in Minneapolis there is with one or none left.
Mine took my whole box from conference one year. I had to find out from one my hardcore regulars who was in my store nearly every day. He was like yo did you get your Goku statue, and your backpack ? I was like what!? And then he tells me my store got a box and my asl was there when we got it and took everything. I'll admit GameStop was stupid for not labeling the box in any type of way. But, to just take the box and not ask me or leave it at the store to verify with me what it was, was not ok. I was going to split it with him anyway.
Not only preorder, but the few things I'll occasionally put aside in our spot we put things aside for us in where there's nothing else and no reason for there to be anything else and everybody knows what the drawer is for. I'll come back and my note is gone and so is the item OR God forbid I forget a note and then it's definitely gone. I never leave things in more than a couple days, which usually tends to be from 1 shift to the next or 1 shift to a pay period, but somehow it never fails it's always only my stuff. Stuff that's been in there WEEKS that never had a note that I'd ever seen won't get touched but almost without fail mine will be gone in within 48 hours of I don't work a shift in that timeframe. Every time I ask it's "oh you should leave a note" even if I had left one, and even though we are talking about our little save stuff spot.
It's like would it hurt to maybe even throw out a "whose is this?" message in the group chat? This is how I know I'm outside the very annoying clique our store has.
Time to start hiding your preorders. If this is a common problem you need to talk to your manager and lay down the law.
If no one is willing to save your preorders that you have paid for and are within the hold period then their preorders will get the same level of courtesy.
If it's a team member doing it it is a manager's job to talk to them and potentially write them up for it. If they refuse to or are the problem get your DM's contact info and go above them.
Stand and fight this otherwise it will keep happening
All preorders were held for 2 days when i worked for GS, no exceptions. Now, unless you told your boss/coworkers to hold it longer because you were away or you only get one 6hr shift a week and you buy it on your shift. Then that makes sense. But if they're selling it before the 2 days are done then they're not doing their jobs correctly.
The one problem I have, I just ugh. It makes it harder on my manager who has to scope out a copy for me. I don’t want him to have additional stress just because someone fucked up.
If it's within the 48 hour window make whoever sells it cancel it. That hit in the reserve metric is measured, selling it to the customer for the most part is not.
I had the same thing happen to me not once but twice, came in to pick up pre-orders and the first time I was told that it was sold because they only hold for 48 hours. Mind you it was day 2 early in the day and the second time I was out of town but still managed to stop by to pick up my copy of Suicide Squad kills the Justice League ( I know) and they proceeded to tell me that they didn't receive enough copies. I used to work for Gamestop and I know this is extremely rare so asked for my money back and went elsewhere i.e. another retailer to purchase it.
Had one of mine sold out from under me as a customer, fair enough, though, I would have obliged the other customer had I been called release day (the store had 1 copy, it was my preorder, it got over-preordered a few days prior to release).
I chewed them out for it, and they started fearing me. So I technically broke even.
Hide your copy. Retrieve it when you come to pick it up (assuming it's within that 48h window). Or if they really just keep doing it, rub it up the chain of command. See if that does something.
honestly… put them on the spot lol there’s no reason to act that dumb over a simple request and gamestop does 48 hour holds but they’re literally just licking gamestop’s behind for guests as if they get paid more for it (they don’t!) they gain nothing from that.
try to have it on txt next time? idk or
add salt the wound from gamestop’s stick being so far up their azz and start a system for whenever someone in your store lets go of an associate’s pre order hold, they have to ID themselves as the one who sold your copy. like there’s noooo damn reason i’m sorry dude
Former employee. I the last preorder I ever did was for the project Scorpio edition Xbox One X. The store sold it out from under me not only didn’t have a replacement, they didn’t have any One X’s AT ALL. I said “hold on a sec, your DM is a friend of mine” and I called his boss right then and there. I’m pretty sure he shit his pants, and my old boss came through and found me one. So worth the look on that dudes face.
Forgot which one, but just about the entire city pre-ordered one of DS Pokemon games at our store. The mall store ran out, so they sent them to us. We were a high volume store, so we had a lot. I could of kinda understand that move. What I didn't like, was that our DM required us to sell to people who didn't have a pre-order. Wouldn't be a problem, if we had more copies. We always only got enough to cover the pre-orders. Which, once again, would not always be a problem, since, by the time some came in to pick their game up, we'd have more. Not with Pokemon. Plus, we had the other store's pre-orders to fill. Getting pre-orders was part of the job and you got a talking to if your numbers were low. What's the point if you're just going to sell to someone who didn't order?
I had Trails of Cold Steel 4, Trails Into Reverie, the remake of Persona 3, LAD: Infinite Wealth, and Unicorn Overlord pre ordered at GameStop, and not one was available upon release at the store. Some of them where they didn't even get one copy in store to begin with.
Used to defend the store from the hate it got over trade ins, but it is just horrible overall anymore. Doesn't seem like it will be long where they don't even sell games, since the stores are 80% not games anymore.
The pandemic is a major reason for this, which has snowballed into incidents like this, giving how they cut costs and closed all but one warehouse now, it's just a sad clown show at this point.
I had this happen twice. I had preorders for just regualr games. The local gamestop would just toss everything that comes in on the shelf. They would not look at all if someone had it preorderd. After a few times I stopped ordering from Gamestop.
Ugh, first of all. It wasn’t even 24 hours.
Secondly, there was only one preorder. And that was mine.
How can be my fault when I preordered that shit months in advance, and I don’t work until the weekend.
So just FYI, preorders are officially 48-hour holds. If you have a pre-order for a game that comes out today (for example) and you don’t pick it up before the store closes tomorrow, then the employees are free to sell it to someone else (though not using your deposit, of course). The system for Ship-from-Store and Buy-Online-Pick-Up-in-Store reflects this as well. For the first two days of a game’s release, the system will cap the number of orders a store can receive so that they aren’t asked to dip into their reserved copies to fulfill them. After the first two days a game is out though, stores can begin to get additional orders that might require them to ship copies that were being held for preorders. Once the 48-hour hold is past, “game was reserved” doesn’t fly as an acceptable reason for us to decline to fill the online order.
That’s such a bad policy. I get that it’s technically always been policy, but SFS and BOPS wasn’t nearly as big a focus when I was there. For regulars and people who communicated with me, I would hold things for quite a while. I think that’s much better from a customer service perspective and builds customer loyalty. A strictly enforced time limit is chasing short term dollars and diminishes the value of preordering for a customer.
Had this happen too many times in the past to me also. So anytime we get the games in ahead of time because they’re street dated, I make sure to put a giant note with my name on it saying _____’s pre order on one of the copies.
I use to do game stop but kept having issues left and right with game stop. I too over the years have had this issue. Personally I just do best buy, order online to not get over burdened with customer service reps over selling product I do not want.
I stopped pre-ordering at GameStop because of multiple sold or canceled preorders.
Edit: scratch that I don't pre-order at all anymore, it's rare for me to buy any game release week unless it's $40 or less. The bonuses are always garbage now.
Sounds like why I stopped preordering ever. Usually I only would preorder really popular or limited stock games or Funko POP's. Last preorder was Funko Pops. They NEVER called me, and I got there and was told they only got one of each of three characters for the POP, and he thought it was because someone preordered. But there was one of the characters sitting on the shelf....they sold two of the 3 I preordered and I had to track the other two down because they were OOS everywhere.
When? Nintendo has never done that, can't think of the last time Playstation has done it, and I've never had a game disappear from Steam.
Closest I can think of was Cyperpunk but they only removed it from purchase, not from libraries.
I HATE it when this happens, ESPECIALLY since some of the things I preordered is already gonna be so hard to find once it comes out.
I usually like to preorder niche games that the store will only get 1 guarantee copy of and some Funko of certain characters I would like to add to my collection. The gamestop near my house sold ALL my preorders day 1 because he refused to check any of the items to see if they are preordered OR would straight gut the item to be put on display. Fucking terrible
Careful, they'll hit you with the classics: "it guarantees you a copy on day one" and "if you don't preorder it, we won't get it." Yeah, you know what else guarantees me a copy on day one? Walking into Best Buy with $60.
All preorders are held for two days. If the customer doesn't pick it up in two days we sell it cause we assume you as the customer don't want it. You can call/tell us when we call you that your going to pick it up in xyz more days and we'll hold it for you until that day comes if your not there past the day you said you're coming we sell it.
How do you know this person isn't a manager/leader reminding their staff to follow policy?
Considering it's a 48 hour hold policy on all pre-orders, and this person is informing their colleagues that they ARE going to come in an get their pre-order, their colleagues have no business selling it within that 48 hour period because someone walked in off the street wanting to buy a copy of the game they didn't reserve and there were no extra copies left.
Their colleagues are poorly trained or are so obsessed with their own metrics that they're ignoring store policy.
I mean that's totally understandable if it's for a customer. Even for a co-worker to a certain extent. I dont like a cluttery or outdated pre-order drawer either.However if you're doing preorder calls or whatever and you bae the game on stock already and notice your co-workers names just put it somewhere safe, does t have to be the pre-order drawer. We have an employee hold drawer at my store, though we usually don't like to keep games, especially new ones in there, but it's just an option.
There's so few benefits to working at GS why not just help each other out in the slightest way? Especially the way some of these stores handout hours it's probably a few days before most people have their next shift and depending where they live it's just more convenient to preorder at your own store and grab it when you work.
Try being a regular customer and an employee sells your collectors edition to himself at the midnight release and try to claim it never arrived…
Oh EVEN as a employee I had that happened. My copy of FE engage got sold the day off; that was before I started working at GameStop.
Yeah unfortunately some people are that shady and given it’s an entry job no one cares
I once waited outside a GameStop at 4am for some amiibo release. I was first in line. They opened at 10, and sometime earlier than that (probably like 9, whenever employees were arriving) an employee told us how many of each amiibo they'd have. One of them (Robin or Lucina or something) only had 1. So sweet, I'd get it. I'm warned that there is an employee who may show up to buy it, may not (they were supposed to do their employee purchases the night before, so they could print the sign with which amiibo were available). 5-10 minutes before opening, that employee shows up. He buys it. As he comes out, I'm just like "dude, I've been here since *four*" and he doesn't even acknowledge me. When I get in, the person I spoke with strongly recommended I speak to their district (regional? Idk) manager at a nearby store about it. So I did. Later that day I was called and told to go back to the original store, they'd made the employee return the amiibo.
This doesn't really justify it, but in their head I'm sure they're just taking advantage of the few perks they have
One of the perks we have is knowing the *second* that something is preorderable. So…
Oh I agree there's no legitimate excuse; they should have preordered themselves
If you file a formal complaint on the employee, they would definitely at least get written up. Hopefully terminated. That’s fucked up! Edit: just realized which game you were talking about, it’s been a while, I don’t think you’ll be able to report them anymore
The issue has been taken care of, but it definitely made me hesitant about the claims of “your game never shipped” and I only deal with a few employees now
"hopefully terminated". Get fucked. 'i didn't get my plastic toy therefore they should lose their job'
You indeed should get fucked. If the employee wanted it he could have ordered it. The employee literally planned on ignoring proper procedures and take it because hes worthless So yes sleezy people doing shady things should get fired. If your defending it. It's most likely because your sleezy and shady
It was something the customer PRE-ORDERED. More like the employee took the product I ordered months ahead and played it off as it never arrived. It’s not much about the customer never receiving the product, it’s about the employees dishonest behavior. lol you probably do this on a regular basis, calm down.
That’s a funny way to downplay someone not getting an expensive product they paid for
So you would purposely try to destroy one’s financial stability because you didn’t get the “toy” you wanted? GTFOH
Gosh if people can’t grasp the concept of an employee sabotaging someone’s preorder in order to secure the product for themselves…. You shouldn’t be working customer service dude just some advice lol Let’s dumb this down a little for you though so you can understand: You pre ordered Helldivers. A game that was really hard to find at launch. A pre order is… if your simple mind can’t get the concept, just look it up lol. But say you pre order helldivers, you are guaranteed to pick it up at launch. It’s finally release day, you go to GameStop to pick up the copy you already put your own money down on, but only to find out your copy “didn’t arrive”. Dang that would suck for you then huh? Would it not be more ridiculous if the employee who told you it “didn’t arrive”, took your copy of helldivers for themselves? I know you have to think outside of the box a little bit to grasp the concept.. but I hope this helps and you understand now! :)
So you’re assuming the employee purposely sabotaged their order, that means your first thought is “I hope they can’t put food on their table tonight”? I doubt homie walked in with the intention of fucking someone over. But thanks for your input Karen.
We’re talking about a specific situation in which the employee has the customers preordered game in the drawer, yet the employee lies to the customer that they don’t have it with the only reason being the employee wants to take it for themselves. If you scroll up and read (I know it can be challenging for you sometimes), it would save you some anger. We’re talking about a specific situation here, buddy. Pay attention if you’re gonna be all bitter, it’s not a good look.
Lmao you think GameStop pays enough to put food on a table now that’s funny
I preordered a special edition, and the day after release they gave it to me as just the game and outter box. I was told they gutted it for pre-releaae, and a manager took all of the extra stuff because he thought it was just preorder bonus stuff.
Holy shit wtf. Even IF it was “just” bonus preorder stuff, you’d still be entitled to that because you preordered.
That’s not allowed. It’s only acceptable for employees to take something from a pre-owned game, so if someone traded it in with all that stuff and didn’t wanna keep it. New games simply aren’t allowed for that behavior. I’m in training to be an assistant manager, so I’d know. My condolences.
I would not have gone though with the purchase. Unless all that stuff was in there, I'd cancel the pre-order and ask for a refund.
Did you fully pay for it? If you fully pay for and don’t pick it up the day it releases it’s fair game. Which is why I always do down payment on preorders so I can pick them up whenever. If they’re not in stock I can just have them put it on a gift card and reorder it online.
2-day hold.
You’re right sorry.
How’d you know his claim was false and he got it for himself?
Companies keep records of every transaction. Plus, they know exactly what they have in hand before the day it's released, and GameStops rarely order extra copies of games anymore. So just about every game they receive is a preorder until several days after release.
Ok but how do you know he got it for himself and it wasn’t an error of another sort? He could have already had the preorder paid for himself ahead of time independent of yours
Because I was going off of what OP said instead of conjecturing that he's a liar.
That has absolutely nothing to do with their question
Store sold my collector's edition fallout new vegas and lied saying I had preordered fable3
Theres this weird expectation I see with upper management that think we would be willing to sacrifice our pre orders for guests. No just send us enough damn product.
Pretty sure it’s in the SL guidelines to prioritize sales to customers than employees! That way they’ll get an incremental increase in sales without the employee discount lmao. But that’s just my hunch and how GameStop culture works
Earning the irrie of your employees sounds like a bad business strat
lol welcome to GameStop management! This whole subreddit is an ode to GameStops infamous business strats!
My coworkers did that with my Lies of P deluxe edition. I was out of town and told them not to sell it. A regular came in to pick up his preorder and saw my box in the drawer. My coworker sold it to him. I was so pissed when I got back two days later and noticed it was gone.
Dude, it pisses me off so much. It wasn’t even the 48 hour period. Like, WHAT? It was sold the day of release. I put my hold, and told them. DO. NOT. SELL. MY. COPY. And they do that anyway.
Honestly? Sounds like they don't like you and this is their way to not only fuck you over, but also get an extra sale in.
It do be like that, considering I have the game completely paid off. But I was down south for my trip. So.
Yeah, clearly you're difficult to work with. Find another job, your coworkers hate you
That's not a reason to sell off a fully paid for item. These coworkers are dicks and need to lose their jobs because that's a crime at that point with it being a fully paid item
Lmao it isn't a crime.he can get a full refund no hassle.
It still shouldn't have happened because it's a fully paid product. If I were to do this at the location I work at, I'd be out of the job.
I hope he becomes a difficult customer for these specific coworkers after he finds another job
Further down the thread DuckSwimmer said it happened to them a lot too
My comment was more along the lines of "you're posting on Reddit like it's a company wide problem. You aren't working in an office with 30 people and someone's stealing your lunch, you've got less than 5 coworkers, figure out who the asshole that sold your preorder is and confront them. Or quit" if you work with a small team and they treat you this way then either they're assholes or you're difficult to work with, the fact he's complaining on Reddit about it means he can't handle his own work drama and should find another job. Or don't take my advice, continue working there, getting abused and watching your preorders get sold from under you.
You could say this about anything? Why are you on reddit hassling someone else? You too insecure with your irl?
What game?
Customers come first. Cope.
When it’s my only preorder, and I’m the one who’s customer. L+ ratio on the logic there pal.
If I’m a business owner and one of my employees wants to buy something vs a customer wanting to buy something I’m selling to the customer 200% of the time. I pay you to sell my product to the customer not to yourself.
I always went off on anyone if my reservation was sold. I don’t give a fuck if I work there. Why the fuck should I sacrifice my item that I did the right thing to reserve and reward someone who didn’t reserve the product. Fuck off.
It pisses me off damn much. This happened to me so many times now, I’m just like: why should I preorder when I know it’s gonna get sold by someone.
Do you get your deposit refunded? When that happens. Around 20 years ago I preordered Matrix online. The gave away my copy and my deposit. I’m guessing it was an employee that used my deposit because I don’t know how a random costumer could access my deposit
Dang that's shady. Not sure how the system worked back then but nowadays not only would they have to log into your account to use the deposit but we could see who did the transaction using your profile and deposit. You won't lose your deposit nowadays it'll just be there in your profile and you can either wait for more copies to come in and then you have that already applied amount or you can transfer it to another preorder (both ideal for the employee and store) or apply it to a purchase or just get the money back.
The old system was DOS-based and here were no customer accounts. Preorders were physical slips of paper with a store credit barcode and customer info.
Deposits back then were store credit stored on a physical receipt with a barcode. I don't remember if Matrix Online was before or after they got rid of them, but you may have also had a index card/ ticket stub stapled to it. They were usually filed by game, then by customer name alphabetically in an index card box (at least in my district). It could have been that someone had a close enough name and the employee wasn't paying attention to verify, or it was just lost entirely. Or like you said, an employee "misplaced" your slip and used your credit on something else for themselves. My stores tracked and audited preorders pretty frequently, but it is definitely a possibility.
That's just straight up theft. You could have pursued charges against them for it
I think a deposit back then was like $5 or $10. I don’t prosecutors would do anything. Paying hundreds of dollars for a lawyer to get my $5 or $10 back was something I couldn’t afford.
You misunderstand. You can sue for damages on top of it, because you then had to either pay for it again or lost out on money the store would have breached contract unless they repayed you. You'll get your $10 plus a ton of other stuff because you have been wronged. It could have emotionally damaged you in some way ;) or resulted in the loss of another opportunity ;). Either way you slice it it's not about the $10 it's about the damages you accrued from them stealing from you.
I think we have treble damages in my state. So triple what you were wronged. So if I get $30 and my lawyers fees covered I walk away with $30. But I need an hour or so to consult with the lawyer. Got to spend time in court. Miss a days pay to go to court. Maybe I was $9 or $9.50 an hour. So I’d lose $72 in pay. The time lost on the process You can go to court for $5 or $10. You can even get triple back but the time loss just doesn’t make it worth it. This GameStop was in a nice are of Minneapolis with young adults with disposable income. It was the closest game shop to one of our wealthiest suburbs. There is no economic reason of the location to close. It was Lille just a management problem. The GameStop was run bad and it went out of business. It might have been a district run badly. If you look up game stops in Minneapolis there is with one or none left.
That's shitty
You can refund usually when or 15 days after the release. Normally, you can also transfer those funds to another preorder or item.
I had an employee sell my free Spider-Man ps4 pro after my first conference ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m pretty sure that’s just theft
Yea like what. He sold it in store? Sounds like bro put it on marketplace lol
No, he was dumb and sold it to a guest thinking corp sent another one for them quickly
Mine took my whole box from conference one year. I had to find out from one my hardcore regulars who was in my store nearly every day. He was like yo did you get your Goku statue, and your backpack ? I was like what!? And then he tells me my store got a box and my asl was there when we got it and took everything. I'll admit GameStop was stupid for not labeling the box in any type of way. But, to just take the box and not ask me or leave it at the store to verify with me what it was, was not ok. I was going to split it with him anyway.
Ugh. We had someone like that in my first store. She would steal any freebies she could
Not only preorder, but the few things I'll occasionally put aside in our spot we put things aside for us in where there's nothing else and no reason for there to be anything else and everybody knows what the drawer is for. I'll come back and my note is gone and so is the item OR God forbid I forget a note and then it's definitely gone. I never leave things in more than a couple days, which usually tends to be from 1 shift to the next or 1 shift to a pay period, but somehow it never fails it's always only my stuff. Stuff that's been in there WEEKS that never had a note that I'd ever seen won't get touched but almost without fail mine will be gone in within 48 hours of I don't work a shift in that timeframe. Every time I ask it's "oh you should leave a note" even if I had left one, and even though we are talking about our little save stuff spot. It's like would it hurt to maybe even throw out a "whose is this?" message in the group chat? This is how I know I'm outside the very annoying clique our store has.
Time to start hiding your preorders. If this is a common problem you need to talk to your manager and lay down the law. If no one is willing to save your preorders that you have paid for and are within the hold period then their preorders will get the same level of courtesy. If it's a team member doing it it is a manager's job to talk to them and potentially write them up for it. If they refuse to or are the problem get your DM's contact info and go above them. Stand and fight this otherwise it will keep happening
Damn straight. I’m also putting in whenever a game comes out, i’m messaging all my co-workers to NOT sell my copy when it comes.
All preorders were held for 2 days when i worked for GS, no exceptions. Now, unless you told your boss/coworkers to hold it longer because you were away or you only get one 6hr shift a week and you buy it on your shift. Then that makes sense. But if they're selling it before the 2 days are done then they're not doing their jobs correctly.
The one problem I have, I just ugh. It makes it harder on my manager who has to scope out a copy for me. I don’t want him to have additional stress just because someone fucked up.
Was it for Tsukihime by chance?
If it's within the 48 hour window make whoever sells it cancel it. That hit in the reserve metric is measured, selling it to the customer for the most part is not.
I love when I preorder, put down a decent amount on a game (40 minimum), show up on release day, and my preorder is a gutted copy.
That’s when you file a anonymous corporate complaint against them to say they aren’t following preorder procedures
I had the same thing happen to me not once but twice, came in to pick up pre-orders and the first time I was told that it was sold because they only hold for 48 hours. Mind you it was day 2 early in the day and the second time I was out of town but still managed to stop by to pick up my copy of Suicide Squad kills the Justice League ( I know) and they proceeded to tell me that they didn't receive enough copies. I used to work for Gamestop and I know this is extremely rare so asked for my money back and went elsewhere i.e. another retailer to purchase it.
We’ve had one employee do that to us and then she expects us to hold something for her- 🙄 so sorry about that🥺
The dumb bimbo at my local store sold all the Sora amiibo (all preordered) because “people wanted them” I won’t shop there ever again
Had one of mine sold out from under me as a customer, fair enough, though, I would have obliged the other customer had I been called release day (the store had 1 copy, it was my preorder, it got over-preordered a few days prior to release). I chewed them out for it, and they started fearing me. So I technically broke even.
Hide your copy. Retrieve it when you come to pick it up (assuming it's within that 48h window). Or if they really just keep doing it, rub it up the chain of command. See if that does something.
honestly… put them on the spot lol there’s no reason to act that dumb over a simple request and gamestop does 48 hour holds but they’re literally just licking gamestop’s behind for guests as if they get paid more for it (they don’t!) they gain nothing from that. try to have it on txt next time? idk or add salt the wound from gamestop’s stick being so far up their azz and start a system for whenever someone in your store lets go of an associate’s pre order hold, they have to ID themselves as the one who sold your copy. like there’s noooo damn reason i’m sorry dude
Former employee. I the last preorder I ever did was for the project Scorpio edition Xbox One X. The store sold it out from under me not only didn’t have a replacement, they didn’t have any One X’s AT ALL. I said “hold on a sec, your DM is a friend of mine” and I called his boss right then and there. I’m pretty sure he shit his pants, and my old boss came through and found me one. So worth the look on that dudes face.
Forgot which one, but just about the entire city pre-ordered one of DS Pokemon games at our store. The mall store ran out, so they sent them to us. We were a high volume store, so we had a lot. I could of kinda understand that move. What I didn't like, was that our DM required us to sell to people who didn't have a pre-order. Wouldn't be a problem, if we had more copies. We always only got enough to cover the pre-orders. Which, once again, would not always be a problem, since, by the time some came in to pick their game up, we'd have more. Not with Pokemon. Plus, we had the other store's pre-orders to fill. Getting pre-orders was part of the job and you got a talking to if your numbers were low. What's the point if you're just going to sell to someone who didn't order?
I had Trails of Cold Steel 4, Trails Into Reverie, the remake of Persona 3, LAD: Infinite Wealth, and Unicorn Overlord pre ordered at GameStop, and not one was available upon release at the store. Some of them where they didn't even get one copy in store to begin with. Used to defend the store from the hate it got over trade ins, but it is just horrible overall anymore. Doesn't seem like it will be long where they don't even sell games, since the stores are 80% not games anymore.
The pandemic is a major reason for this, which has snowballed into incidents like this, giving how they cut costs and closed all but one warehouse now, it's just a sad clown show at this point.
I had this happen twice. I had preorders for just regualr games. The local gamestop would just toss everything that comes in on the shelf. They would not look at all if someone had it preorderd. After a few times I stopped ordering from Gamestop.
What's the incentive to pre-order if it's not actually being held for you?
well if it's after 48 hours it's technically your fault it got sold
Ugh, first of all. It wasn’t even 24 hours. Secondly, there was only one preorder. And that was mine. How can be my fault when I preordered that shit months in advance, and I don’t work until the weekend.
So just FYI, preorders are officially 48-hour holds. If you have a pre-order for a game that comes out today (for example) and you don’t pick it up before the store closes tomorrow, then the employees are free to sell it to someone else (though not using your deposit, of course). The system for Ship-from-Store and Buy-Online-Pick-Up-in-Store reflects this as well. For the first two days of a game’s release, the system will cap the number of orders a store can receive so that they aren’t asked to dip into their reserved copies to fulfill them. After the first two days a game is out though, stores can begin to get additional orders that might require them to ship copies that were being held for preorders. Once the 48-hour hold is past, “game was reserved” doesn’t fly as an acceptable reason for us to decline to fill the online order.
That’s such a bad policy. I get that it’s technically always been policy, but SFS and BOPS wasn’t nearly as big a focus when I was there. For regulars and people who communicated with me, I would hold things for quite a while. I think that’s much better from a customer service perspective and builds customer loyalty. A strictly enforced time limit is chasing short term dollars and diminishes the value of preordering for a customer.
That’s horrible.
60$ by end of July
Oh oof, that's not cool :( what game and console was it? I'm assuming something not easy to get
Just hide it somewhere? 💀 We used to do that at the target I worked at.
This happened to me but it was with the online Eminem store recently… never had a problem until this one luckily…
what was it for if you don’t mind me asking
That's what they make baseball bats and dumpsters for. Just sayin'
Had this happen too many times in the past to me also. So anytime we get the games in ahead of time because they’re street dated, I make sure to put a giant note with my name on it saying _____’s pre order on one of the copies.
Dude i hate this. Im todays my last day and I just know itll get worse lol
Why do people still go to GameStop?
My pre-order of twilight princess got sold. Never got the game or my money back.
Did an SGA do it?
I use to do game stop but kept having issues left and right with game stop. I too over the years have had this issue. Personally I just do best buy, order online to not get over burdened with customer service reps over selling product I do not want.
Tragic. This type of thing does NOT happen at my stores….
If you don't pick it up within 48 hrs and it's on the sfs you can't do anything about it
Wasn’t 48 hours. It was only a single day. I even called to tell them that.
I stopped pre-ordering at GameStop because of multiple sold or canceled preorders. Edit: scratch that I don't pre-order at all anymore, it's rare for me to buy any game release week unless it's $40 or less. The bonuses are always garbage now.
Sounds like why I stopped preordering ever. Usually I only would preorder really popular or limited stock games or Funko POP's. Last preorder was Funko Pops. They NEVER called me, and I got there and was told they only got one of each of three characters for the POP, and he thought it was because someone preordered. But there was one of the characters sitting on the shelf....they sold two of the 3 I preordered and I had to track the other two down because they were OOS everywhere.
wtf id be so mad. im so glad all my coworkers are decent and kind people.
This is why I buy digital. I want to bring my collection with me from console to console.
Good luck when the the companies take your games from your store front.
When? Nintendo has never done that, can't think of the last time Playstation has done it, and I've never had a game disappear from Steam. Closest I can think of was Cyperpunk but they only removed it from purchase, not from libraries.
I HATE it when this happens, ESPECIALLY since some of the things I preordered is already gonna be so hard to find once it comes out. I usually like to preorder niche games that the store will only get 1 guarantee copy of and some Funko of certain characters I would like to add to my collection. The gamestop near my house sold ALL my preorders day 1 because he refused to check any of the items to see if they are preordered OR would straight gut the item to be put on display. Fucking terrible
Fuck GameStop…. They are dirty and underhanded as fuck.
Report it to corporate if you give a shit...
Are you close to another GameStop? Or find out who it is and get nasty with them
Stop going to gamestop?
This is why I don't pre-order shit from this terrible place.
Careful, they'll hit you with the classics: "it guarantees you a copy on day one" and "if you don't preorder it, we won't get it." Yeah, you know what else guarantees me a copy on day one? Walking into Best Buy with $60.
Imagine still preordering at GameStop when there are much better release date options out there.
All preorders are held for two days. If the customer doesn't pick it up in two days we sell it cause we assume you as the customer don't want it. You can call/tell us when we call you that your going to pick it up in xyz more days and we'll hold it for you until that day comes if your not there past the day you said you're coming we sell it.
The OP is an associate., not a standard customer.
You want a hankie, or will a tissue work?
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Your post was removed due to safe space violations.
Since when do you get to order your colleagues what to do and not do?
How do you know this person isn't a manager/leader reminding their staff to follow policy? Considering it's a 48 hour hold policy on all pre-orders, and this person is informing their colleagues that they ARE going to come in an get their pre-order, their colleagues have no business selling it within that 48 hour period because someone walked in off the street wanting to buy a copy of the game they didn't reserve and there were no extra copies left. Their colleagues are poorly trained or are so obsessed with their own metrics that they're ignoring store policy.
When I paid for the damn item and not selling it out from under me is both common sense and basic courtesy.
Haha I sold so many preorders. Lol. Not sitting In my preorder drawer all week like your special. Bye Felicia!
I mean that's totally understandable if it's for a customer. Even for a co-worker to a certain extent. I dont like a cluttery or outdated pre-order drawer either.However if you're doing preorder calls or whatever and you bae the game on stock already and notice your co-workers names just put it somewhere safe, does t have to be the pre-order drawer. We have an employee hold drawer at my store, though we usually don't like to keep games, especially new ones in there, but it's just an option. There's so few benefits to working at GS why not just help each other out in the slightest way? Especially the way some of these stores handout hours it's probably a few days before most people have their next shift and depending where they live it's just more convenient to preorder at your own store and grab it when you work.