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

Now that I can look my orders threw guest order. I'm ok I did abuse the program.

My tv warrenty come up. So i guess I'm ok with it now.
 
eulogywerd21 said:
I'm really surprised this thread is still open. I know all of the vocation (ie: pharmacist) talk was a few pages back, but did any CAGs who work in finance (loan officers especially) happen to chime in? I've got a question or two if they feel like sharing.

Oh, and to stay on topic "How dare Best Buy" or "You flipping asses deserved it" whichever applies to you.
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I mean I work in finance. I've moved a bit with my current employer between products, including as a loan officer (and credit card and it's applicable laws, mortgages, etc...)

 
I got this information from other forum:

Quote "It was flagged because it exceeded the limit when they change their term from per year to last twelve months. Purchases are over four months apart. First purchase is in 2017 and another in 2018. Corporate customer relation call me today. In short, they acknowledged I didn't break the limit, but decided to wipe my account because I'm buying too much. "

 
Xellos2099 said:
I got this information from other forum:

Quote "It was flagged because it exceeded the limit when they change their term from per year to last twelve months. Purchases are over four months apart. First purchase is in 2017 and another in 2018. Corporate customer relation call me today. In short, they acknowledged I didn't break the limit, but decided to wipe my account because I'm buying too much. "
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That... doesn't actually acknowledge that they didn't break the limit, though.

From what that says, it sounds like they went over the 3 game limit, they just did it between the end of 2017 and early 2018, within a 4 month window. That's still over the three a year limit, it's just a rolling 12 month year instead of a calendar year - Which kinda makes sense with how Elite/Elite Plus work, too, since I think those roll on 12 months from July to June.

 
Xellos2099 said:
I recall it used to be calendar year as well . Actually elite are calendar year too
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Elite is qualifying purchases in a calendar year, but the status persists through the end of the following February after a year of benefit.

Example - You reach elite status in June 2018. You will remain Elite until Febrary 2020 (status unlocked through the end of the following year, and then ends the last day of the following February). So even that isn't really a "calendar year" in truth.

Edit - GCU also doesn't specify Calendar Year while the other programs do. This may just be my way of reading terms and conditions, but that's an indicator that GCU would go off of a rolling 12 month period instead of a standard calendar.

 
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lionheart059 said:
Elite is qualifying purchases in a calendar year, but the status persists through the end of the following February after a year of benefit.

Example - You reach elite status in June 2018. You will remain Elite until Febrary 2020 (status unlocked through the end of the following year, and then ends the last day of the following February). So even that isn't really a "calendar year" in truth.

Edit - GCU also doesn't specify Calendar Year while the other programs do. This may just be my way of reading terms and conditions, but that's an indicator that GCU would go off of a rolling 12 month period instead of a standard calendar.
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I would love to know how they’re doing these calculations. I would guess they’re manually creating some query to run on a particular day. Clearly they fucked up if they’re counting returns as purchases as some have said. Whoever they have creating these is pretty bad at his job.
 
I once asked unbox about it a couple of years ago and they confirm if you return an item, it no longer count as purchase, who knows if that is real anymore

 
humbug43 said:
Now that I can look my orders threw guest order. I'm ok I did abuse the program.

My tv warrenty come up. So i guess I'm ok with it now.
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That seems pretty reasonable. I'm be incredibly angry if I had some sort of warranty or extended service plan that got blanked because of them cancelling a completely unrelated service.

I'm kind of thinking this might also just be Best Buy trying to figure out a way to rid themselves of some more "devil customers" while not getting themselves sued.

 
I simply posted I dont believe in item limits. If a person or persons paid for a GCU membership they are going to buy games or x items from BB they are not going to pay more from a ebay/online reseller. BB will sell more copies to a reseller this equals more revenue and maybe profit because nobody on this site actually knows what BB is paying per copy. I believe that everybody who pays for a GCU membership will buy games from BB and not a reseller. I believe also that BB has enough copies of any game to sell to resellers and ALL GCU membership members that want that game maybe a slight exception for collectors editions.

 
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nddave said:
I simply posted I dont believe in item limits. If a person or persons paid for a GCU membership they are going to buy games or x items from BB they are not going to pay more from a ebay/online reseller. BB will sell more copies to a reseller this eguals more revenue and maybe profit because nobody on this site actually knows what BB is paying per copy. I believe that everybody who pays for a GCU membership will buy games from BB and not a reseller. I believe also that BB has enough copies of any game to sell to resellers and ALL GCU membership members that want that game maybe a slight exception for collectors editions.
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... And we just chimed in that you're wrong and explained why item limits on discounted merchandise make a lot of sense from a business perspective, while also starting that we have a very solid idea of what best buy pays for games from a distributor (through people who are involved in said business and, more importantly, publicly available financial disclosure information)
 
lionheart059 said:
... And we just chimed in that you're wrong and explained why item limits on discounted merchandise make a lot of sense from a business perspective, while also starting that we have a very solid idea of what best buy pays for games from a distributor (through people who are involved in said business and, more importantly, publicly available financial disclosure information)
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I have read their financial statements and there is nothing about what they pay for x games. The fact that NOBODY knows on this site what BB pays for games is a FACT. Im wrong is YOUR opinion based on reasons you want to believe and thats fine.

 
nddave said:
I have read their financial statements and there is nothing about what they pay for x games. The fact that NOBODY knows on this site what BB pays for games is a FACT. Im wrong is YOUR opinion based on reasons you want to believe and thats fine.
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I would say you should expand your scope on financial review - you can also look into GameStop's, which have a very thorough breakdown on both revenue and profit for new items separated from used. It also goes into the difference between hardware and software. A distributor would very likely have similar costs amongst retailers - providing a sharp discount to, say, Best Buy, a non-specialty retailer with less incentive to push their product heavily, would be a very poor business decision. Likewise, again, there are people in this thread who are aware of the cost BB pays per unit because it's within their job to know - you can peruse and find those comments.

The fact is, "what best buy pays for games" is not an unknown variable. And even if it were, it would still be a poor business practice to not set item limits when ordering a 20% discount on merchandise to a select group of shoppers. Revenue is important, yes, but so it's selling at a profit. Cutting out a substantial percentage of that profit with no limits whatsoever would be just about the stupidest decision they could have made when enacting GCU.
 
nddave said:
The fact that NOBODY knows on this site what BB pays for games is a FACT.
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No, that is your belief in your need to be right. Here are some actual facts:

Fact: We have Best Buy employees who frequent this site that have confirmed the amounts.

Another fact:

youre-an-idiot.jpg


 
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nddave said:
I have read their financial statements and there is nothing about what they pay for x games. The fact that NOBODY knows on this site what BB pays for games is a FACT. Im wrong is YOUR opinion based on reasons you want to believe and thats fine.
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It's been pointed out already, there IS a poster here that does work for BB..... and he's said BB's cost is about what GCU members pay (within $1) Can't think of who he is, but he's pointed it out long before this thread.

So you being wrong, IS more than just an opinion. You really should just quit.

 
Amazon has 20% off pre-orders for PRIME members.  Ill gladly take my business there.  Just surprised they stole credit card points from a long time customer.  Bye Bye BB Citi VISA.  I vote with my moolah!

 
nddave said:
I simply posted I dont believe in item limits. If a person or persons paid for a GCU membership they are going to buy games or x items from BB they are not going to pay more from a ebay/online reseller. BB will sell more copies to a reseller this equals more revenue and maybe profit because nobody on this site actually knows what BB is paying per copy. I believe that everybody who pays for a GCU membership will buy games from BB and not a reseller. I believe also that BB has enough copies of any game to sell to resellers and ALL GCU membership members that want that game maybe a slight exception for collectors editions.
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Seriously that's what you believe?

The limit is NOT related to how much BB paid for the product. They have that quantity in stock for sale and they want to sell all of them anyway. To them, regular customers or resellers will not affect their profit. However, having a limit in fact is fair policy for other customers.

Think about during BF, the first person in line bought out all the TV on sale and people waited for hours outside got nothing.

I've seen people reported that when Lego Dimensions pack was $1 at 99c store, someone scooped up all of them in a particular store (that's over a hundred). Some 99c store put up a sign of limit 9 to prevent that problem, they know they're going to sell all of them anyway.

I did buy 3 copies (never over 3) of the toy to life figures and resold 2 of them on ebay to make mine free.

And I believe many CAG here bought multiple copies of games and flipped them at GS and Amazon.

mt3ch said:
Amazon has 20% off pre-orders for PRIME members. Ill gladly take my business there. Just surprised they stole credit card points from a long time customer. Bye Bye BB Citi VISA. I vote with my moolah!
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20% off pre-orders... I wait 2 months and will get the same price on sale.

GCU has 20% off on ANY games, even clearance and 10% off pre-owned. That's a huge difference.

 
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mt3ch said:
Amazon has 20% off pre-orders for PRIME members. Ill gladly take my business there. Just surprised they stole credit card points from a long time customer. Bye Bye BB Citi VISA. I vote with my moolah!
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Amazons 20% is a responce to GCU... it used to be 20% for the first two weeks also.

Once GCU is dead... Amazons 20% will be as well.
 
Thebacklash said:
Amazons 20% is a responce to GCU... it used to be 20% for the first two weeks also.

Once GCU is dead... Amazons 20% will be as well.
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I dunno. Amazon will probably keep it around since it's only good on pre-orders now anyway. With Prime being $120 a year now, they aren't losing anything offering 20% off video game pre-orders and once GCU is gone Amazon will absolutely get a lot of Best Buy's video game business.

 
There are plenty of people who choose not to have Prime as well. I don't shop there enough to justify the steadily rising price, I don't have any need for many of the other benefits, and 20 percent off only preordered games is weak.
 
When prime increases to $120 for me next year, my prime ends.
$100/year is too much, i almost canceled when they upped it then. But amazon couldnt charge me tax... which was great. Now amazon can charge me tax, so prime is now worthless to me. Nothing else they offer with prime gets used, 2 day shipping was it.

Amazon really needs a Prime, and a Prime+ option.
Prime=2 day shipping, lower cost sub. (Back to $80?)
Prime+=everything they offer, for the $120/year.
 
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keyblader1985 said:
There are plenty of people who choose not to have Prime as well. I don't shop there enough to justify the steadily rising price, I don't have any need for many of the other benefits, and 20 percent off only preordered games is weak.
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Thebacklash said:
When prime increases to $120 for me next year, my prime ends.
$100/year is too much, i almost canceled when they upped it then. But amazon couldnt charge me tax... which was great. Now amazon can charge me tax, so prime is now worthless to me. Nothing else they offer with prime gets used, 2 day shipping was it.

Amazon really needs a Prime, and a Prime+ option.
Prime=2 day shipping, lower cost sub. (Back to $80?)
Prime+=everything they offer, for the $120/year.
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If you don't order from Amazon often then Prime is not worth the price at all. My wife and I use Amazon frequently to order things though so the 2-day shipping alone is worth it for us. The other perks are nice and I use them, but I don't need them and would absolutely downgrade to a cheaper Prime if it were an option and I think a lot of others would too, which is why Amazon hasn't done this yet.

The 20% off pre-orders I also agree is not a great benefit when compared to what GCU currently is, but it's at least something.

 
It's a bummer that GCU is on its way out and I will indeed miss it but I have a batshit crazy idea; how about we play our backlogged games (gasp) until the games we want hit the sub $30 mark?

I still wrapped PS2 games to go back to. (I probably won't.)
 
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MrSmiley1 said:
It's a bummer that GCU is on its way out and I will indeed miss it but I have a batshit crazy idea; how about we play our backlogged games (gasp) until the games we want hit the sub $30 mark?

I still wrapped PS2 games to go back to. (I probably won't.)
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If we did that. We wouldn't be able to talk about how big our backlogs are!

 
MrSmiley1 said:
It's a bummer that GCU is on its way out and I will indeed miss it but I have a batshit crazy idea; how about we play our backlogged games (gasp) until the games we want hit the sub $30 mark?

I still wrapped PS2 games to go back to. (I probably won't.)
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Stop it right now.
 
Sigma said:
If you don't order from Amazon often then Prime is not worth the price at all. My wife and I use Amazon frequently to order things though so the 2-day shipping alone is worth it for us. The other perks are nice and I use them, but I don't need them and would absolutely downgrade to a cheaper Prime if it were an option and I think a lot of others would too, which is why Amazon hasn't done this yet.

The 20% off pre-orders I also agree is not a great benefit when compared to what GCU currently is, but it's at least something.
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I do order a bunch off amazon, problem is i ordered there for teo reasons.. free 2 day shipping and tax free on 99% of my orders.

Now i get taxed on most orders, and the 2 day shipping has been very hit/miss this past year. Ive complained and got free prime months and credit a ton.

None of their other “services” included in prime interest me, so will be canceling prime and just opt for the cheap/free slower shipping.

Now GCU will end for me in feb 19... Prime in may 19 (well probably much later with the free prime months ill get for their screwups before then)
Bad couple of months.
 
Hey guys,

I feel your pain.  But I found a cool site that doesn't enforce any rules anymore so you won't have to worry about it there!  I will share this site with you guys:

www.cheapassgamer.com

They don't care about rules there anymore.  You can post PSAs and discussions and page long whine sessions anywhere you want and you won't get any repercussions.  So send a big fuck you to places like Best Buy that enforce rules and come to CAG!

 
FoxAssGamer said:
Hey guys,

I feel your pain. But I found a cool site that doesn't enforce any rules anymore so you won't have to worry about it there! I will share this site with you guys:

www.cheapassgamer.com

They don't care about rules there anymore. You can post PSAs and discussions and page long whine sessions anywhere you want and you won't get any repercussions. So send a big fuck you to places like Best Buy that enforce rules and come to CAG!
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try posting pictures of wrestlers and just see how long CAG doesn't enforce the rules

 
It kind of drives me crazy that some people are demonizing customers and defending Best Buy in regards to this topic. How does a company as big as Best Buy not have a system to track your account's purchases and deactivate the GCU discount after the third purchase? How is their system so bad that returns/replacements are counting as 2 instead of just the original one? How do they think it's okay to cancel entire accounts, throw out warranties/rewards/etc instead of just deactivating GCU? This is what you want to defend?

Yes, some people take advantage, but these very, very simple steps could be taken to ensure that neither side is getting screwed over. This isn't a business being conducted out of a garage; it's okay to expect better from the companies that we give our money to.

 
Ratmonkey said:
^in other words, I need a system to control me because I cannot be trusted to do what I originally agreed to.
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I think he specifically mentioned the system not being able to differentiate between a return/exchange and an actual purchase. Also, price matches count toward that count as well.
 
Even if someone only wanted a discount on three copies, they cant get one on only three as the system makes them get the discount on the fourth copy if ordered online.

If the fourth copy is purchased in store, the only way to avoid the discount is to not give your rewards account info, which results in losing all rewards points on the purchase and you also have no record of the purchase on your account.

It is really is best buys fault after considering these issues. Not that some of the resellers shouldnt be exterminated though....
 
Zaku77 said:
It kind of drives me crazy that some people are demonizing customers and defending Best Buy in regards to this topic. How does a company as big as Best Buy not have a system to track your account's purchases and deactivate the GCU discount after the third purchase? How is their system so bad that returns/replacements are counting as 2 instead of just the original one? How do they think it's okay to cancel entire accounts, throw out warranties/rewards/etc instead of just deactivating GCU? This is what you want to defend?

Yes, some people take advantage, but these very, very simple steps could be taken to ensure that neither side is getting screwed over. This isn't a business being conducted out of a garage; it's okay to expect better from the companies that we give our money to.
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Which retailer is it that you believe has such a sophisticated system in place? Gamestop certainly doesn't. Amazon has suspended accounts for what they suspect are suspicious ordering activities, but their system also doesn't prevent wholesalers from buying in bulk up front.

The kind of system you are proposing is very complicated and would involve maintaining a massive database of every new SKU to lock discounted sales to a certain quantity. Anything is possible with enough time and money, but it doesn't seem like a good use of corporate funds to build a system to protect against the small number of people who are abusing the system.

With regard to your other points, Amazon will also close all of your accounts if you violate their terms. They just did another sweep for excessive returns a few weeks ago and people were barred and lost any remaining access to their Prime subscriptions. As far as I know, nobody has successfully sued them as their terms of service are pretty tight and comprehensive.

For me, I don't necessarily support or oppose Best Buy's actions in this situation. They are within their rights to close the accounts and people who believe they were unfairly targeted are free to complain about it. The one thing I do know is that this thread has outlived any potential value it may have had for a brief moment and seems to have just exacerbated the usual divisions that cause so much argument and strife on this board.

 
Zaku77 said:
It kind of drives me crazy that some people are demonizing customers and defending Best Buy in regards to this topic. How does a company as big as Best Buy not have a system to track your account's purchases and deactivate the GCU discount after the third purchase? How is their system so bad that returns/replacements are counting as 2 instead of just the original one? How do they think it's okay to cancel entire accounts, throw out warranties/rewards/etc instead of just deactivating GCU? This is what you want to defend?

Yes, some people take advantage, but these very, very simple steps could be taken to ensure that neither side is getting screwed over. This isn't a business being conducted out of a garage; it's okay to expect better from the companies that we give our money to.
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While the return/replacement is an issue, this isn't the first time they've done a mass ban for violation of terms. The system is in place to sweep for those extra items, but they also don't instaban for it (BUT HEY maybe they should have)

We've already had someone chime in that they were mistaken and their warranty is still active - Losing access to a My Best Buy account is not the same as losing a warranty, it's just losing that visibility. There are plenty of other ways for their system to locate a warranty and maintain it as active.

Of course they threw out reward points - Points were gained by breaking the TOS and violating the program rules. Ergo, the points are forfeit because they were gotten by specifically abusing the system (double points on all games, earning points on consoles, etc) - I'm sure they could have put something in place to remove JUST the points on offending transactions, but then they would also need to keep the offending account open, which they had clearly stated would be closed for violation.

It's not so much "Defending Best Buy" as "Placing blame where it belongs". If you broke the TOS, you have no one to blame but yourself, and trying to push it onto the company for enforcing it and doing exactly what they said they would do is childish. Now, if someone's account was cancelled erroneously? That's a different matter entirely, but it seems like that is overwhelmingly not the case.

 
Zaku77 said:
It kind of drives me crazy that some people are demonizing customers and defending Best Buy in regards to this topic. How does a company as big as Best Buy not have a system to track your account's purchases and deactivate the GCU discount after the third purchase? How is their system so bad that returns/replacements are counting as 2 instead of just the original one?
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As someone who understands software architecture, it’s harder than you think. Amazon’s retail systems architecture obviously allows for a lot more features than Best Buy, but there is a lot of manual brute forcing you don’t see behind the scenes. Product management principles generally do advocate what you are suggesting in terms of user experience, but e-commerce will waver towards expediency most of the times when confronted with cost trade-offs.
 
Nah, they didn’t even ban the accounts this time. It used to be ban based on CC info, address and phone #. All that happened this time was that the account got refreshed. You can still make orders, and anyone that has exploited GCU well up to this point has come out WAY ahead already.
 
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