So I went to Gamestop while waiting for my girlfriend on shopping spree. This dude came in and wanted to sell his Xbox One. The store clerk said he can get 800 NOK cash, or 1000 NOK store credit. Then he noticed that the RB button on the controller was not working properly. He told the customer that he would have to deduct the price from a used controller, which was a whopping 600 NOK. But the customer told him that he had just bouight that controller a couple of weeks earlier at the same shop, and that they had told him it had a 5 year warranty. The clerk went into the database and found it was true. Heres where it gets strange: Clerk told him he did not have any used controller to swap for warranty, so he could not give him a new controller, (which he was supposed to take back anyways for a trade). He had to come back another day if/when they get a new (used one) in trade. The customer said he lived far away, and it was a hassle to do it like that. Clerk was not impressed by this and told him to come back. I got irritated and went to the clerk and asked him how much a used Xbox One would cost. 1900 NOK with 5 year warranty he replied. I told him they cost 1790,- new now, but the price was still 1900. Needless to say, I did not buy one. I was hoping that the customer would offer me to buy his machine. He did, but now he wanted 1500 NOK with the broken controller. He would not budge on the price, so I left. Fortunately the dude ran after me to the parking garage and sold me the console for the same price as Gamestop offered. So is this how the warranty on Gamestop woks? Is the clerk a tool or is this normal for this company? Maybe its only in Norway they do this shit?
Gamestop and EB games are companies that have stupid procedures and stupid price deductions and markups. The sole reason is profit related. I know many employees for the company, all of which are people that cant stand doing what they're told to do in their job description. None of them enjoy it (with the exception of when nobody is in the store and they're having a nice time relaxing on duty - my story is very empty a lot of the time lol) and none of them want to be the person saying "We'll give you 15 dollars in store credit for your 360." (I brought in my XDK for fun to see how that would go and that was the price given if I sold it to em - then explained why it's not a normal 360. They were cool with me doing so since they love seeing the weird stuff I pull out, and like that I'm so up to date on news stuff). Gamestop's whole process is made to make the most profit possible. They don't have to, but they do. Employees hate it, but if they fail to abide by their rules they will be written up or possibly lose the position (and let me tell you, I know a nice amount that would be okay with it). Also don't buy warranties unless it's something that will have to deal with abuse. Microwave warranty? Nah. Toaster? Nah. Hard drive? Nah. Computer? Nah (unless you're really trying to mess with something). Stove/Oven? Absolutely yes. A perfect example is when a power surge killed a brand new one after we had it only a day. We didn't have a warranty. It would have been covered due to it being a freak accident caused by Dept of Power messing with the transformer and blowing out power for a few days.
An indie shop hustled me pretty damn good when I was around 10 years old. Took me to the blooming cleaners, they did.. so I made it a mission to never sell games or systems back to game stores. Gamestop/EB = Great for clearance and large collections of marked-down last-Gen games. Indie shops = Good backup place for buying a new game if Gamestop and local retailers sell out. Good for buying old games that no one cares about anymore. Online = Everything else.
800 NOk is a pretty good price for a such system ! Well done ! I am usually not a big fan of Gamestop as I saw many Gamestop employees trying to fool people who don't know much about video games (like mother or small children). I even saw an employee selling a Wii U gamepad bundled with a Wii to a mother asking for a videogame system for her son. But I have found pretty rare PS Vita games in Norway when I was there for business. P.S. For those who wants to travel to Norway, there is a shop called little Neo-Tokyo is Olso. I have found great retro gaming deals in this shop.
I will rarely shop at a Gamestop or Ebgames unless I really really need to. I hear to many negative stories about them to support them.
