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Gamestop Deal a Fraud? January 22, 2007

Filed under: News, Rants/Opinions — shanoboy @ 3:45 pm

no deal!

Over the weekend word of an awesome Gamestop/EB Games trade in deal started to surface on the net. Apparently Gamestop was offering the opportunity to either trade in a Gamecube for a $50 in store credit towards a new Wii or a Gameboy Advance SP for a $50 credit towards a new or used Nintendo DS.

I went to cash in on this offer today, (Monday, 22nd) only to find that my local EB shop has no Nintendo Wii or DS units in stock. I called 8 other Gamestop/EB Games locations in the Metro Atlanta area to find none of them had either of the units in stock either.

What’s a consumer to do? I called their customer service line at 1-800-883-8895. Surprisingly all I had to do was push 1 and was able to talk to an actual person immediately. Come to find out, it seems hardly any of their retail locations have Wii or DS units in stock at this time and I can’t trade in my Gamecube or DS for a credit to use later when the units are in stock. The representative said the credit and purchase of the Wii or DS have to be on the same ticket.

So my question is, why even run the ad if you aren’t going to have the product in stock Gamestop? I was told that units would possibly be in stock in the next month and the ad might run again. Anyone else having this problem?

On the bright side, the person I talked to did say the Gameboy trade in could be used toward a DS Lite. He also said the deal is only valid in store. No rain-checks or online purchases.

Here’s the ad for those interested:
http://www.ebgames.com/gs/weeklyad/current/GS_01-21_Page2.asp



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  • yaboonabi
    stores are supposed to start a call list for people who trade in their gamecube/ds to let them know when their desired product is in. Speaking as a Gamestop employee, i wouldn't trust most stores to handles this. Take this deal at your own risk...or wait until they run the exact same promotion in a few months when the Wii will be more available.
  • Tom
    Had the same thing in my area was going to trade in a gba for a ds lite but after calling about 12 stores in my area non had a ds, i also asked them if they were going to have the wii on sale on Sunday they said they also said they had none in stock and would have none for Sunday.
    I ended up at Target Early Sunday morning and was number 5 in line for 1 of 43 Wii's they had, actually if i had known could of show up at 8 o'clock and still got one.
    Will have to Call or email them to tell them of my displeasure also and hope they could extend the offer till they really have them in stock,
  • gamestop employee
    i actually got an email from my district manager saying that we will be doing something to help people who brought in the ad. not all stores had their systems on sunday either so some stores will get more throughout the week, so keep checking back.
  • The demand is amazing, I thought it would calm down after the Christmas season.
  • I believe it, Target sold the 17 systems they had sunday within the first 15 minutes. I finally got mine. Woot!
  • Thanks for the verification. I'm still bummed though. :(
  • eb games guy
    the reason they had that sale was all the stores did have the systems. we actually got the systems a few days before sunday 1/21 but could not sell any until sunday. so since everyone wants a wii or ds they sold out at my store at least within the first two hours that we were open. another thing is that more than 80% of our phone calls are all for nintendo so people already knew that we had them stashed away. i hope this info helps.