GameStop Denies Trade, Says Game Might Be Stolen

I think there may be laws in certain states and counties preventing the trade in of merchandise like this. I think the same thing applies to music and movies at pawnshops. I think there is one in Minneapolis.
 
Six said:
I think there may be laws in certain states and counties preventing the trade in of merchandise like this. I think the same thing applies to music and movies at pawnshops. I think there is one in Minneapolis.
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There might be something state wide dealing with that, not sure though. I know here the city is cracking down hard on used shops that aren't following correct procedures. The city has threatened substantial fines to businesses caught not keeping proper records of used trades on games and electronics in general and also for doing any kind of trade for cash transaction with minors.
 
This is policy. I had it happen also for a new game I bought but never played (pretty sad when you buy games and don't even take the wrapper off, but that is another discusion). I told the guy, okay, so let me take the wrapper off, and he said that would not be sufficient as he already saw it wrapped up. So, I went to another GameStop down the street and took the wrapper off before going in. Dumb.
 
Just take the game to walmart/target/bestbuy/any other store and get a gift card for it.
 
cyclone3d said:
So take it to walmart. They should at least give you store credit since it is still in the originall shrink wrap.
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x2 but for many thieves gift cards aren't good enough, they dont want to take the next step of selling them for cash or using it for actual walmart goods

you can't buy the drugs they want at walmart.
 
Steve said:
Have you guys ever had this happen to you? The reason I ask is because it has happened to me personally and I wanted to know if this is a company policy or random stores pulling this. Claiming new games (still in the wrapper) could be “stolen” is ludicrous considering every used game GameStop takes in could have been stolen. Anyhow, I wanted to know what you guys thought of this.
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Not taking sealed games, or denying any game we thought to be stolen, was a policy as far back as 2000. This is not new, and the policy exists for a reason (ie people tried to do this all the time). Not news.
 
Back in the late 90s I worked in a smaller chain of used game shops and it was the owners policy that anything in the wrapper not be taken. We had one location across the street from a Toys R Us and their employees would routinely walk in with stacks of brand new in the wrapper games which we could not take. The store owner wouldn't even let us take opened games if the Disc was hard to pull out.

Anyway, I asked a guy one day that came in with like 7 of the same title how they get away with the obvoius theft and he told me that the TRU company didn't inventory the games until they came off the trucks at the stores. So if 20 coppies came in they would just write down 10 or 5 and take the rest. I worked at that store for two years and even though we refused to buy these obviously stolen games on a regular basis these people would come in all the time. Only twice did the police ever come in asking if I had purchased games from someone. I'm sure that their inventory system has changed since the 90s, and I have no way of verifying that guy's story but that is what he told me.

Anyway the ower of the shop told me that if the game is still in the wrapper and legitimatly theirs they should be able to go to wherever they got it and get store credit.
 
Derangel said:
Store information on some customers on their computers.
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We did, it was on those forms you used for the trade in. We turned in people to police for stolen merchandise as well when asked for it.
 
On any return at Frys they will open up the product to make sure everything is right. It baffled me at first, but then I understood why and now expect it.
 
I was going to read this article, but then I realized it might be plagiarized ...
 
No point in trading anymore. You don't get any money barely. Takes 3-4 games to get a new game practically. Might as well just get it used online or something. A lot of these game places take out the discs from new game cases and scratch them up and all that in their cabinets. Never buy a new game from them. Its never new.
 
fattypants said:
Gamestop is an unregulated pawn dealer. I bet they buy stolen property all the time.
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Funny you should say that. When we were working on switching over to offering cash for games as well as store credit we had bitch of a time with with and ultimately my district fell into where we have to abide by the same laws as pawn dealers, which would make us regulated pawn dealers.
 
Gamestop neither offers good deals on used games nor are they convenient as most are located in malls. They have poor customer service and offer few if any pc games. Why on earth is anyone still shopping there?
 
Where I live they are still called EB Games and they won't take in any trades but still sell used games they get from the other stores in other cities. They claim they are not allowed to take in used games here due to a bylaw and yet we have pawn shops that will buy games off you so that does not add up.

Last time I was there they overcharged me by 100% on a PS3 game so returned it and they required me to show my drivers license just to return a game that I never opened and had the original receipt for. Needless to say; EB Games lost me as a customer forever on that day.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Didn't they just become another company? I know in europe they became "game". You can still use the EB reward cards in their shops.
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The name still exists here in the U.S., but they're just another division of Gamestop. They've been for a while, too.
 
mortonP said:
Last time I was there they overcharged me by 100% on a PS3 game so returned it and they required me to show my drivers license just to return a game that I never opened and had the original receipt for. Needless to say; EB Games lost me as a customer forever on that day.
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Out of curiosity, how did you allow someone to overcharge you without knowing it was an overcharge as they were charging you?
 
ffs do some of you not realize that when Gamestop employees tell you they "cannot buy it because it may be stolen" its just a nicer way of saying "we cannot buy this because it could be a blank disc thats been resealed like new by you" The first line makes it sound like they dont assume you are trying to rip them off... even though thats what they are thinking and why they have that particular policy.
 
I understand that it is company policy but it is infuriating. I tried to trade in a sealed game once and got the same thing. They said that they could not take it at all on the same business day, even if I left the store, opened it, and came back. I opened it and took it to another Gamestop.

This wouldn't be so bad if they actually sold new games. Around here, they basically get enough copies of a game to fill pre-orders. They then get 1 - 3 copies of the game, where at least one is opened and sold as new. Used games might be reasonable to purchase if they had a real discount. The $5 discount for buying it used is insulting.

I pretty much refuse to shop at GameStop now because of the lack of stock. I don't trade games in anywhere since by the time I trade then in they are only worth a few dollars (and sold for $30).
 
That's why you sell on craigslist / ebay... not too difficult.

I was lazy when I traded in our old Xbox games... I just brought a box of like 30 in and got $120 somethin for all of them. Not bad considering I didn't want to deal with selling all of them and figured most of them were worthless.
 
Magnus said:
Gamestop neither offers good deals on used games nor are they convenient as most are located in malls. They have poor customer service and offer few if any pc games. Why on earth is anyone still shopping there?
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Occasionally they'll have good deals or some harder to find used games. The location here is convenient enough and they're not in a mall. Every single employee at the one here is nice and treats customers well or the store manager will fire them. I rarely buy PC games retail so I don't really give a damn about their lack of PC selection,
 
oh that always happens with gamestop...nothing new with their policy. Just go to walmart.
 
Yeah, I've had this happen. BS policy. The employees actually told me to just go outside and open it and then come back. Of course, I didn't see the point in opening a new game so they could give me 1/4 of what a used game is worth.
 
canna said:
I wasn't aware that saying something lacks common sense is "crucifying them".

Look , if I told you that I don't believe that smoking causes cancer, you could ridicule me, and you would be in the right in doing so.

Just because they are "doing something" doesn't give them a free pass. What they are doing is completely ignorant, and I'll say it as such. If they honestly believe that lack of celophane implies ownership, well, I'd like to see the logic behind it.
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I think it is more about seeing what is in the box and not ownership in general. Celophaned games do look suspicious, but one can usually spot a reprinted dvd or blank dvd when you can open the box.
 
That's the way they should do it but gamestop has a habbit of treating games like rental and putting them in one large drawer and having the cases empty. use the ticket system or something, I want my new game to be new not opened and not played. If so I want an instant $10 discount!
 
Getting less than half of what you paid back for a $60 game that's barely used is enough reason to stop shopping there. I'd be better off going to ebay, and I'd still get at least $10 more even after the cost of shipping it to someone.
 
Emission said:
Getting less than half of what you paid back for a $60 game that's barely used is enough reason to stop shopping there. I'd be better off going to ebay, and I'd still get at least $10 more even after the cost of shipping it to someone.
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No used shop is going to pay much more just based on game condition man. And even at smaller shops unless the owners aren't interested in gaining good profit you're still not going to get $30 even on a brand new $60 title. Retail is about profit, not giving you whatever you believe a game is worth.
 
This has happened to me a few times. The policy is - they don't trade in the game if it was still wrapped when you bring it in.
 
Derangel said:
No used shop is going to pay much more just based on game condition man. And even at smaller shops unless the owners aren't interested in gaining good profit you're still not going to get $30 even on a brand new $60 title. Retail is about profit, not giving you whatever you believe a game is worth.
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I know that, retail is about profits, but what I'm saying is that why should I bother with the middle man when I can get more for selling it myself? Particularly when the post office is more accessible than the game store is anyway.
 
bigstusexy said:
That's the way they should do it but gamestop has a habbit of treating games like rental and putting them in one large drawer and having the cases empty. use the ticket system or something, I want my new game to be new not opened and not played. If so I want an instant $10 discount!
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Yeah I think that's just appalling. I've been to gamestop stores where they had multiple copies of the game open. They only need one display box and they shouldn't even open a real copy for that. You know how for preorder games they will have a promotional box on the shelf to advertise it? That's what they should do for all new games.

I bought a Final Fantasy XIII for ps3 and they gave me an opened copy. I really wanted to play it so I took it. But then it was really bothering me so I stopped at another gamestop on the way home and exchanged it for a new (i.e. NOT opened) copy. Luckily most of the employees I've met are pretty cool and friendly so that was not a problem.

Mostly though, I just prefer amazon for games.
 
You can request a sealed copy if it bugs you that much. Every time I bought games from there I got sealed games... meh...
 
Dirk13 said:
Just take the game to walmart/target/bestbuy/any other store and get a gift card for it.
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These days you cannot do that because the barcodes are all different.

For example, I bought Red Dead Redemption on the 360 from Amazon at launch then found out before I got it that a few friends of mine were getting it for the 360. I tried to take it to Walmart, unopened, and exchange it for the PS3 version.

When they scanned it in, they said it wasn't in their system and showed me the difference in barcodes. He then explained that games ship with different barcodes for each retailer.

I tried it at two different Walmarts, and when I tried taking it to Gamestop I was told they would only treat it as a used game trade in. So on launch day, they were going to give me not even half off on a sealed game the day it released.

I just ended up selling it on eBay instead of returning it to Amazon.
 
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