BestBuy Enforcing Removal of GCU If You Go Past 3 Game Limit

lionheart059 said:
Best Buy is not a wholesale outlet, for starters - They do not exist for the purpose of supplying other retail establishments. In another thread it was covered (extensively, with publicly available financial records to support) that games sold at a 20% discount are essentially a wash (and potentially a loss if shipped). So there's literally no sound business reason for them to sell unlimited copies of a game at cost to another person, so that individual can resell them at a profit. To prevent that abuse, they put in a (fairly reasonable) 3 item limit.

The same can probably be applied to item limits from other retailers when the item is sold at a discount. Other reasons are things like customer satisfaction - Like how Target stores limited individuals to buying 2 amiibos, and they had to be different figures. They did that because there was a significant negative customer feedback if they allowed one person to buy all of the Marth so they could be resold on ebay.
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Best Buy created the program. They said if you pay us a membership fee you can buy items at a discount. I do not understand item limits because why does it matter who you are selling the item to that is your selling price minus the discount of your paid membership.

 
My favorite part of this are all the CAG’s threatening legal action. Literally, people who are buying and flipping games to make a few extra dollars, imagining that they have the savvy or finances to take on best buy in court over this. I don’t think attorneys offer trade in bonuses...
 
I'm surprised how long it took Best Buy to do this, anyone who got more than 3 of any game obviously abused it in a way it was never meant to be used. If anything, the people who didn't get mad are the ones that should be upset because I'm sure the abuse of GCU led to its demise in someway.
 

 
nddave said:
Best Buy created the program. They said if you pay us a membership fee you can buy items at a discount. I do not understand item limits because why does it matter who you are selling the item to that is your selling price minus the discount of your paid membership.
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They did create the program - With item limits. Because they are not a wholesaler. They are a retailer. There's a difference.

Their business model is not built around charging someone $15 a year so they can buy 30 copies of Call of Booty at their cost (again - at 20% off the profit margin is essentially nil, and with shipping can yield a loss) and then resell those on another market for a profit. As a retailer, their business model is designed more around "Buy x amount of product from a wholesale outlet/distributor, and then resell that at a reasonable markup for profit". No item limits opens the possibility of that becoming "Buy x amount of product from a wholesale outlet/distributor and then resell for no profit at all". One of those is sustainable. The other is not.

For the record, wholesalers (like Sam's Club, Costco, etc) that sell in bulk are able to do so at a profit and deal in larger volume to do so. If Best Buy was a wholesaler, they'd be trying to sell you an entire case of Call of Booty 37D, not an individual copy.

 
Quoting the last paragraph of the (relatively short) T&C.  Partly to show how clear they actually make it, and partly b/c this is literally the first time i actually read it (GCU member for years, lol)

"Gamers Club Unlocked program may be modified or terminated by Best Buy at any time. Gamers Club Unlocked membership or any membership benefits may not be transferred or assigned. Gamers Club Unlocked membership may be terminated if Best Buy determines, in its sole discretion, that your conduct violates these Terms or any applicable law, involves fraud or misuse of membership, or is harmful to its interests or another customer. If Best Buy mistakenly issues points in connection with such misconduct, Best Buy may deduct improperly awarded points, invalidate improperly issued reward certificates and/or not issue reward certificates as well as terminate your membership without refund. Best Buy also reserves the right to deny future membership for such misconduct. Best Buy’s failure to insist upon or enforce your strict compliance with these Terms will not constitute a waiver of any of its rights"

 
skiizim said:
I'm surprised how long it took Best Buy to do this, anyone who got more than 3 of any game obviously abused it in a way it was never meant to be used. If anything, the people who didn't get mad are the ones that should be upset because I'm sure the abuse of GCU led to its demise in someway.
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Corporations move slow. You need some VP level figure to bless the initiative (and this likely saw even higher executive-level review), then middle managers figure out which teams will do the work: whose going to pull the SQL data, who segments the customers into desirables/undesirables based on metrics thresholds, actual coding from software development teams to execute the banning which requires software product managers to specify scope and the customer experience (i.e. the ban e-mail and the refresh of that accounts, what happens to things like active certs, purchase history, etc.). Then even more coordination with CS because for large corp., each call contact is probably costing them $10+, and what their standard response blurbs are. All of this probably took BBY 4 months+. BBY isn’t the type of company that attracts the best and brightest in software engineering so their technical architecture is likely garbage so a lot of things people think here are easy are all actually really hard because their architects didn’t design things to be flexible.

Now that you all know how a corporation works, can anyone tell me if someone tried to use their e-mailed reward certificates in-store? Going back to how their software devs likely sucks, it’s a very possible loophole.
 
The Dead Texan said:
So after seller and paypal fees and shipping costs people are making what? $6?
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Yeah but it's $6 through relatively easy work. Don't forget they're drop shipping so they don't have to pay those costs. They could make more money with their own deals with distributors but then the risk would be higher.
 
lionheart059 said:
They did create the program - With item limits. Because they are not a wholesaler. They are a retailer. There's a difference.

Their business model is not built around charging someone $15 a year so they can buy 30 copies of Call of Booty at their cost (again - at 20% off the profit margin is essentially nil, and with shipping can yield a loss) and then resell those on another market for a profit. As a retailer, their business model is designed more around "Buy x amount of product from a wholesale outlet/distributor, and then resell that at a reasonable markup for profit". No item limits opens the possibility of that becoming "Buy x amount of product from a wholesale outlet/distributor and then resell for no profit at all". One of those is sustainable. The other is not.

For the record, wholesalers (like Sam's Club, Costco, etc) that sell in bulk are able to do so at a profit and deal in larger volume to do so. If Best Buy was a wholesaler, they'd be trying to sell you an entire case of Call of Booty 37D, not an individual copy.
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From a retailer, not a Wholesaler standpoint, the price is the same whether you sell it to one person or to 100 different people. So now you could of sold more copies but you have Limits. This is why i never understood limits THE PRICE IS THE SAME regardless of who you sell it to.

 
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Uncle Anwar said:
My favorite part of this are all the CAG’s threatening legal action. Literally, people who are buying and flipping games to make a few extra dollars, imagining that they have the savvy or finances to take on best buy in court over this. I don’t think attorneys offer trade in bonuses...
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thesuzukimethod said:
Quoting the last paragraph of the (relatively short) T&C. Partly to show how clear they actually make it, and partly b/c this is literally the first time i actually read it (GCU member for years, lol)

"Gamers Club Unlocked program may be modified or terminated by Best Buy at any time. Gamers Club Unlocked membership or any membership benefits may not be transferred or assigned. Gamers Club Unlocked membership may be terminated if Best Buy determines, in its sole discretion, that your conduct violates these Terms or any applicable law, involves fraud or misuse of membership, or is harmful to its interests or another customer. If Best Buy mistakenly issues points in connection with such misconduct, Best Buy may deduct improperly awarded points, invalidate improperly issued reward certificates and/or not issue reward certificates as well as terminate your membership without refund. Best Buy also reserves the right to deny future membership for such misconduct. Best Buy’s failure to insist upon or enforce your strict compliance with these Terms will not constitute a waiver of any of its rights"
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This.

I'd LOVE to see some CAG try and start some legal action against BB. :rofl:

Any, and I mean *ANY* Lawyer would take 5 minutes to peruse the Terms of Service for GCU and the Rewards program... and then immediately laugh at them.

We all agreed to the ToS for GCU and the rewards program... it does not matter if you read them or not... we *ALL* agreed to them by paying the membership. Period.

BB made the rules, BB gets to enforce them. WE as GCU members AGREED to them the second we paid the money.

(The Rock's voice) It doesn't matter what you think!!!

We all legally bound ourselves to the ToS that BEST BUY put in front of us. People are thinking they have some "right" to take advantage of a company and buy as many copies of games as they want so they can then resell them for profit. and in essence become a RESELLER themselves...

I was done with this thread after my first post in it, but damn this is getting funny!

 
Props for the Rock quote! It would be awesome if Best Buy hired Ted DiBiase to do a commercial as the Million Dollar Man as the new CAO discontinuing gcu.
 
lionheart059 said:
They did create the program - With item limits. Because they are not a wholesaler. They are a retailer. There's a difference.

Their business model is not built around charging someone $15 a year so they can buy 30 copies of Call of Booty at their cost (again - at 20% off the profit margin is essentially nil, and with shipping can yield a loss) and then resell those on another market for a profit. As a retailer, their business model is designed more around "Buy x amount of product from a wholesale outlet/distributor, and then resell that at a reasonable markup for profit". No item limits opens the possibility of that becoming "Buy x amount of product from a wholesale outlet/distributor and then resell for no profit at all". One of those is sustainable. The other is not.

For the record, wholesalers (like Sam's Club, Costco, etc) that sell in bulk are able to do so at a profit and deal in larger volume to do so. If Best Buy was a wholesaler, they'd be trying to sell you an entire case of Call of Booty 37D, not an individual copy.
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Damn you.... I was in the middle of typing up this very tidbit when I saw yours lol.

Nutshell, BB does not have a license to sell in bulk. And they limit the purchase so they don't get in trouble themselves... (they don't have the license do sell like you want them to)

 
nddave said:
From a retailer, not a Wholesaler standpoint, the price is the same whether you sell it to one person or to 100 different people. So now you could of sold more copies but you have Limits. This is why i never understood limits THE PRICE IS THE SAME regardless of who you sell it to.
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Selling one item at cost with the hopes that you pick something else up in the store while you are there is an incentive.

Selling 100 items at cost to one person, depleting your stock, and paying to ship them all over the country for flippers drop shipping them loses money. Its really not that hard to figure out. A business can stay in business and make money by selling a small portion of stock at cost hoping the customer spends a little extra while in store. A business cannot make money selling a large portion of stock at cost (or at a loss with shipping) to people abusing the system.
 
Master Miguel said:
Selling one item at cost with the hopes that you pick something else up in the store while you are there is an incentive.

Selling 100 items at cost to one person, depleting your stock, and paying to ship them all over the country for flippers drop shipping them loses money. Its really not that hard to figure out. A business can stay in business and make money by selling a small portion of stock at cost hoping the customer spends a little extra while in store. A business cannot make money selling a large portion of stock at cost (or at a loss with shipping) to people abusing the system.
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Hopes not a good way to run a business. Best Buy is not Depleting stock that is a sad excuse for item limits. So now Best Buy is worried about who they sell it to (flippers) So if you ship it to 1 person 100 copies ( which dont happen) or 100 people whats the difference they are all being shipped nobody is in the store.

 
nddave said:
Hopes not a good way to run a business. Best Buy is not Depleting stock that is a sad excuse for item limits. So now Best Buy is worried about who they sell it to (flippers) So if you ship it to 1 person 100 copies ( which dont happen) or 100 people whats the difference they are all being shipped nobody is in the store.
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The state cares, after all they would not be following their rules for the license they applied for.

There we go again with rules....

 
nddave said:
Hopes not a good way to run a business. Best Buy is not Depleting stock that is a sad excuse for item limits. So now Best Buy is worried about who they sell it to (flippers) So if you ship it to 1 person 100 copies ( which dont happen) or 100 people whats the difference they are all being shipped nobody is in the store.
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I'm finding it hard to believe you are this dense. The whole retail model is about trying to anticipate and influence consumer behavior. Sales in general are about driving traffic to a store in the hope that consumers won't just buy the sale items, but other full priced items with greater margins. No retailer wants a customer who only buys sale items every trip. The entire retail model would collapse if that was the case.

 
bojay1997 said:
I'm finding it hard to believe you are this dense. The whole retail model is about trying to anticipate and influence consumer behavior. Sales in general are about driving traffic to a store in the hope that consumers won't just buy the sale items, but other full priced items with greater margins. No retailer wants a customer who only buys sale items every trip. The entire retail model would collapse if that was the case.
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Im finding it hard to believe you cant understand hope is a bad way to run a business. Copies are copies, revenue is revenue, profits are profits.

 
Omni99 said:
This is the point I was making too. Everything else is fair game, but if you bought an extended warranty from Best Buy on some other product, they can't take that away. (Or...they can, they just shouldn't be able to.)
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If you bought it with the same reward zone ID that was linked to your GCU, you LOSE - you get NOTHiNG! Good DAY, Sir!!

Seriously, nobody was allegedly ever going to set foot in a best buy again anyway. How would you have taken it in for warranty?
 
Omni99 said:
This is the point I was making too. Everything else is fair game, but if you bought an extended warranty from Best Buy on some other product, they can't take that away. (Or...they can, they just shouldn't be able to.)
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it's fair that BB eliminate your GCU account if you abuse it, but to cancel warranties you have on TVs and cell phones because of GCU doesn't make sense.

 
Master Miguel said:
Selling one item at cost with the hopes that you pick something else up in the store while you are there is an incentive.

Selling 100 items at cost to one person, depleting your stock, and paying to ship them all over the country for flippers drop shipping them loses money. Its really not that hard to figure out. A business can stay in business and make money by selling a small portion of stock at cost hoping the customer spends a little extra while in store. A business cannot make money selling a large portion of stock at cost (or at a loss with shipping) to people abusing the system.
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You nailed it with this post. This explains the game limits in the TOS. Best Buy has been struggling for a long time during the recession and GCU was one way to get people in the door to consider their more profitable wares. People coming in to buy multiple copies to resell and walk out the door or worse, drop ship undermined that strategy and protection was needed in the TOS.

The discontinuation of the program going forward though, is more due to low unemployment and a rolling economy IMO. No need for GCU to get people in the door anymore...BB is doing quite well now. I expect Amazon to kill their preorder discount soon as well
 
fredyyy said:
it's fair that BB eliminate your GCU account if you abuse it, but to cancel warranties you have on TVs and cell phones because of GCU doesn't make sense.
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I really think the warranty part of this is an oversight... and will be corrected.

And would someone *WITH* one of the extended warranties on anything from BB.... go grab the pamphlet they give you and at least scan in the fine print somewhere.

I will bet it's NOT warranted through Best Buy themselves... it's someone else that BB contracts with. (Or contracts with BB..) they would be the company that holds the warranty, and BB can't cancel that once they sell it.

Edit: ahh nvm, They are in fact a subsidiary of Best Buy. Although if you look through the geek squad site, they do sell a warranty though another company for cell phones etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek_Squad

So... BB completely canceling the warranties... that is possible. Maybe i'm wrong that it's an oversight and it will be fixed. That's interesting.

 
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Hey CAGs with GCU did you go into BB and Buy other FULL price items with your GCU discount on games or did you just get the discount on the game? Rest my case "Hope dont work"

 
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thesuzukimethod said:
Quoting the last paragraph of the (relatively short) T&C. Partly to show how clear they actually make it, and partly b/c this is literally the first time i actually read it (GCU member for years, lol)



"[font='Human BBY Web', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Gamers Club Unlocked program may be modified or terminated by Best Buy at any time. Gamers Club Unlocked membership or any membership benefits may not be transferred or assigned. Gamers Club Unlocked membership may be terminated if Best Buy determines, in its sole discretion, that your conduct violates these Terms or any applicable law, involves fraud or misuse of membership, or is harmful to its interests or another customer. If Best Buy mistakenly issues points in connection with such misconduct, Best Buy may deduct improperly awarded points, invalidate improperly issued reward certificates and/or not issue reward certificates as well as terminate your membership without refund. Best Buy also reserves the right to deny future membership for such misconduct. Best Buy’s failure to insist upon or enforce your strict compliance with these Terms will not constitute a waiver of any of its rights"[/size][/font]
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Right, you abuse GCU, they can terminate your usage of it. Not my complaint in this cluster of a thread. Where does it say they can do the rest the OP said they did? Hint: NOWHERE, based off this piece of the ToS.
 
That may depend... If BB has it in the ToS that they can in fact cancel the warranties for any reason... 

Really the warranty part may be the only real issue with this whole ordeal, but I can see them being able to cancel it though. 

I found in the ToS on canceling a GCU/Rewards account that they in fact can wipe ALL rewards points... 

Possible they have the same/similar writing in the geek squad warranty fine print. I don't do extended warranties very often, and have never purchased any warranty from BB.

 
Watch out backlash, you’re going to get a bunch of pm’s from lames asking you to represent them in their class action against best buy. You might get a few gs reward certificates out of it, but you would probably have to drive them to court.
 
nddave said:
You went in to pick your game up and bought a FULL priced 4K TV and FULL Price monitor?
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Nope, I went in there to get my cheap game, and paid them extra for the monitor!

WTF does this have to do with anything?

Trying to say my GCU membership got me to buy more stuff from BB? no... I decided to pickup a monitor or TV in store rather than ship it.

And it was on sale, so there's your loophole so you can say "gotcha" or whatever.

But as abbabaab mentioned, cables etc... oh definitely have purchased stuff like that when grabbing a discounted game. And yes, when I do buy something else at BB, I almost always walk past the game isle.. maybe something I didnt see online or some used game i'd grab with the GCU discount.

in the end, 98% of my purchases at BB are GCU discounted games, I have purchased other stuff... but thats rare due to being able to beat BB's price online or elsewhere.

 
abbabaab said:
Oh, I'm sure they have sales on other things. Best Buy has more things to sell than games, after all.

But they weren't on sale, no.
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OKAY wow you paid FULL price for cables, FULL price for headphones, and FULL price for appliances. Shop around you could save some money like you did on your GCU games.

 
Thebacklash said:
Nope, I went in there to get my cheap game, and paid them extra for the monitor!

WTF does this have to do with anything?

Trying to say my GCU membership got me to buy more stuff from BB? no... I decided to pickup a monitor or TV in store rather than ship it.

And it was on sale, so there's your loophole so you can say "gotcha" or whatever.

But as abbabaab mentioned, cables etc... oh definitely have purchased stuff like that when grabbing a discounted game. And yes, when I do buy something else at BB, I almost always walk past the game isle.. maybe something I didnt see online or some used game i'd grab with the GCU discount.

in the end, 98% of my purchases at BB are GCU discounted games, I have purchased other stuff... but thats rare due to being able to beat BB's price online or elsewhere.
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If you go back to the previous page the point was that you buy a discount game to pay FULL price for other items. YOU voluntarily posted to say you did. Now you admitted you do not pay full price for the other items when you buy your discounted game. Please dont get mad at me.

 
nddave said:
If you go back to the previous page the point was that you buy a discount game to pay FULL price for other items.
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No, the point that you keep missing is that the store sells you something at or below what they paid for it in order to lure you in to also buy something that the store gets a much higher margin on, whether that other item is on sale or not.

 
nddave said:
OKAY wow you paid FULL price for cables, FULL price for headphones, and FULL price for appliances. Shop around you could save some money like you did on your GCU games.
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yes cause Amazon can get me the stupid cable i need, in about 5 minutes...

Or the TV for the SAME PRICE as BB, in 2+ days. Delivered by UPS/FedEx/Ontrac (USPS tends to not get the big box purchases from Amazon) and have it sit outside in the fuck rain all day so the neighborhood kids can steal it. Or force UPS/FedEx to deliver it to the UPS store across the street from BB... or the FedEx place 5 miles from BB. An OnTrace... well they are russian idiots that can't even deliver to the correct address around here.

$5 for a cable and have it now when I need it. or $2 from Amazon with free shipping and get it later... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 
srac84 said:
Well I’d go use your points if you have any saved up now who knows if today is just the first day of cancelling stuff
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This! I have only bought 1 copy of each game over the last year but I had $50 in RC banked. I cashed it into XBL credit using the download digital code option. I do not expect a ban but I am not taking any chances. I do have a TV warranty with 16 months left that I would fight tooth and nail over if I somehow got banned. At this point I am not counting on GCU being available for the Fall releases even though my subscription doesn't run out until Feb 2019.

 
nddave said:
If you go back to the previous page the point was that you buy a discount game to pay FULL price for other items. YOU voluntarily posted to say you did. Now you admitted you do not pay full price for the other items when you buy your discounted game. Please dont get mad at me.
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you are reaching.

Full price does NOT always equal MSRP.

DISCOUNT from a MEMBERSHIP I belong to, vs DISCOUNT (sale price) EVERYONE WALKING IN THE DOOR GETS.

 
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Thebacklash said:
yes cause Amazon can get me the stupid cable i need, in about 5 minutes...

Or the TV for the SAME PRICE as BB, in 2+ days. Delivered by UPS/FedEx/Ontrac (USPS tends to not get the big box purchases from Amazon) and have it sit outside in the fuck rain all day so the neighborhood kids can steal it. Or force UPS/FedEx to deliver it to the UPS store across the street from BB... or the FedEx place 5 miles from BB. An OnTrace... well they are russian idiots that can't even deliver to the correct address around here.

$5 for a cable and have it now when I need it. or $2 from Amazon with free shipping and get it later... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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There is more places than Amazon that sell cables and tvs. We are all CAGs and find the best deal for us and our situation.

 
nddave said:
There is more places than Amazon that sell cables and tvs. We are all CAGs and find the best deal for us and our situation.
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Yeah, there's a place 22 miles from me that will beat BB's price. Add in the gas cost and time for the round trip.....
And cables etc, may beat the price online, but shipping kills the deal most times. Locally, nope. Radio Shack is gone, Circuit City is gone, Future Shop is gone. Office Depot and Staples are a joke. Mom and Pop places are never competitive for what I need.

I don't live in a huge city, I live on purpose way the fuck away from others.

And again, if I need something NOW.. Online is the very last resort. Hate BB, but if they have what I need...

This thread :roll: ........ Yep it's time to choose.

rur04n.png

 
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