GameCrazy Rant Thread

kevzik

kevzik

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Ive been to several GCs all over northern CA. All over. And every one never fails at not knowing about promotions or being very deceiving (purposely). I wouldn't create this thread if the latest promo was my only bad experience...its always a repeating thing. I don't want to put the blame entirely on the employees of GC because I do understand our corperate causes a lot of the messes, but I don't appreciate the trickey employees pull sometimes.

Anyway...

GC Store #1

I walk in ask for the ad and begin to browse. Find the games I want, mention their prices and the BOGO deal to go along with it. The girl working was doing an excellent job, but she was unaware of the sale (of course) and didn't have the barcodes that were necessary. She starts calling other local GCs. They don't have the barcodes either. At this point, I am like..."Here we go again." Needless to say, I still was very polite because I knew that evenutally I would get an excellent deal. The girl working ended up doing everything manually (which I really did appreciate). Why can't corperate get their shit together and not make their employees look clueless? This manual adjusting only takes more time to do and will drive inpatient customers crazy.

GC Store #2

This place and the employees sucked and I can't believe the bullshit they were pulling. I don't know what this dudes deal was but he was either completely stupid and can't understand a simple sale, or he was purposely lying and trying to trick me. He literally told me that the BOGO deal for games $18.99 or less only works if the first game you buy is an $18.99 game. This was complete bullshit and I explained to him why...

a. There are barcodes for the BOGO and they work on games $18.99 or less.
b. Wouldn't the ad picture $18.99 games in the picture?
c. They barely had any 18.99 games to chose from.

He told me he would have to call someone to confirm. Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me you don't know YET? Bullshit. I know I wasn't the first person to try this deal. He just didn't want to honor the deal. Appearently, this mysterious charater on the phone said it was okay and to honor the deal the right way. After all of that was taken care of, he pretended a game wasn't instock when I was staring at it on the shelf....lol...wtf? We go to the counter to pay and I realize he grabbed some other game instead of Two Worlds now...I again pointed out ANOTHER mistake and he went back for Two Worlds. But wait...it gets better!

He told me he couldn't match up $9.99 games with $9.99 and $4.99 games with $4.99 games. I was pissed here. I told him "then lets do separate transactions." He probably looked at me speechless for 5 seconds after I said that...either those are words he didn't understand or he was trying to think of another excuse to use.

During this fucked checkout process, this girl employee would not shut up about the MVP membership...forgive me for I can't post the convo verbatim, but you'll get the idea...

"Oh, I see your MVP membership is up."

"Yeah, Ill renew when I trade in games, thats what I normally do..."

"Oh, but is only $9.99 now, are you sure?"

"yeah, thanks, though."

"But the sooner you get it the more you save...are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Ya sure...I mean it's going to save you money."

"YES. I. AM. SURE."

She asked me THREE damn times if I was sure!!!

Finally, I got the hell out of there, with some good deals, but still no ace combat. Oh, and they had the BOGO barcodes and they worked just fine.

So a few days go by and I check store #1 again.

Today I see no more ads even though the sale is still going. No ace combat like I hoped so I figured I would grab a couple more games to save a wasted trip. This dude there working was very rude and wouldn't get me the ad. Wouldn't remind me of what games were on sale or anything. Luckly the nice girl employee was there so she helped me out...managed to find an ad and was about to use the barcodes they finally recieved, but then stated.."hmm I think someone threw that page away."

...I bet corperate told them to throw it away...

I could go on, but lets end here. I 100% believe GC puts on these amazing sales and then tries to confuse or decieve their customers intentionally. Employees either don't want to help, are clueless, or simply lie. Does corperate tell them to act this way? Seriously. I even stated in the GC earlier before the sale took place: "great...time for more clueless employees" and sure enough, they were.

So that is pretty much it. I am sure many CAGs have had similar experiences. Scorch, feel free to comment...In no way am I relating this crap back to you. I am sure you are legit. Just wanted to let you know I am not talking about you.
 
I feel your pain. I have a similar story that I don't wish to post in specific detail, however I can tell you that both associates were completely oblivious to the current deal in the store add and couldn't recognize the current stock of games in their inventory despite using the computer multiple times. I literally felt as if they were trying to NOT sell me anything in their store because every single deal I proposed in the add, they came up with some BS excuse of why it wasn't valid or it had already expired. As a simple sales associate, wouldn't you want to help your customers with the best current deals possible? Not to mention that the one game I did buy (at full used price mind you) I had to drive back and return it because it failed to read (didn't work on their system either fyi). Extremely frustrating experience.
 
Corporate doesn't tell us any way to act, nor do we as employees have any contact with corporate. The highest we can go is our district or regional managers, then they can elevate it if they see fit.

Regarding not having barcodes -- employees are fucking stupid. Tell them to go to the main menu, hit intranet, select barcodes. If they aren't there, tell them to look under the headlines on the intranet for the latest headline that says something along the line of " advo>".. This would be the December Advo listed on the FCC.

The $18.99 and under doesn't have to be $18.99, but the two MUST be of equal or lesser value.

MVP's are forced by upper level management. How it's enforced all depends on the manager. Some DM's ride managers more than others depending on the area. Around the holidays, it shouldn't be forced like this, as people will sign up of their own free will when they see fit.. if it's being pitched.

Regarding "corporate told them to throw it away".. no. You guys have this misconception that GC corporate is some evil group of people, and honestly, they're some of the nicest people i've ever met. The problem lies on the manager and store employee level.

I'm going to be honest - sometimes even I am not aware of some deals. One guy asked about a 20% bonus.. I didn't know we were doing a 20% bonus, but he showed me the ad, I found the barcode and gave him the 20%.

Like I have said many times.. GC stores are only as good as the managers running them.
 
[quote name='Scorch']Corporate doesn't tell us any way to act, nor do we as employees have any contact with corporate. The highest we can go is our district or regional managers, then they can elevate it if they see fit.

Regarding not having barcodes -- employees are fucking stupid. Tell them to go to the main menu, hit intranet, select barcodes. If they aren't there, tell them to look under the headlines on the intranet for the latest headline that says something along the line of " advo>".. This would be the December Advo listed on the FCC.

The $18.99 and under doesn't have to be $18.99, but the two MUST be of equal or lesser value.

MVP's are forced by upper level management. How it's enforced all depends on the manager. Some DM's ride managers more than others depending on the area. Around the holidays, it shouldn't be forced like this, as people will sign up of their own free will when they see fit.. if it's being pitched.

Regarding "corporate told them to throw it away".. no. You guys have this misconception that GC corporate is some evil group of people, and honestly, they're some of the nicest people i've ever met. The problem lies on the manager and store employee level.

I'm going to be honest - sometimes even I am not aware of some deals. One guy asked about a 20% bonus.. I didn't know we were doing a 20% bonus, but he showed me the ad, I found the barcode and gave him the 20%.

Like I have said many times.. GC stores are only as good as the managers running them.[/quote]

Problem for us Scorch is you seem to be the only legit/competent one in the chain. I wouldn't have ever set foot in my local Game Crazy if it wasn't for you and I used to be able to get good service and deals there. But the constant not getting pre-order bonuses and my debacle on Black Friday have me not going to the store at all ever again unless it was something I can't get normally at retail (Tales of Vesperia LE or the PS3 controller L2/R2 triggers.)

I have to say I thank you for always defending your company and being a great representative of Game Crazy.
 
GameCrazy was always a last resort for me when I was looking for something. I would find the very rare used game at a low price from them compared to GS, but it wasn't a regular place I visited.

I went to GC on Black Friday for what would have been an awesome snag from their B1G1 deal. But like other CAGs, I got screwed. Saying that the B1G1 offer was for any of the titles in the box in the add where the text was. There was no fine print, there wasn't anything that said there was an exception to the deal. I've made a complaint to the BBB, to which GC has not even responded to.

I will not spend a penny for anything there, ever. If I see something I want, I'm snagging the ad and PMing at a retail chain who would be glad to have my business.
 
Too bad all employees can't be like scorch...
Didn't realize that the issues are mainly at the regional manager level. Some huge changes need to be done.
 
The customer service at gamecrazy used to be top notch (when i was still in hs, im in my 3rd year of college now). Everytime i walked in they used to be like ,"wassup dude," How are you," but now they kind of suck, i guess cuz they changed the people working there. But yeah, they used to be cool, now they're just bleh.
 
I don't understand the need for the barcodes in the first place? Come on and join the 21st century and update the POS system!

And make the MVP card worth it. When I had one, it never seemed to stack with any deals at all. Say what you will about Gamestop, the Edge Card works with nearly everything.
 
While I have a pretty good local Gamecrazy where they price match the outrageous Blockbuster trade quotes I bring in (plus 5%) with no problem, I have to say without that I'd probably go there very infrequently. In addition to the YMMV of deals that shouldn't be YMMV, there is the YMMV of corporate policy. Take that trade-in price match guarantee. While I know of two stores where I can get it done, every other one is highly variable. Some clerks will tell me they have no such policy, others will tell me it doesn't apply to Blockbuster since they aren't a competitor. I've simply given up going to those other stores and just stuck with the good ones. The same goes for the sale ad price matching, which has gone away and come back several times at my local store even. I'm not sure what the policy is now.

But even at my local store where all 4 of the regular employees know me very well, I always feel somewhat uncomfortable there. Much more so than Gamestop, they really push the extras on you. The big thing now seems to be this Game Guard deal. I know Scorch has talked about that before but they are really pushing this stuff on me and I'm someone who NEVER buys extended warranty types of things. The last time I was there I was just getting Blue Dragon (just for the hell of it since I actually bought it at full price there when it first came out - but this was all I could find from the ad) and Death Jr for the DS ($9.99 total with B1G1). One of the otherwise cool clerks said "Help us out here and get the Game Guard". Obviously the implication is that it helps his (and/or the store's) numbers. I complied just this once since just a few days before he had done a price match and I don't want to ruin a good thing like that. But when it is so clear that they are getting pressure from above to come through on these frivolous and useless extras it makes me just simply not want to go there and put myself in the position of having to turn them down. Now I'll think twice about going back there unless there is just some totally awesome deal I can't pass up.

And as for the MVP, yeah, mogamer, it is still the same - it never stacks with anything which makes it damn near useless. Mine is up for renewal and I'll probably do it as long as they continue those BBV price matches for me, but I doubt I even made back the $15 I spent on it nearly a year ago. I think I bought 2 or 3 used games without any promo (and thus took advantage of MVP) and maybe traded in 3 or 4 low-priced things. Given that I don't really like shopping there too much anyway, I'd be inclined to skip renewing this year. Probably the biggest reason I'd choose to renew it is so they don't feel the need to harass me about it every time I go in - and seriously, that's not the reason I should be doing it for. The Edge card, on the other hand, has paid for itself probably 10-20x over for me this last year :lol:.
 
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Last one I went to the "game advisor" (LOL) said to me that I'm hurting his sales because I gave him a 20% coupon and refused their scratch insurance. Although they knew I was pretty much a regular, I prefer not going there.

I had an MVP card that I only used once before it expired. I never heard anything about their MVP sales, if they even have them anymore. The place kinda makes me not want to go there unless I'm bored out of my mind. Maybe if the people were more helpful and informative about games then maybe. But if I ask if they have a copy of shivering isles for the 360 and they say no I think that was only released on PC, then I don't think they should be working there(especially if it's on the shelf). If I wanted those type of answers, there should be a hot girl working there.

At least I got my Soul Calibur IV for $14.xx , for that price I may even download Darth Vader.
 
Personally, I would walk right out of the store if something like this happened to me. Continuous badgering to buy extras is one of the few things that ticks me off, and I am certainly not going to spend my money to inflate your store's bottom line. I would NOT comply with buying extras to help out employees or the store in any circumstance, and if I was asked to do this I would likely drop my purchases on the counter and walk out. I will not donate a dollar either unless I have the charity's financial statements in front of me and can see that they are not spending half of their budget on CEO jets and advertising in order to get more donations. I also do not like paid loyalty cards as they essentially force you into shopping at one store just to get your money back from them, unless its something like the edge card which can be gotten for 2$, not hard to get your money back on that one.

I know I made comments about making good with employees in other stores in another thread, but this is an unreasonable request, you should not be asked to spend money that you do not want to spend repeatedly every time you go into a store to buy something.
 
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