Rumor: Is GameStop Scamming Killzone 2 PS3 Fans?

[Starlight]

The Examiner seems to think that GameStop employees are scamming in Killzone 2 and have piled up the 'evidence'.

Apparently, they are selling 'defective' units and not offering refunds as the game has been opened and are only offering to buy it back.

To quote: Derek returns to GameStop the next day (Wednesday) to exchange his disc. After explaining why he wants an exchange, the cashier tells Derek that an Internet connection issue has nothing to do with the disc and that it's likely a problem with the PS3 or his Internet Service Provider. Derek explains that it didn't work on his friend's PS3 either, which the GameStop employee called "a coincidence".

Derek is told that the only thing they can do since the game is opened and is, from their judgment, not defective is to buy it back. They weren't offering any replacements unless he wanted to wait an extra week for their next shipment. Derek's choices are to keep the game or sell it back to GameStop. Believing the game to be broken and not wanting to wait, he sells the game back.

Derek's friend kept his game, which magically started working the day of the Official launch. Derek hoped he could get his game back from GameStop after he explained the situation, but they just weren't having it.

GameStop's stance was that Derek already picked up his preorder, so all of the new copies they had that were reserved for preorders were untouchable. Derek's choices then were to wait, again, for a new shipment or to buy a preowned copy, one of which actually used to be his.

After seeing 26 preowned copies of the game yesterday, I knew that Derek's case was not a isolated incident. This GameStop store, knowingly or not, sold the game early and then banked on all of the returns because the game "didn't work" yet.

You could call it dickishness or ineptitude on GameStop's part, or maybe you'd just blame the customers for somewhat stupidly selling the games back. Either way, the situation stinks and certainly doesn't do much to help GameStop's image as an evil corporation.

I hope I got your story out there, Derek, and sorry if I somewhat insulted you in the process. It certainly wasn't a smart decision or your part, but that doesn't excuse GameStop's mishandling of the situation.

What do you think? Is GameStop evil, or are there simply a lot of kids making poor decisions? Maybe a combination of the two? I can't help but feel that, either way, GameStop is certainly taking advantage of the situation.


More PlayStation 3 News...

[Airwalker]

They knew.. they're not that stupid.. they did it becuse they make more on the used than the new and if people like Derek were stupid enough to sell it back without waiting till the official launch day to try the game again online then that's on them.

Short answer premeditated scam on Gamestop part. You can take that to the bank from a former manager of one of there stores!!

[red8316]

Too bad he didn't explain much about his problem with the game. Only that it wouldn't connect online. Generally speaking that is probably more of a problem with the systems network connection or the game servers. Don't get me wrong, games can be sold with problems (look at SOCOM), but its going to be all of them since they're all pressed from the same copy.

So he would have to wait a while to get a working copy out of the box, if they would even do that. Seeing how most all games can be patched with online fixes. It seems that with this problem the game was patched that evening to fix online issues people were having. I didn't notice myself as I was going through the single player campaign first.

And I did pre-order mine and picked mine up on launch day. Of course if the game has a big ass scratch which made it unreadable out of the box, yeah, take it back and make em replace it.

[DarkArchon]

Gamestop (aka EB Games in aus) said to me a week before the game released that the steel cases were no longer available to pre-order with, even though their were still signs up for the pre-order coming in the special case. I didnt really give a damn about the case, but it seemed dodgy when i could have gone to JB Hifi to get a killzone2 shirt