hacker wrote:

Gamestop pisses me off. The one in my town wont tell me the trade-in value unless i go there. For your problem, it depends on the store

I worked as a manager at Gamestop for about 3 years. I hate that company.

When I worked there they expected employees to shove reserves ,the discount card and especially trade ins down every customers throats. They expect the following to happen:

Customer walks in:
Gamestop Employee: "Hey hows it going! Do you have any trade ins today!?"
Average Customer: "No"
Gamestop Employee: "Is there anything I can help you find then, did you know <Enter random game company is forcing people to push reserves on> is coming out soon, for 5 dollars down you can garantee yourself a copy"
Average Customer: "No thanks"

Sometimes, the same customer might get this same crap from 2 or 3 different people.

10 minutes later:

Customer brings up a game to purchase:
Gamestop Employee: "Hello, did you find everything ok?"
Customer: "Yes I just want this"
Gamestop employee: "Well did you want to put 5 dollars down to reserve <Random game 1> game or <Random game 2> it will garauntee you a copy and you get a shitty pen with the games name on it!?"
Customer: "No thanks"
Gamestop empoyee: "Okay well did you know about are discount card BLAH BLAH BLAH... 10 percent off! Blah blah... trade ins! Blah blah"
Customer: "No I just want this!"
Gamestop Empoyee: "Ok well next time brings some of your old games in for trade!"

They grade each employee and store on trade percentage, number of reservations and discount cards. This was supposed to guarantee return customers but in reality just pisses people off and drives them away. At the store I worked at me and my employees would just use the same 5 dollars to reserve new games over and over again under fake names and we still had the lowest numbers in the district. We really didn't care as most of the people that worked there did so because they loved games and didn't want to bombard people with this corprate bullshit.

They are also no stranger to accepting blatantly stolen goods, sometimes even from other Gamestops. There where people that came in 2 or 3 times a week, high on meth/crack with crap loads of games and DVDs (DVDs they no longer take) still shrink wrapped and priced. You were not supposed to ask questions and just cash them out. There was one kid (19, 20ish)who would come in with literally a cart laod of boxed DVD sets that go in trade for around 25 dollars a piece and retail for $60-$125 dollars. They all had Walmart price tags still on them. He would walk out with $600- $700 dollars and come in 2 or 3 days later with the same amount. I called my DM and told him about this and he really didn't care told us to keep taking them. Basically, Gamestop is making a shit load of money off these people so their mantra was apathy. I called the Wal Mart that he was stealing them from, they really didn't care either. We had 40-50 copies of Band of Brothers stacked up in the back all from this guy, all $119.00 retail price.

I finally just told them to not bother coming in any more and that I am not going to accept their trades. Accepting stolen goods is illegal after all, and it creates a pretty uncomfortable environment having to deal with desperate people, high on drugs. My life was threated at least 5-6 times while working there. I have had knives pulled on me for not taking 15 shrink wrapped copies of movies that just came out to DVD that previous Tuesday.

At one time all the stores were told to pick names for there teams/stores. Most people picked things like "THe Zelda Brigade", "Toadstool Team", "The Solid Snakes". I asked my DM Paul if could use "Gamestapo. unfortunately he said no.

Chrisby wrote:

I've never had anyone pester me for a reserve. They've mentioned upcoming releases during my purchases, but they've never once said "Would you like to reserve?" or whatever. Go figure. Maybe I'm just fortunate.

I stopped working there about 4 years ago. Since the EB Merger they apparently stopped pushing the numbers as much as they used to. My friend Roger still works at the same store.

I went to Gamestop a few months ago for the sole reason that they were supposed to have Ninja Gaiden II (Crappy sequel!) the day of release (as apposed to release day +1 shipping). I got the same crap I stated above, plus I had to wait 5 minutes for the chick behind the counter to get off the phone with her friend. So apparently not much has changed.

Lottel wrote:

That kind of stuff doesn't bother me. I work at a bookstore (as well as the comic store) and if you don't ask questions like that, you get straight up fired. You get so many times getting caught without asking if they want a card or reserve something or whatever. If you go over the numbers you get fired with just a small chance of talking your way out of it. It's just how things work. As customers you have to understand.

I survived three years of not doing so. When the manager tells you that you not to worry about it, it's a little different. When the District Manager made a visit every few months, we talked the talked. Our store was really good in trade ins for the above stated reasons and we did keep under the radar due to things like low shrink ect.