Can you get banned from Gamestop trading in multiple copies?

Donut2922

Donut2922

CAGiversary!
Feedback
7 (100%)
Just wondering - but if you trade in a bunch of copies of a title can you ever get in trouble from that? Perhaps even your Power Up account banned?
 
What would be the grounds for banning people for this? Is it illegal to sell more than a certain number of the same item? Besides, why can't GS simply refuse to buy it if they're suspicious or whatever?
 
'Ban' you from what exactly? They can not accept your trade ins, thats about it.


They won't accept multiple copies of the same game, or sealed games for the same reason I have to go through a background check to buy allergy pills.

fuckin methheads ruin everything.
 
You won't get banned but they'll probably think you're stealing them or doing something shady to get all those copies. It didn't used to be a big deal in our district when I worked there but then they started cracking down on that kind of thing. I'd say as long as you don't ask for cash back(you won't get much anyway) no red flags should go off. Most of the people who steal games or controllers will almost always ask for cash back and/or have really crappy PS2/Wii games or games without the case.
 
[quote name='whitecastle']Why not go to GS and every half hour trade in the same game...that'll be funny as hell![/QUOTE]

Haha, even more so if you wore a different "disguise" each time.
 
Thanks guys. I was just checking about whether they'd ban you from trading in games going forward. This will be my 4th copy of Black Ops that I'm trading in today. This one from the BB Prestige deal that just ran. The other copies were actually from the B2G1 sale GS had themselves - got lucky this trade in promo ran right after the B2G1 sale. $48 in store credit is a great deal.
 
I heard from someone today that you can actually get banned for attempting to trade multiple copies in a short period of time. Someone else mentioned that they will prob think your stealing and that will bring up a red flag from there, they can prob check your account or something?
 
[quote name='squishface']I heard from someone today that you can actually get banned for attempting to trade multiple copies in a short period of time. Someone else mentioned that they will prob think your stealing and that will bring up a red flag from there, they can prob check your account or something?[/QUOTE]

hrm yeah that's why i'm debating whether i should just sell this off on ebay or something. take a relative loss in value instead of the full store credit. this would be 4 within 3 days lol
 
[quote name='squishface']I heard from someone today that you can actually get banned for attempting to trade multiple copies in a short period of time. Someone else mentioned that they will prob think your stealing and that will bring up a red flag from there, they can prob check your account or something?[/QUOTE]



That is SO wrong for them to do that if they did. After all, will they let a customer buy multiples of the same game....I think so. I would argue if they banned me for ASSUMING i might have stolen video games. This is the best time to turn in multiples of the same game..just say that you got them from different family members while turning trading it in for store credit. I wouldn't try to sell it any other way if you can get more profit from doing it this way...but that's just me and I am CHEAP :lol:
 
I got banned for trading in multiple HDMI cables to Gamestop($4.40 each x 35 over 2-3 weeks). I had a receipt to show where I got them and how much I paid that even included my full name/address on it, but apparently someone thought their DM or someone should know my trading habits.
 
[quote name='squishface']wondering .... why you ended up buying soo many copies ?[/QUOTE]

just to flip for more credit. every b2g1 sale has it's opportunities. it's $39 used on the GS website.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']I got banned for trading in multiple HDMI cables to Gamestop($4.40 each x 35 over 2-3 weeks). I had a receipt to show where I got them and how much I paid that even included my full name/address on it, but apparently someone thought their DM or someone should know my trading habits.[/QUOTE]

so in this case it was an employee narcing you out - i guess that makes me feel a little more comfortable - wasn't sure if it was just some automated process that flagged us down.
 
I believe I traded about 5 copies of about 3 different titles in one day. My buddy did the same. The only "hiccup" I got was one of the guys at one GameStop told us "You guys do a lot of trading huh?" Kind of thought they caught on, but apparently not.

As for something coming up on their computer screen, I think it's false. At the last GameStop I went to that night, their computer screen was clearly visible to me and no kind of prompt came up to deny my trades for having traded in the same games in such a short period of time (4~6 hours)
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']Yeah. That's what it seems like.[/QUOTE]

Thanks.

I'm guessing you hit up the same store then several times. I've been spreading out my copies to various stores.
 
[quote name='Donut2922']Thanks.

I'm guessing you hit up the same store then several times. I've been spreading out my copies to various stores.[/QUOTE]
Actually, the one store I hit up repeatedly said they were cool with the multiples as long as I had a receipt for them(which I did). The other ones just kinda said 'you got a lot of cables, huh', which seemed weird at the time but I just passed it off as them being the usual type of consumer who feels that HDMI cable=$30 item.:roll:
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']Actually, the one store I hit up repeatedly said they were cool with the multiples as long as I had a receipt for them(which I did). The other ones just kinda said 'you got a lot of cables, huh', which seemed weird at the time but I just passed it off as them being the usual type of consumer who feels that HDMI cable=$30 item.:roll:[/QUOTE]

really theyll buy back hdmi cables for 30 bucks? teach me i want to know pm me please :D
 
[quote name='mistamike']really theyll buy back hdmi cables for 30 bucks? teach me i want to know pm me please :D[/QUOTE]

What he meant was typical GS employee probably thought those hdmi cables were worth $30 a piece, you only get $4 a piece when you trade them in.
 
[quote name='mistamike']really theyll buy back hdmi cables for 30 bucks? teach me i want to know pm me please :D[/QUOTE]
They don't buy them for $30 each. I wish. If that were the case I'd have had over $1,000 in credit in a little over a week from trading them in.

They give you $4 base value at Gamestop for them and if you use your PowerUpRewards 10% bonus to bump that value up you get a whole $.40 extra.:lol:

Then they turn around and sell them for $19.99 each to the normal suckers they call customers.

But if you can get your hands on some cheap HDMI cables(hint: Ebay, where lots of 50 go for like $50 total:D), try Amazon's trade program as they give between $5 and $9 for them depending on appearance.;)
 
Trading in multiple copies of anything is fine, as long as you aren't a total douchebag or doing gs to gs flips ie b2g1f while 50% bonus is going on
 
[quote name='steve nash']Trading in multiple copies of anything is fine, as long as you aren't a total douchebag or doing gs to gs flips ie b2g1f while 50% bonus is going on[/QUOTE]
Are you still trying to insinuate that I was a bit 'douchey' and that's how I got banned? :booty:I was nothing but nice to the employees who were nice and took multiples without question, but to the people who were like 'we can only take X of an item and no more' I asked for a cash trade and took the money and ran.:D
 
I work for the company...No prompt will ever come up. Its total YMMV district by distruct, store by store. Just be nice, and do it when it isn't busy and they shouldn't care.
 
I have traded in over 100 hdmi cables so far . Most of them before the value dropped (It was $5.25 for a long time...$5.77 after edge). Got a Wii and 2 Xbox 360slims from all the credit.
 
[quote name='Skaterpunk444']I work for the company...No prompt will ever come up. Its total YMMV district by distruct, store by store. Just be nice, and do it when it isn't busy and they shouldn't care.[/QUOTE]
Apparently it wasn't even the DM that banned me, it supposedly came from ABOVE him.:shock: I guess someone at corporate must pay attention to the trading habits of customers a bit.:cry:

As for being nice, I'm nice when they are, but if I feel they're being jerks then I do the survey on the receipt when I get home and give them all 1's. If they really tick me off then I might make and immediately cancel a pre-order just to f with their numbers.:evil:
 
I've traded multiple copies before without a problem. What I think will be a problem is when I go to return the transfer cable I just bought. It is a one-time use item (I'll never need it again) and the box has no shrink wrap or anything - you can open it up, use the cable and put it back and it looks EXACTLY like it did when I bought it. I'm most likely going to trade it in for $7 in store credit due to my stupid conscience but I can't help but feel ripped off.
 
[quote name='javeryh']I've traded multiple copies before without a problem. What I think will be a problem is when I go to return the transfer cable I just bought. It is a one-time use item (I'll never need it again) and the box has no shrink wrap or anything - you can open it up, use the cable and put it back and it looks EXACTLY like it did when I bought it. I'm most likely going to trade it in for $7 in store credit due to my stupid conscience but I can't help but feel ripped off.[/QUOTE]

I had a question about these things. I bought one when I got a new Slim for my son's birthday. My original plan was to transfer everything over to the new system and use that as the "main" one while keeping the older one to use in a different room. I didnt know, though, that it literally transferred stuff - ie, actually removed it from the older system. That sucks beyond belief. I just wanted to copy everything over there so that I could use either system (with my profile that purchased all of it). So I ended up returning my transfer cable, unused, to the store I got it from. It also came to my attention that you could just use a flash drive to transfer stuff. So, my question is, what is the use of the transfer cable anyway? For me, it would be useful only if it could provide a backup of my old HD. But since it wipes that clean when used, it seems useless to me. I suppose if your old system died completely (but the HD still worked) then it would be useful for moving everything at once to the new one. Anyway, off-topic I know, but I never saw this fully explained anywhere before and I had looked around quite a bit. In the short term, I'm actually just keeping most stuff on the old system. The newer system is for Kinect stuff and a few arcade games I've downloaded. I kind of don't like having my content spread around like that, but the way MS makes it that is the way it has to be. FWIW, the PS3 is 100x better in this regard so score about 100 points there for Sony...

[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']Are you still trying to insinuate that I was a bit 'douchey' and that's how I got banned? :booty:I was nothing but nice to the employees who were nice and took multiples without question, but to the people who were like 'we can only take X of an item and no more' I asked for a cash trade and took the money and ran.:D[/QUOTE]

Well, IATCG, I don't dislike you as some on this board do ;). But still, man, you had to realize that no matter how nice and friendly you were and no matter how many cables some GS clerks let you trade, you were pushing it beyond the limits of reason there.

I felt like I abused the hell out of HDMI cable trade-ins, but it is all a matter of degree. My "abuse the hell out of" consisted of 4 cables total - 1 each to 4 separate stores. I didn't feel like doing any more than that was worth the potential for a ban. You clearly felt otherwise ;). You really shouldn't be surprised by the outcome, despite the fact that a few others may have gotten away with more.
 
[quote name='io']Well, IATCG, I don't dislike you as some on this board do ;). But still, man, you had to realize that no matter how nice and friendly you were and no matter how many cables some GS clerks let you trade, you were pushing it beyond the limits of reason there.

I felt like I abused the hell out of HDMI cable trade-ins, but it is all a matter of degree. My "abuse the hell out of" consisted of 4 cables total - 1 each to 4 separate stores. I didn't feel like doing any more than that was worth the potential for a ban. You clearly felt otherwise ;). You really shouldn't be surprised by the outcome, despite the fact that a few others may have gotten away with more.[/QUOTE]
I did what any flipper should NOT do, which is panic that the items I'm attempting to make money/credit on will soon be worthless and try to trade in everything as quickly as possible.

Then again, I did wait until AFTER the TIV dipped to $4 from $5.25 to finally get in on the HDMI gravy train, so I waited seemingly forever to try out that flip.

But the clerks at the closest store to me seemed to be 100% ok with the trading of multiples. Then again that was only because the manager there was allowing it. I think I only had one or two clerks make a comment or give me the 'you can only trade in 2-3 at most' spiel and of those the one clerk/manager was at the store that's their DM's office.:whistle2:# I think that was the only one I was actually a bit rude at and got a bit annoyed with, since normally that store was super lenient like the closest one.

I believe that was the one right before I found out about the ban that I just took cash(all of $7) for the two cables they were 'graciously allowing me' to trade in:roll:.

I just still find it funny that at least several other CAG's have managed to get away with 100+ cables and I got banned for less than 50.:cry:

Then again it does come back to the speed run I did on trying to trade in all 50 in less than 2 weeks. I'll probably start contacting GS through the customer service line in a day or two and see if I can get this reversed, as I still feel it's total crap.

And people dislike me? I never knew.:lol::razz:
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']I did what any flipper should NOT do, which is panic that the items I'm attempting to make money/credit on will soon be worthless and try to trade in everything as quickly as possible.

Then again, I did wait until AFTER the TIV dipped to $4 from $5.25 to finally get in on the HDMI gravy train, so I waited seemingly forever to try out that flip.

But the clerks at the closest store to me seemed to be 100% ok with the trading of multiples. Then again that was only because the manager there was allowing it. I think I only had one or two clerks make a comment or give me the 'you can only trade in 2-3 at most' spiel and of those the one clerk/manager was at the store that's their DM's office.:whistle2:# I think that was the only one I was actually a bit rude at and got a bit annoyed with, since normally that store was super lenient like the closest one.

I believe that was the one right before I found out about the ban that I just took cash(all of $7) for the two cables they were 'graciously allowing me' to trade in:roll:.

I just still find it funny that at least several other CAG's have managed to get away with 100+ cables and I got banned for less than 50.:cry:

Then again it does come back to the speed run I did on trying to trade in all 50 in less than 2 weeks. I'll probably start contacting GS through the customer service line in a day or two and see if I can get this reversed, as I still feel it's total crap.

And people dislike me? I never knew.:lol::razz:[/QUOTE]


Is the trade in value on HDMI cables still at $4?
 
For people doing "profitable" trade-ins, have you calculated how much money you're wasting on gas driving all over the place and how much time you're wasting on buying stuff online, driving there, trading in and driving home just to get credit at a video game store?

With the same time commitment you could get an actual job that pays actual money you can spend anywhere.

Just sayin'.
 
[quote name='forteblast']For people doing "profitable" trade-ins, have you calculated how much money you're wasting on gas driving all over the place and how much time you're wasting on buying stuff online, driving there, trading in and driving home just to get credit at a video game store?

With the same time commitment you could get an actual job that pays actual money you can spend anywhere.

Just sayin'.[/QUOTE]Don't bother trying to explain that point to certain people. You might as well try to ice skate uphill.
 
[quote name='blindinglights']Is the trade in value on HDMI cables still at $4?[/QUOTE]

As of a few days ago it was.
 
[quote name='forteblast']For people doing "profitable" trade-ins, have you calculated how much money you're wasting on gas driving all over the place and how much time you're wasting on buying stuff online, driving there, trading in and driving home just to get credit at a video game store?

With the same time commitment you could get an actual job that pays actual money you can spend anywhere.

Just sayin'.[/QUOTE]

i have calculated it and it is just fine :) and most of us do it as a side project and have jobs also
 
[quote name='freeorelse']I have traded in over 100 hdmi cables so far . Most of them before the value dropped (It was $5.25 for a long time...$5.77 after edge). Got a Wii and 2 Xbox 360slims from all the credit.[/QUOTE]

lol i t hink im only at about 94 right now total i think im gonna quit for a while the one gs employee asked me if i made hdmi cables
 
[quote name='forteblast']For people doing "profitable" trade-ins, have you calculated how much money you're wasting on gas driving all over the place and how much time you're wasting on buying stuff online, driving there, trading in and driving home just to get credit at a video game store?

With the same time commitment you could get an actual job that pays actual money you can spend anywhere.

Just sayin'.[/QUOTE]
If I could find a real job I'd be working and still be doing this on the side. I've only left the house to go drop stuff off at the post office or UPS store or Gamestop, but only if I was in the area. It just so happened that there was also an FYE right next door that still takes games and they were giving about $33 in credit for each copy of a few games I picked up at GS for $16 each.

So double my GS credit by going next door? Hell yes. I picked up Dead Rising 2 again with a majority of the credit from those two $16 games I turned into $66 in credit.

I also turned eight games into $254 just by mailing them out to a company after having Amazon ship me four copies each of two games. Again, the only time I left my house to 'run around' was to the post office to mail both packages out.

Those of us who do this as a way to feed our gaming hobby don't do this to lose money or spend hours driving around for nothing. I don't know why so many people are so dead set against being a smarter consumer. But hey, as long as you're happy paying MSRP or waiting for price drops or whatever. If that's your thing, then so be it. But some of us would like to make money and get to enjoy some of the same games you all are, even if it means we take a few extra steps to get it for almost nothing.
[quote name='shrike4242']Don't bother trying to explain that point to certain people. You might as well try to ice skate uphill.[/QUOTE]
I've tried skating uphill. It's great exercise.;) But not as great as walking uphill to school both ways. Damn kids, get off my lawn.
 
I actually do it oddly because I find it somewhat fun. But I know my limits. Anything that takes longer than 20 minutes to drive is a no go for me. I do have a job but i still have a lot of free time while working :)
 
as a former manager of a gamestop, each store retains the right to refuse service to you. if you trade in games that might be stolen or look like you are doing so, the manager or staff have the right to refuse that trade in.
 
[quote name='Marshy']as a former manager of a gamestop, each store retains the right to refuse service to you. if you trade in games that might be stolen or look like you are doing so, the manager or staff have the right to refuse that trade in.[/QUOTE]

/thread
 
Got a quick question for the more experienced in doing this... is there a good resource to be able to see how much gamestop is buying the games for? I would love to be able to buy from other places to flip, but it seems like a huge hassle to have to go to gamestop or call to find out prices...

any suggestions?

tricks of the trade?
 
I would say it has more to do with local requests and rules from police and such.. since most game stops have to report their sales to the local PD.
 
Sorry to revive this post but again has GameStop lift the limit, I want to trade 3 copies I have of the division 2, they were gifts but I could trade them and buy something better, just asking first
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top