Daily Archives: February 19, 2009

Gamestop Woes

I didn’t preorder Dawn of War II fast enough on Amazon, so I had preordered it on Gamestop’s website and had them deliver it to the Whiteflint Mall store.

This was a mistake.

The mistake was ordering from Gamestop in the first place.  Now, I don’t know what happened.   I’m sure there’s another side to the story, but long story short, I did not walk away from Gamestop with Dawn of War II.

I called earlier today, to check to see if they had it in.  I am informed that they are sold out.  I state that I had preordered said title and was promptly referred to a manager.  I asked why I was not called.  He stated that the automated system did not call anyone.

Note:  Gamestop has a policy where if you do not pick up a preordered game within 48 hours, they will charge a $5 restock fee.

The manager was apologetic, but then stated that he would call another store and make sure they had one on hold for me, today.  He took down my name and assured me that there would be a copy waiting for me at the Montgomery Mall location.  I asked about the restock fee and canceling my preorder and he stated that I would have to come in person to cancel the preorder to avoid the restock fee.

I canceled my pre order at White Flint, and then promptly decided that I didn’t need to purchase Dawn of War 2 from Gamestop, but another person might want that other copy.  I call the other store to free up the copy that was on hold for me.

I’m told that it is the last copy, and they don’t hold games.  I ask if the manager called ahead and either the message never got through, or there was no call.

I wasn’t really surprised.  Either way, Gamestop lost pretty much all of their future sales from me. They won’t miss my money, considering that they posted $8.8 Billion dollars in sales last year.  I saw the business model in action tonight.  Someone traded in a copy of Forza for one dollar and thirty cents.  They sell it for $14.99.  I should have bought that copy for five dollars and given it to someone.

Dawn of War II did get released a bit earlier than expected, and I’m guessing that the automated call system can’t handle variables outside of its schedule.  I guess that’s a plus for the “filthy human” column.

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