FYE Tracking

I just got a call from a district manager from FYE and was told a few worrisome tidbits:

After Christmas, I returned a product to FYE sealed, with a sticker on the box. Two weeks later I sold a copy of Room Zoom and Shadow Ops. Now I tried to sell them a copy of Metal Gear solid 3, and was denied in store.

I called the DM and she asked me a series of questions.

Did I shop at Gamestop? for example.

At my local FYE, there is a Gamestop in the mall. She said they exchange data on customers and returns. According to her records, they were multiple copies sold under my name between the two stores. This is false informtion, I told her. Is this even legal? Don't I have privacy rights?

I'm pissed because I bought Shadow Ops from Target and Room Zoom from Eb.com. I have never sold more than one copy of a game. I asked her for specific data, but she wouldn't give it to me, as there may be more than one customer with my name, she said. I didn't think info was tracked my name, buy my phone or license number.

What do you guys think? Is this all a pile of horsecrap, or a conspiracy against me

..is that even legal? Seriously, you can buy games and turn around and do whatever the hell you want with them. What business does she have to snoop through your stuff?

That's what I thought. I think it's legal for them to not buy a game. But trading info with Gamestop shouldn't be,

The funny thing is, I haven't bought or sold anything from Gamestop since July.

Haven't bought or sold anything to Gamestop?! This must be a mistake or someone is giving you a hard time. This definetly sounds illegal, I know a store can keep track of what you buy and returned, but it is just for that particular chain store (saw it on Dateline) If they are exchanging information without your consent then it is a violation of your privacy.

I think you are being screwed with...they can't hassle you for something like that though they can deny you the sale for whatever reason they want.

They can not trade customer sales data with other stores without your consent either. I'm almost 100% sure that Gamestop and FYE are not owned by the same company.

If it's true it was a tactic to stop people from selling games to FYE (who is likely losing a lot of money on games).

hmm all of this just seems like a blatant abuse of customer privacy rights... I mean if it was the same store, that seems fine, but between diff stores is absolutely illegal. I think the BBB (better business beauro(sp?) should hear about this. You can really get FYE in a whole bunch of trouble...

Yeah that is definatly illegal, lets say they decided that they wanted to start trading info with Victorias secret and found out that some guys wear womens underwear. Im sure thats something some people dont want others finding out about

That is crap, they aren't allowed to know all that...legally...you should complain to them about it.

I heard about this system a while ago.
A quick search came up with this article from Dec:
Customer return tracking
I have read other places that these databases can be accessed by all retailers who subscribe.

Well in the future just buy turn around products in cash, they can't track that very well.

They might have had data from TRU on you buying the items but they didn't know exactly what store you got them from and since GS was closed they guessed with that.

[quote name='jbroush99']I heard about this system a while ago.
A quick search came up with this article from Dec:
Customer return tracking
I have read other places that these databases can be accessed by all retailers who subscribe.[/quote]

Woah! In the article they mention the mall I had problems at:

"Glendale Galleria mall in California"....


Big Brother IS watching!

[quote name='zionoverfire']They might have had data from TRU on you buying the items but they didn't know exactly what store you got them from and since GS was closed they guessed with that.[/quote]\

I haven't bought anything from TRU in a while. In my OP, I said I got them at Ebgames.com

You might want to call the district manager for Gamestop. Wonder if they know about what that store is doing?

Wow what utter rape of your rights to privacy.

[quote name='supermariomelee']You might want to call the district manager for Gamestop. Wonder if they know about what that store is doing?[/quote]

I did call Gamestop today, the DM said he knew of no such exchange of data.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not specifically saying this is what the OP did. I'm just offering a different explanation:

A lot of people had previously talked about trading in sealed items at FYE and the managers there had treated them as returns (given full $49.99 refund credit instead of the trade in amount). Now, these people who traded in to FYE and got the $49.99 wouldn't argue if the manager offered that up. It's possible now that the DMs have seen this and instead of blaming the various FYE mgrs for doing it, are now treating it as people having returned items for refunds that they originally did not buy at FYE. They are now trying to "crack down" on these people when it actuality the mgrs had suggested this in the first place. Just my opinion on what could have happened. Either way, that is just wrong what FYE did. She could have been bluffing about exchanging info though.

You, my friend, are not the only one that's been put on the FYE blacklist.

I traded in between 15-25 games from the TRU sale last summer and during several other "bargain bin" hunts I've come across. It got me about $850 in FYE credit.

Suddenly, about 2 months ago, I went to trade some Room Zooms I scores for $7.99 and was told the district manager would no longer authorize any FYE stores to accept trades from me.

I asked them why and they said their "tracking" showed that I had traded in games at several locations (nothing wrong with that, I thought) and that they were suspicious these games I was trading were stolen.

I went so far to tell them about CAG and how I buy games on the cheap and trade them into their store and that THEY benefit by turning around and selling the games for more than they've been giving me.

The district manager would have nothing of it and still said I was "banned" from future trade-ins.

This confirms that FYE monitors ALL its trade-ins so everyone should be on notice about this.

It doesn't matter if you go to multiple locations, as I did, but rather they seem to have a magic "cutoff" whereby if you've gotten so much FYE credit, they cut you off completely.

I've had to now resort to some friends of mine taking the trades in for me so I can still reap the FYE trade-in deals, so I'm still one step ahead of that DM prick.

[quote name='"cavalier"']You, my friend, are not the only one that's been put on the FYE blacklist.

I traded in between 15-25 games from the TRU sale last summer and during several other "bargain bin" hunts I've come across. It got me about $850 in FYE credit.

Suddenly, about 2 months ago, I went to trade some Room Zooms I scores for $7.99 and was told the district manager would no longer authorize any FYE stores to accept trades from me.

I asked them why and they said their "tracking" showed that I had traded in games at several locations (nothing wrong with that, I thought) and that they were suspicious these games I was trading were stolen./quote]

Damn! that sounds familar! Where do you live?