The story/rant: T_T
My sister had recently just purchased a new copy of Persona 4 at the local EB games store for $59.99. Little did she know what she got herself (and me) into.
I wasn’t there when she bought the game, but she came home and told me afterwards. After bringing up the display empty box to the counter, the female clerk rang up her order whilst making small talks on the game. She then mentioned “You can trade the game in for a re-sealable copy if you find scratches or it’s defective.” And my sister replied something along the lines of : “Neat, thanks.” As soon as she left the store, she noticed that apparently, she had just been charged $3.00 more for a “customer guarantie”. Immediately, she headed back and asked them to take it off. But lo and behold, the once friendly counter girl had transformed into a cold and uncaring bitch. Without even looking up, she shook her head and replied, “No. No refunds allowed.” Her co-worker mimicked her actions. And the two then promptly proceeded to ignore my sister’s presence for a good minute. Not wanting to raise waves, my sis left.
That would have been the end of that…. had we not discovered it was a gutted copy and that the game disc was noticeably scratched in more than one spot. Crappy attitude from the store workers? Fine. Charging for extra options and refusing refunds to an uninformed customer? Not fine, but whatever. I suppose my sis should have asked for clarification. But it is terribly wrong to charge full price for a non-new copy. I admit, red flags should have popped up the moment my sis noticed the girl pulling out those discs from behind the counter. But this was only the second time we’ve ever bought from EB. (The first time, we had gotten a factory sealed copy and the counter guy could not have been any sweeter and customer-friendly). Who would’ve guessed they had such a warped definition of the word “new”?
This was when I went online and discovered the myriad of horror tales concerning EB, along with the even more shocking “check out” policy of theirs.
Two days later, me and my sister headed back and showed the manager the defects. “Oh, those are clearly not scratches.”, the manager replied. EXCUUUSE ME?!?! “They’re burn marks… from when the factory makes the discs. You can tell the difference if you compare it to an old/used game. You see, they use a poly-fiber(-something-or-other-)coating….” He lost me there; bottom line: he refused to admit those were scratches. I then questioned him about the company “check-out” policy. To which he adamantly denied and then dove into a speech that there’s no such thing, that he would not tolerate it if there was, that I should tell him the locations of other EB stores that does it so he could talk to them himself, ect.... Not wanting to argue, we asked to exchange the game for store credit, since he said the store ran out of the sealed copies (I had originally planned on a refund). Alas, we received the infamous speech on how ours was an opened game and therefore not qualified for a refund. But he allowed us to look through the other display copies to find one that was in better condition. So we returned home with a non new copy of the game, a damaged/marked case, an hour wasted, a headache, and the lesson of never purchasing from that EB store ever, EVER again – All for the price of $59.99.
This was an absolutely ridiculous, unbelievable experience. We paid honest money, expecting an honest product from an HONEST business. I think the least they could have done was let us exchange for credit since the first one was clearly not in a condition any sane person would call “new”. (No, I don’t want another crappy opened copy. The first one was enough proof that your “new” = SUSPICIOUSLY USED.)
This has me burned up. Why the heck am I walking into a store, shelling out good money for a messed up product just so I end up being deceived and feeling victimized? How many unaware customers have they pulled this kind of shit on? WHAT KIND OF A CROOKED BUSINESS ARE THEY RUNNING HERE??!
Questions:
1. The whole “burn mark” thing on discs. Is that true?
Or have I just been duped by another one of their lies? All my NEW games never had any imperfections though.... And these looked like scratches to me. I would boil with anger if the manager had outright lied to my face. >=(
2. Is there anything I can do to remedy the situation? I read about people calling corporate, district managers, etc… what is that and does it help?
Please and thank you!
My sister had recently just purchased a new copy of Persona 4 at the local EB games store for $59.99. Little did she know what she got herself (and me) into.
I wasn’t there when she bought the game, but she came home and told me afterwards. After bringing up the display empty box to the counter, the female clerk rang up her order whilst making small talks on the game. She then mentioned “You can trade the game in for a re-sealable copy if you find scratches or it’s defective.” And my sister replied something along the lines of : “Neat, thanks.” As soon as she left the store, she noticed that apparently, she had just been charged $3.00 more for a “customer guarantie”. Immediately, she headed back and asked them to take it off. But lo and behold, the once friendly counter girl had transformed into a cold and uncaring bitch. Without even looking up, she shook her head and replied, “No. No refunds allowed.” Her co-worker mimicked her actions. And the two then promptly proceeded to ignore my sister’s presence for a good minute. Not wanting to raise waves, my sis left.
That would have been the end of that…. had we not discovered it was a gutted copy and that the game disc was noticeably scratched in more than one spot. Crappy attitude from the store workers? Fine. Charging for extra options and refusing refunds to an uninformed customer? Not fine, but whatever. I suppose my sis should have asked for clarification. But it is terribly wrong to charge full price for a non-new copy. I admit, red flags should have popped up the moment my sis noticed the girl pulling out those discs from behind the counter. But this was only the second time we’ve ever bought from EB. (The first time, we had gotten a factory sealed copy and the counter guy could not have been any sweeter and customer-friendly). Who would’ve guessed they had such a warped definition of the word “new”?
This was when I went online and discovered the myriad of horror tales concerning EB, along with the even more shocking “check out” policy of theirs.
Two days later, me and my sister headed back and showed the manager the defects. “Oh, those are clearly not scratches.”, the manager replied. EXCUUUSE ME?!?! “They’re burn marks… from when the factory makes the discs. You can tell the difference if you compare it to an old/used game. You see, they use a poly-fiber(-something-or-other-)coating….” He lost me there; bottom line: he refused to admit those were scratches. I then questioned him about the company “check-out” policy. To which he adamantly denied and then dove into a speech that there’s no such thing, that he would not tolerate it if there was, that I should tell him the locations of other EB stores that does it so he could talk to them himself, ect.... Not wanting to argue, we asked to exchange the game for store credit, since he said the store ran out of the sealed copies (I had originally planned on a refund). Alas, we received the infamous speech on how ours was an opened game and therefore not qualified for a refund. But he allowed us to look through the other display copies to find one that was in better condition. So we returned home with a non new copy of the game, a damaged/marked case, an hour wasted, a headache, and the lesson of never purchasing from that EB store ever, EVER again – All for the price of $59.99.
This was an absolutely ridiculous, unbelievable experience. We paid honest money, expecting an honest product from an HONEST business. I think the least they could have done was let us exchange for credit since the first one was clearly not in a condition any sane person would call “new”. (No, I don’t want another crappy opened copy. The first one was enough proof that your “new” = SUSPICIOUSLY USED.)
This has me burned up. Why the heck am I walking into a store, shelling out good money for a messed up product just so I end up being deceived and feeling victimized? How many unaware customers have they pulled this kind of shit on? WHAT KIND OF A CROOKED BUSINESS ARE THEY RUNNING HERE??!
Questions:
1. The whole “burn mark” thing on discs. Is that true?
Or have I just been duped by another one of their lies? All my NEW games never had any imperfections though.... And these looked like scratches to me. I would boil with anger if the manager had outright lied to my face. >=(2. Is there anything I can do to remedy the situation? I read about people calling corporate, district managers, etc… what is that and does it help?
Please and thank you!
ed
