What is Digg?175 Comments
- ngmcs8203, on 10/12/2007, -7/+162Everything said in this blog post is the same that you would have to do at just about any other retail company. I worked for Safeway for 3 years and as "courtesy clerks" we had to do the same *****. Secret Shoppers are part of the industry, and greeting and selling comes with the territory. If you don't like the pay scale it's time to go to school and learn something that will get you out of the minimum wage pay rate.
- Lixie, on 10/12/2007, -6/+132I worked at both EB Games and GameStop on two separate occasions. No matter your level of competency, product knowledge, or customer service, at the EB I worked at if you didn't sell enough copies of "Hulk" (a V.O.M. at the time) to naive grandmothers you weren't 'kept around' pass the holiday season.
When I worked at GameStop it was similar except instead of V.O.M. the company pushed you to sell Reserves and GameInformer subscriptions. Again at my specific store, it was made very clear product knowledge, customer service, and competency took a backseat to selling pre-orders of Halo 2. Again, those seasonal employees who didn't run high enough numbers on Res. and Subs. before the end of the season weren't kept around.
This may explain why so many Diggers have to encounter some asshats at these stores who don't know jack about games, and give horrible customer service. - MackPrime, on 10/12/2007, -1/+51THIS JUST IN : Corporation treats employees & customers poorly, dissenting individual writes blog.
- cyberwarriorx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+33Welcome to retail, the exit is to your right. Seriously, you'll be hardpressed to find retail establishments that really treat their employees well and don't encourage their employees to push sales. That's just how cut-throat retail is. Work for the money, but don't make a career out of it.
- Ligeia, on 10/12/2007, -9/+39It sounds to me like they maintain normal sales tactics. Show me one retail or sales based company that is happy to see you not making an effort to push product.
edit: ngmcs8203 makes my same point but earlier. Digg him up. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+29All major stores employ secret shoppers.
- panzerfinder15, on 10/12/2007, -7/+35++++This is an OLD BLOG from October 2005!!!!!!!!!! Much of this information has changed and this is not the current perspective of EB Games. I hate corporate policies as much as the next dude, but a blog post 15 months old is just ridiculous to be on Digg!!!!!! There is no exposing in this blog post, just hashing out old complaints. I was about to digg it until he offered speculation on the takeover of EB by Gamestop and then I checked the date and it's as old as dirt in the tech realm, hell, my 3GHz processor was top of the line then!
- pdotnet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29I bought a Mad Catz VGA cable for 360 there and the cable was defective. It was only 1 day later and "because it was open" they wouldn't return it. 1 day old and that piece of ***** store made me deal with the manufacturer. Not being able to return opened games is one thing, but not taking back defective accessories?! I don't shop there anymore.
- SinisterDexter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26@cyberwarriorx
Barnes and Noble treats employees better than any retail establishment I've ever worked at. You aren't forced to get pre-orders, and while they do have a "Membership Program" you won't get in trouble if you don't sell any. The only thing that sucks is the hours, but that's a problem retail wide. - Octopie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24I work at an EB right now and I love it, we have a policy in our store of "we get payed by the hour, so we don't give a f**k"
its great, that means if you don't talk to us we won't talk to you, unless you're a regular and we want to talk about thing we think are cool, or you're invited to join are Mario kart party...
Sounds to me like his boss was a jerk, but the company itself is not unlike any other company, they are not your friend they are your employer and they are there to make money, not make you happy.
As far as not compensated, dude, did you go to school to work at eb? no, then minimum is what you get, if you don't like it, we get like 8 resumes a week at EB and there are plenty of unemployed people with better attitudes then you who would love your job so suck it up.
As far as our opinion goes, on games we are told to speak our mind, but if we are going to tell you a game sucks we should also recommend one that doesn't... The only time we are told not to have an opinion is the console itself, mostly to deter from us going fan boy on Sony or Nintendo
As far as the trade in, well if you think any store is out to make you money and not to make money themselves, well you're an idiot... yes of course they give you only 30% of what they sell it for, its a freaking business you douche. If you don't think its fair, then keep the game and get no money for games you don't play... and as far as the positive inventory, if the author was scanning games and taking them in without giving credit, then that was he who was ripping off customers... when I scan and it does not come up, I look up the code and type it in manual because I'm not lazy.
The whole bugs in the system, well if I knew there was a roach in a system I would put it into the defects box in the back where we put almost all the systems so they can be refurbished, I wouldn't let someone buy it like this jerk... I do buy all my systems used from my store though, and have not had any problems... oh and to the author, try aiming for the toilet... we keep stuff in the bathroom too, fact of the matter is our back room is small and the xbox 360 is big is that where it goes... so our store adopted a policy of employing people over the age of 6 so they know how to pee in the toilet.
Stealing money on preorders... if you never come back for it, we're not going to drive to your house to give you $5... its your responsibility to pick up the game, if you can't that money will remain on the system and you can put it towards something else... and if you lose the receipt bring some photo id and your phone number, we the employees are people too and don't want to see you lose out, so we'll be more then happy to help out, even sometimes bend the rules so you don't get screwed
In closing, every business is out to make money, and thus every business knows that the best way to do that is to make the customer happy and will try not to screw you over, after all repeat business is good business... the author on the other hand wants to sound self important and is clearly an angry person who want you to read his article and knows that an article about what a normal job it is would be lame... - cptgame446, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18First off let me say, I work for ebgames/gamestop, I started when the companies were separate and continue now that they are same. Now I don't defend eb/gamestop as being such a saintly company, but some of the points in this rant are just very innacurate. first off....
"They call these spies "secret shoppers"
This isn't an eb/gamestop thing...this is a very standard business practice...how do you think places know cigarettes aren't being sold to minors, how do stores know all their policies are being upheld? This is how secret shoppers. Everyplace does it.
"All too often and conveniently, the scanner will not register a game trade-in or two. It will still beep though and you'll think you got credit for what was just scanned. Not! This little practice is called creating "positive inventory". "
It's true, the scanners blow..and i don't know who this man worked with or who trained him, but in my store, when it doesn't scan in..we rescan it until it's in there. End of story. we don't puposly take anything of yours.
"Another thing you never want to do is ask an EB Games' employee their personal opinion about whether a game is good or bad. Why? Because they really aren't allowed to tell you if they think a certain game sucks. If they ever told you that Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects sucked ass"
I cna't tell you how many customers i've told that game specifically for example sucks ass. In all the stores I've worked in we've always been 100% honest. Including when i worked at ebgames and we had Vendor of the Month, which by the way, no longer exists. But yeah in my store if you have a ***** game, even if you don't ask us, we're going to tell you, this game sucks.
Oh and as far as the taking out games go, as EB we were never allowed to take out games, that was a managerial decision. IF your manager AND your district manager said it was ok then you could, but it became a policy when gamestop took over, and we are now allowed to. That privledge is however taken away if when you do an inventory and too much stuff is missing.
"If you don't pick up whatever you pre-ordered in a certain amount of time EB Games will take your deposit. Yes, I said "take your deposit". Let's say you deposited $50 on Madden NFL '06 back in June. You go active for the military, go to jail, or something occurs that will keep you from an EB Games store for a number of months and beyond. You will most likely get screwed"
Then perhaps you can tell me why there are still 30+ reserves in my computer for Madden NFL 2006, and at least 20 for Madden NFL 2005.
Now that deposited money is still in htere yes, but there's only so much we can do. If you have something on reserve, part of your responsibility is to remember to come and pick it up, and if you don't to come and cancel it, which yes we do do and give you a full refund in full. Just keep a receipt, this isn't a very insane business practice. Places use receipts, that's why we give them to you. If ten year old timmy doens't know how to keep one, then be responsible and keep it yourself. - ts8lemonade, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20I currently work there and almost all of this stuff is 100% true. Sad to say it. Oh, and we are allowed to check out merchandise to play, don't know why this guy says we aren't, believe me we are. Really, if I didn't work there and get the discount, I'd never shop there. Half of the time you can find some stuff like ds games for $5 cheaper at Walmart anyway. Also, this is old cause Gamestop took over EB, though its really the same stuff happening.
- AnotherName, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16nothing surprising here. teenager discovering the real world is what it looks like
- namelessted, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Why is this shocking to anybody? Welcome to corporate america. All this information is pretty much true for any retail store. Everybody that works retail hates it and when you shop at places customers don't like stupid corporate *****. We all get this. Its not just EB Games of Gamestop.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13is me or is shuld you not be calling peoples dumb when you talks liek dat??
- straxus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I worked at Software Etc back in 99'. Back then, out store was the Tatooine of it's district. So far out from the main area the district manager didn't care much about our store. We had no demo machines, so we brought our own TVs and machines to work so people could test games out. We steered customers away from bad games and toward good ones. We learned our customers tastes, and suggested games based on their interests. Even though we were usually $5 more expensive than anywhere else, people came to us because they knew we'd treat them right.
Then the Dreamcast launch came. We were told that we were to push Dreamcast preorders on people until they reserved, or left. If they asked about the PS2, we were to tell them it wouldn't be as good, and cost two to three times as much. Finally, we were told if we didn't do that, they didn't need us there. Every employee in the store (including the asst manager) gave their two weeks notice the next day. The look on the manager's face was priceless. A few of us then went on to open our own game store. - Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"When I worked at GameStop it was similar except instead of V.O.M. the company pushed you to sell Reserves and GameInformer subscriptions."
I actually worked at Gamestop on two separate holiday seasons (with a season of Best Buy in between) and keeping up my reserves and subs was incredibly difficult. I would ask people if they'd like to reserve anything coming out, then ask them if they'd like to subscribe (which includes the discount card) and if they'd say no I'd often recommend the sub/card again because I actually do feel it is a good deal. But if they still didn't want it I wouldn't push it any further. Another one was the strategy guides, buying it with the game gets a discount, but that's still something very hard to push on someone when they don't even know if they need it. Last time I bought a game the guy who was there (at my old store) just refused to let it go and was really pissing me off, he was even still trying to sell me on a guide as I walked out of the store with my purchase!
The pay was also incredibly low The first time I worked there I made $6.25 an hour and managed a .25 raise in the few months I was there, the second time I was told that the company is now giving all new employees minimum wage, which is $5.75 around here, and I usually only got one shift per week, sometimes two if I was lucky. However must say the employees and managers have always been extremely nice. My last GS manager said on my last day that he really wanted to keep me but corporate is just not allotting enough payroll for any more employees and that I could definitely use him as a reference for any future jobs.
I've also worked at Starbucks, where I started at $7.50/hr and got full medical/dental benefits with only 20 hrs per week. Best Buy was only slightly better than Gamestop, mostly because they asked me to push things on the customers, but didn't require it or keep track, the pay was also much better at $8.50. Unfortunately it became known to me as "the place where I go if I want to get yelled at." Boy am I glad I don't work retail anymore. - ToastPop, on 04/17/2009, -1/+10This is unfortunately the case in most retail locations.
I worked at an electronics store here in Canada (a big, nation-wide one) and it's the same, all anyone in the upper levels looks at are the numbers of your sales stats, so idiots who lie to their customers to make sales get to stay. It's also the biggest flaw in commission based sales on a retail level, because it just encourages the salesperson to lie to and manipulate the customer.
Even my friend who worked at American Eagle said they had sales stats that determined their employment. Yes, those annoying people who think you need help getting dressed need to do so to keep their jobs, it's stupid.
I made a video about the stupidity of all this emphasis on sales stats at a retail level using little toys to act it :P heh, perhaps I will submit it sometime. - kevinhartwig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8My favorite part of the article is how he describes a deposit... The whole point of a deposit is to put down money so they hold the game for you. If you don't show up the deposit is gone, that is how it works in every industry i have ever heard of. That and the fact that he was getting mad about being paid minimum wage for his job. I would imagine most people who get a job there are in their teens and try to get a job and EB because they want a discount on games and stuff. Minimum wage is how it works when you are in high school. The only part of the article i agreed with was the part about trading in games. Every time i have looked at their by back price and their price of the same used game, they are about 20 dollars or more difference. But that is how it works everywhere, and you can always sell your game on ebay or amazon and make more money.
This article was just nonsense. - Boofster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Did anyone notice how conveniently their receipts fade out after a few weeks? I know that most thermal printers do this but I was worried for a while that my Wii and PS3 were going to go down the drain because you could barely see the ink when the time came.
So sad. - DyDx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Honestly, you must just be a pussy. If that sort of ***** happened to me I would not take it lightly -- I would raise one HELL of a stink. It's widely known that the "open box" policy only applies to _software_. I've NEVER heard of them refusing a return for a piece of hardware, let alone a _cable_. A video card? sure. A cable? Bollox.
They have no choice but to meet your demand -- that's how retail works. The customer is [for all PRACTICAL intents and purposes] ALWAYS right. - bobman2007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7EB Games and Gamestop both seem very serious when it comes to private investigating, such as when The Mad Gamer said they employed "Secret Shoppers" to keep up with game sales. The same thing happened to my friend when he commented on a Kotaku post, giving away private information about our local Gamestop while he was working there. It caused him to get fired shortly after making the post (which is here: http://kotaku.com/gaming/gamestop/gamestop-cant-sell-wiis-either-221638.php#c736993 ). I really don't blame them, though, since they want to make money and have policies against disclosing private information.
- macbookpromat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Holy *****!
Thanks for stating the obvious. Everyone (as in the smart gamer) walks into EB expecting to be told to purchase this or that, that a game is insane and that the used games are a rip off. Quite honestly, who didn't know this? - bmwboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yeah, all stores do, same with the McDonald's I work at, and the only time we actually clean up the store is when the Health dept comes, or when someone from Corporate is coming to check out our store. I dare you work at any retail or fast food chain, and you'll get plenty of interesting stories...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This is what's nice about being a teenager. You don't have to bend over and take it from your employer because if you're fired you can go home to Mommy and Daddy's house and eat their food.
I remember the day I got tired of McDonald's constant ***** "SOC" reports. I don't think they will ever hire me again ;-) - krabat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Anyone who doesn't know that selling your used games on eBay nets you 300405758% more profit than handing them over to Gamestop/EB has been living in a hole for a long while.
- Rikushix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No one's forcing him to blog, either, but he still does it.
- Saiing, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Burger King, EB, whatever. Who cares? Some stupid kid has to work for a living and can't hack it, so instead he whines like a baby on his blog. And we're supposed to read this and feel sorry for him? Welcome to the real world assmunch. Come do my job (6 or 7 days a week from 6am daily - and I love it) and then see whose bitch you are.
- Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I have never heard of that happening with an accessory when I was at Gamestop. If anything besides a PC game was returned as defective we gladly exchanged it or gave them their money back and then the defective item went into a big plastic tub in the back room. If that happened to me as a customer I'd try going to a different EB or Gamestop.
- mlvassallo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The Mad Gamer is an idiot. It is called Retail. It sucks but that is how the game is played.
LOL- I just read his article on EGM Magazine. He actually reposted to slam a user who had a different opinion. I bet he see this and diggs me down himself. - EbenieRosa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Actually I worked at EB games for about two years.
Manager are supposed to Roll Out Pre-Orders that have not been picked up, it was part of SOP, I believe it was after 6 months.
everything else you said was fairly accurate though, perhaps not all districts observed rolling out pre-orders after six months, I know ours did.
ALSO I got written up for advising a customer not to buy games, and was instructed by Store manager and other SM's in my district that we always put a positive spin on every game because it would only sit on our shelves if no one bought it.
So some districts DID infact write you up for things like teling the truth on a game, ESPECIALLY if it was VOM (Like an EA game, Or Star Wars when Lucasarts was VOM).
I put EB behind me after the merger, it was a wonderful company honestly, good pay, Commision, Paid for Mileage, etc.
Gamestop did none of that and even forced "Gamebucks" cards on employees instead of paying them real money.
No, seriously, Gamestop Employes get charged for using thier game bucks account, if they want real money the have to elect to get direct deposit. - lifeat24fps, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I can't believe it. They're in it for...the money? Jesus, what a revelation. I mean, you'd think they were one of us, but, well, now, I'm not so sure...My world has been shattered.
- OrGoN3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wasn't 100% accurate, but pretty on the ball. EB is no longer, and Gamestop does let you sign out games for 4 days (up to your manager), unless your store is on lockdown due to a bad inventory (shrink > 0.8%). Yeah you gotta put up with a ton of *****, and you are underpaid, but at the same time you have a job where you talk about games: something that you should love if you work there. Discount could be better, but honestly, Gamestop doesn't make enough from second, third, fourth, etc, shipment from the games. Their money lies in quantity and preorders. The reason they push preorders so much is they will get a huge discount for buying so many up front. They could get Madden07 for $30, when other shipments would be at $40. That's the main reason they paid so much for the collector's of FFXII.
In any case, it's corporate america and it's retail. I've had many worse jobs than working for EB/Gamestop, and I've had a few that were better. Oh, and as for the telling a person if you like the game or not, that's not ture. You ARE allowed to give your opinion as long as it doens't ruin the sale. We don't have VOMs anymore (Vendor Of the Month), and thank god! 25 to life sucked ASS! But we tell people all the time if a game is good or not, and our DM respects that. All you have to do is suggest something else. You can't say "oh the game sucks don't buy it", but you can say "that game wasn't that great. but this game was and it's along the same lines."
If you work at EB/Gamestop and have half a brain, it's not worse than any other retail (unless you're a store manager, and then you're just f*cked). - pcgeek101, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Agreed. Not only is he just finding out that in the real, cruel world, you actually have to put forth effort to find a decent job, but I'll buy games wherever I get the best price. I have purchased PC games from EB before, simply because their price beat Best Buy and Gamestop. There's people trying to boycott companies all over the place, and it doesn't really work that way anymore.
- SaintFatMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't understand how this is news. Anyone that has frequented either EB or Gamestop would be able to pick up on all of this without working there.
- Dafreakzo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The main thing I noticed that this guy was complaining about was getting paid slave wages. Get out of retail or do not complain about what you get paid.
- SyberMile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3and the game industry wonders why we pirate everything if they just made it cheaper then we would have no reason to..
- rewquio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What is the private information in that post? "I work at a Gamestop in southern MS. We have a handfull or two in the back and are not allowed to sell until Sunday, but we are telling anyone who comes in or calls about them to come early Sunday morning. Trust me, my manager and DM were just as mad about this as all you guys are..." The fact that they have Wii systems in stock? This is information customers SHOULD know. I'd like to see Gamestop explain to the public why it's worth firing someone because they reveal that the store has an item in stock.
- ch28kid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3To be honest, I am not surprise because something like this is very common in the Corporate world.
Its always interesting to read articles like these which is complete opposite from what I learn in Business 303 (Business Ethics).
My business professor always say "All businessmen on the fortune 500 companies have no moral and ethics, that is how they Corporation works."
Profit > Anything else. - heylush, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"If you don't pick up whatever you pre-ordered in a certain amount of time EB Games will take your deposit."
- They guarantee you a copy of the game. If you don't show up, that's a game they could have sold as a pre-order. Just like a hotel takes a credit card for a reservation, if you don't show up that's a room they could have sold and you are charged for the night.
"Got a few sports games you want to trade-in? Forget about it! Anything sports related from the previous year and beyond will either not be accepted or you'll get like $2 (if you’re lucky)."
- This is because the game is replaced every year and the previous becomes obsolete. They aren't going to sell enough old copies to be able to turn a profit from a decent trade in value. And because everyone wants to trade their 2006 for the 2007 version. The trade-in system works in a very delicate way. You have the convenience of not having to spend time/money to sell your game with the classifieds or on eBay. You aren't the only one trading in your copy of DMC2 because it has no replayability. EB Games has to compensate for that guaranteed trade-in if it doesn't sell in a decent amount of time, or even at all.
"Do you know how nasty it was to see some Gamecubes, PS2s and XBOXs sitting in a plastic bag near the toilet with dried piss on them? And guess what? Lots of those pissy Gamecubes, PS2s, and XBOXs got quickly wiped off and sold to customers...at X-mas time."
- I don't think the corporate "big wigs" put the consoles in your restroom and pissed on them. That's your own incompetence.
"Another thing you never want to do is ask an EB Games' employee their personal opinion about whether a game is good or bad. Why? Because they really aren't allowed to tell you if they think a certain game sucks."
- An employee takes this opportunity to upsell and recommend a better game, at a higher price to the customer (if they ask about a 2 year old used game, try to convert them on a similar new release). Next time you are in a restaurant if their Nacho Platter is good or bad and see what they say. I bet they either sold you on it or on something else. - shlemielo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Gamestop is despicable. I bought a "new" Mario Kart DS for my little brother along with a new DS, and they ended up giving me a preowned cartridge even though I paid for a new one. You'd think they would at least erase the saved games that were on the cart to hide the fact.
- Barovelli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I often hire young people that are burned out already by retail jobs. Offer about twice minimum wage, full bennies, normal holidays etc. They are so dang grateful - more than others in the job seeker world.
I think anyone that has lasted 2 years at crappy push, push push retail jobs like that has paid some dues. (hint) It's not "I worked in Circuit Circus stocking movies" it's "I kept my wits while working in Circuit Circus stocking movies" on the resume. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6"bitch bitch bitch"
this is one of those things where it really is an "if you don't like it, leave"
no one is forcing you to work there, i know a million people who'd rather work at an EB for minimum wage than mcdonalds for just-over-minimum-wage,
and one particular point, the not telling customers games suck thing, you realize that you are working FOR a BUSINESS whos goal is to MAKE MONEY. it's like hiring a maid to clean your house and then paying her even though she only did half of the rooms, you do the job you're paid to do- make. them. money. dammit, you people are bitchy - stenk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Great quote IMHO from this article!
"Little Tommy wakes up on X-mas morning and plays with his PissBOX, PeeS2, or Toiletcube and everything is just great in the world"
LMFAO. - DesolataX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I stopped shopping at EBgames as soon as my friend who was the manager quit. He actually ran the joint well, and he definitely got a few reamings from Head office, but if they fired him, his other 4 friends that worked their would quite too, I guess it was a mini-union. After he quit, everything went downhill, the new manager was a complete whore, she would overcharge you for everything, if you looked at here monitor, I saw her (on more than 3 occasions) raise the price of something I wanted to buy. Oh boy I ripped her to shreds when I saw her do that the first time, and the best part was, the store had at least 10 people in it (around christmas time). After I gave her a reaming, I think everyone left the store after, I was running late so I couldn't stick around. That was in 2002
Since then, I haven't shopped there with the exception of recently when they had those trade 3 get lost planet free, I traded in 3 copies of Metroid prime pinball that I got for $6 each after I priced matched their "game of the day for $10) with Futureshop (was at $50, so i got an addition $4 off on top of it :D ). Doesn't matter to me, I got a brand new 360 game for ~$18 :D EBgame lost money there.
I sell my games on ebay, and buy them from other retailers (RCSS, Walmart, futureshop)
But those ignorant mom's and dad's that get ripped off whenever they go to buy a game for their son/daughter, when they don't have a clue what they are buying.
I'll sum it up for everyone: EBgames sucks. - lukas88, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Ok here is my "Baskin Robbins Exposed!"
Actually the only thing sneaky I was ever told to do is put child scoops in the sundaes. You buy a 2 scoop sundae and you expect it to be the same amount of icecream as a 2 scoop cone. But the scoops are about half the size (hard to tell since it is a sphere). They told me 2 reasons for this, the fact that they are getting toppings as well (which they pay for so that doesn't work) and the fact that the containers are made for that (which is circular reasoning). Hmm, the only other thing i can think of is that they leave the toppings out and never throw them away. Since they are basically candy, they never go bad. But that doesn't mean there isn't tons of bacteria all over them. Especially the hot fudge, since it is kept warm and away from light all day. Do yourself a favor and go for the bananas, and the refridgerated toppings, they will always be fresh. In reality, this is no worse the toppings you would be getting at any other place.
To be honest, Baskin Robbins is really a quality place to eat at and work at. Everything else was pretty kosher (actually it literally is kosher too). Every business probably has its "skeletons." I wish I could get by on 8 bucks an hour for the rest of my life, I would make a career out of it! - memlapse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2We got our first console over the recent holidays and, of course, made our way to EB to check out the games. We have returned to the store several times since and each time walked out satisfied with our purchases.
The employees were pretty young and lacking in certain professional courtesies, but they always said "HI" and eventually asked if we needed assistance, regardless of how busy. When purchasing used games, they always inspected the disks and offered to allow me to make sure they were not abused. One of my boys was looking for a specific game that had proved itself difficult to find. Two weeks after our initial inquiry at EB, they called and said that it had come in and they would hold it at the counter. They didn't have to do that since it wasn't a very expensive game, just hard to find.
I did my research before doing business with EB and was fully aware of their business practices. This did not stop me from buying games there for a few simple reasons:
-I don't have to buy a game if I don't think it's worth it.
-I don't buy new games, normally, and if I do, it's from a retailer that does not "gut" the new boxes.
-I keep my expectations low and am rarely shocked when I feel I'm not receiving any customer service.
-I'm always nice and express gratitude when dealing with younger people (maybe they'll pick up the habit) in the business place. It makes a huge difference in their attitude and the level of service. Sometimes they are evening shocked that someone was actually nice to them. Please take into account their target market.
The point is, the store is only as good as the people working there, regardless of corporate policy. A good store manager can manage his inventory and his employees in such a matter that questionable corporate policy shouldn't have that much bearing on the customer experience. Be a smart customer and be nice. I don't mean to sound preachy, but it's a simple formula that has made a notable difference in my shopping experience, especially when dealing with known evils. - xerokitsune, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I thought most of the mall games stores were under the same parent company at this point, Barnes & Noble. I think they control Gamestop, EB, Software Etc., Funcoland and Rhino.
- ts8lemonade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The refurbish fee is only supposed to be applied to games that are deemed too scratched to play. We then defect them out of the store inventory and send them to a warehouse to get buffed, that's why there's the fee. The fee also ranges in price depending on the value of the game. For instance (not sure the exact value but these are close), a game valued over $20, will cost $4 to refurbish; a game valued at $1 would have a $0.75 refurbish fee, so you ended up getting a whopping $0.25 for it. If they charged you the fee for games that weren't very scratched at all then that sucks because you got ripped dude. If the cost of refurbishing the game is greater than the set value, the system won't them take it in, period.
Also, realize that even though they are *****, that's how they make a vast majority of their money: by buying games from you for a cheap price and turning around and selling them for a free dollars off the cost of a new copy. Yep, it sucks but it isn't likely to change anytime soon. - JettaMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This article seems like it has a lot of exaggerations. Cockroaches crawling in and out of used consoles?!
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