My brother and myself went to game stop for the mid night release of modern war fare 3 , we waited in line since 10pm as they promised the mid night buyers free pizza and drink's.
it was a slice each and very few were given a drink, still nice since its free food and we were waiting a while.
anyway my brother got the hardened edition of modern warfare 3 for the Xbox 360 which was 99 euros.

They asked us would we like game protection insurance on it for 3 euros and told us that they would also enter us in a draw for a modern warfare 3 goodie bag ( all it is , is a modern warfare 3 themed paper bag with a bunch of stickers, the people waiting since 8pm got them as they were first in line)
they told us they were selling the game for 99 euros so we could save a euro or two, so we could afford the game protection insurance.
(how thoughtful >.> still its 99 euros though , no thanks)

My brother said no thanks as we tend to take great care to keep our games in "like new condition".
the manager over heard him say no to the girl who was serving us, the girl said she will get in trouble unless we get the game protection insurance and the manager told us that everyone they had served got it, pointing to a clip board. my brother said no thanks again and was planing on been there all night untill the manager got it into his head that he doesn't want it. (my brother is a man with principles)
He said then that we are holding up the line and that the line wont move until we purchase game protection insurance and that no one has left without getting the game protection insurance , then he said it out loud for 100+ people to hear it and that he will keep embarassing us untill my brother paid for it, I gave in and paid for the sake of peace.( my brother was not impressed with me)

the next day (yesterday) my brother called consumer affairs who put him through to commercial affairs who said gamestop could be fined 6k after they look into this because it is illegal to sell something aggressively to a custamor here , they may call my brother again to take a statement regarding this.
then he called game stops head office
they were very angry and said they would send a district manager to talk with the Manager and the staff,they then offered him my 3 euros back.
my brother said no to that. (I told him he should of said yes as it was my money after all)
He did not tell game stop that he has been talking with commercial affairs though.

No midnight opening for skyrim T_T
The girl at the counter said this when I asked her about the skyrim mid night opening "i hope not, please god there wont be one"
I raised an eye brow then and looked at her like she was crazy.

Have any of you had simuler retail experiences ?

No but why did you not tell the guy to [censored] off? I mean why pay if you do not want it. It is not the money that would be the issue. To publicly embarrass and then verbally threaten more embarrassment to a customer entitles the customer to some financial compensation. If it was me I would say let me settle out of court if I can punch the guy in the face. If not then I am suing you guys for every penny I can get. I would have been pissed. That guy will likely get fired. Wonder why he was pushing so hard for 3 euros?

The manager probably want's to look good compared to all the managers at other stores by selling the insurance to everyone or has a quota , they probably hold some sort of competition between stores, I was very bored and wanted to get out of there as quick as possible as I wont be playing call of duty modern warfare 3.

We can't afford to sue these guys unless there is some sort of system for people to sue otherwise.
anyway the manager will probably be fired when game stop gets fined 6k plus and looses all the profit from that night.
We could look into some free legal aide I suppose.

Gamestop has pissed me off enough to be temporarily disowned by hassling me to buy games used instead of new and hassling me about some membership too

I became a Best Buy loyalist for awhile , untill they seemingly fired a guy for doubling up an offer for me

(It was trade in 4 games get $20 more , I had 9 games , I had him do it as 2 transactions , whats the difference? I could have left the store and come back later or the next day? There is no difference) But his ([censored] out of touch old lady whos not qualified to work at a Best Buy) manager got involved and seemed frustrated , and I have never seen that guy working at that store again

So if Best Buy is going to do crap like that , I have reverted my loyalty back to Gamestop.... lets just hope they don't piss me off again

Yeah that is a pity, poor guy.

After its s settled..

Break the game for no reason and bring it back for rthe warranty.

That's pretty damn lame. Don't count on much getting done though, I've complained on [censored] customer service before and the next time I went back it was the exact same [censored], just don't go there if you don't like the way they treat you, that's about all you can do.

It is the only game stop where we live and I am pretty sure they will be taken care of , my country needs all the money they can get and I am sure they want any excuse to fine businesses.
I'm in one of the EU bail out countries. XD

Sounds about like the last experience I had the last time I was in a Gamestop and the store manager raised a huge stink over a $5 refund my friend tried to get from them when he canceled his pre-order for Skyrim. The look on the staff's faces you'd think we had asked them to kill kittens or something. I certainly won't ever shop at that chain again.

Would you want to be stuck behind a counter with a mass of people hounding you that you just want to go away til the small hours of the morning? :confused: I'm with her.

Rather than looking at litigation you'd be better off going for an Office of Fair Trading or another consumer watchdog, whatever the equivilant is where you are, keep the receipts and any other relevant documentation to be on the safe side.

I'm taking a guess that it's either Eire or Greece? Best of luck though and it's a shame you received the treatment you did.

I would have threatened to hop the counter and hit him in the mouth once for every customer he keeps waiting.I have a short fuse for people like that. I know someone who worked at Gamestop for a while and they said that employees are actually encouraged to open the games bring them home and play them then bring them back in for repackaging so they can give people better info on games....

I went in to buy Crisis when it came out and they acted really stuck up asking if I had preordered it. I said no but do you have any left? They would not answer the question they kept pointing out that I did not pre order it. They acted like they were somehow above me and teaching me a lesson for not pre ordering. I told them to P!#$ off and walked across the parking lot to target where they had at least 20 collector additions of some sort for the same price gamestop was asking for the normal. I brought the copy back to them waved it around in front of the there faces with customers there and asked them if they really think people are stupid enough to just fall in line as if they are the only retailer on the planet that sells video games. They attempted a lame apology but I interrupted with ____ off and left.

I try not to purchase any games there based on things I have heard and experienced.

I like the way you think lol. That is 100% how my reaction would have been. lmao

Thanks for the advice and yeah were in Eire lol



We do have a cheaper alternative to game stop here called HMV but they never hardly have preorder bonus's

That would be rather eventful if it happens to me at the Skyrim launch. However, everyone I've met at my local Gamestop has been really cool. Had many long conversations with the staff there about games. It sounds like you should have embarrassed the manager by protesting to him shoving game protection down your throat, I'm puzzled at how it worked the other way around in his favor. I'm also wondering why they offered game protection before giving you the game, that has never happened to me. If they didn't, and gave you the game first, it would have only been a matter of walking out of the store.
Oh well, here's to hoping you sue the manager. :foodndrink:

If I can convince my brother to look into free legal aide we might sue.

Don't sue, but make games top look bad with their midnight releases, then consumers will be turned off by midnight releases. Everyone will storm in at the esame time next day and instead of waiting in line they go to a competitor.

Also you should have had a witness other than your brother. (Name/contact)

Eh, I can imagine a high stress thing like that can put managers in the weeds. My Gamestop is a top 100 store in the country (percentage of Powerup Rewards members and reservations) and it's probably because we never yell or throw a temper tantrum.

I'd stay away from that Gamestop, but it's not the devil's place.

Wow... HMV costs a packet here in England, I guess I know where to go now if I want to make use of that unecessary loyalty card I got from them years ago. :thumbsup:

If you're able to, might be worth looking at amazon, gamestation and play.com as they can do pre-order bonuses from time to time.

This might be worth a look also for some guidance if you do want to formally complain.

http://www.ukecc.net/sub.asp?id=185

It sounds like he had it planned from the start. An entire ledger of everyone, all of which had paid for protection, on hand? Starting to sound like a gaming mafia is springing up. The other day a truckful of games robbed, now reports of 'protection' being extorted out of customers. Beware, my friends. Beware.

Yeah I wish we could contact the 2 guys we had been talking with while we waited.

Cheers , i will tell him about this.


LOL

While it's good you're following up on this (and hopefully they get hit with some hefty fines), it's unfortunate you let yourself be bullied by the store manager so easily. A good way to respond to that kind of aggressive selling is to respond that if that's their attitude then you won't be buying anything from them (calmly, but loud enough that other people can hear), then simply turn around and walk out of the store. Having $100 walk out of the store because he was being a dike about $3 should have about as much of an impact as if you actually hit the manager (without all that nasty assault charges following it). Try to not get angry or belligerent- the point is to send a clear message to the manager that you, the customer, are in control and you have no reason or intention of putting up with their shenanigans. It does mean you have to have the will to spend a little longer without a game you're obviously very stoked about, so it's good to decide ahead of time what your priorities are (as taking action in the moment is much easier if you already know where you stand).

Nobody else here was selling the hardened edition unfortunately and my brother had his heart set on getting it.

Have to agree with Darrk Phoenix, i would have just said "Fine. If you don't want my money i'll spend it elsewhere!". Or that's what i'd like to think ^_^

Only aggressive selling i've gotten is from phone sellers, but those are easy to deal with :hehe:

Wow, I wish someone at GameSpot would try to embarrass me publicly like that. I would have had some fun with him.

But in all seriousness, I would have just told him no. And if he started getting aggressive then I would have given the girl the money for the game and took my game and left. I don't buy things I don't want, thank you very much. That's what you should have done. What was he gonna do, hold you there? You had a ton of witnesses if he actually started getting aggressive.

Dude, you caved...
I've had one experience when I was buying myself clothes, needed a new suit for work, were the women just kept persisting in asking if I wanted to insure it or get some gift vouchers. I was persistent in the fact that I wanted neither but I did want my receipt. The women couldn't understand me, I got annoyed and my mum started going just buy one of them since you'll never use them, which was the exact reason I didn't want to buy them. Got to the point after like 5 mintues of telling her all I want is the bit of paper, with my name and the money I spend on it, I reached across the counter snatched the receipt and left the store.
The womens supervisor/manager confronted me before I left thinking I stole something and me and my mum just explained that the women was trying to force stuff on us that I didn't need nor want and the women said she'd have words with the till worker and that we were free to leave.
The manager/supervisor was real polite but the till worker was becoming more aggressive in her approach as there was a clear language barrier or something.