Are you or anyone you know shop at GameStop? We used to be shoppers until we had 2 really horrific experiences with them. The first issue I had with GameStop was with an online order. The 2nd issue we had with GameStop was when my teenage son purchased a gift cards at the local store and it didn’t work.
What you should know before shopping at GameStop
My teenage son RJ is so busy during the week. Between long baseball practices and school work, he barely has time to do anything else. When he does have free time he enjoys playing video games with his friends. He says the video games relaxes him.
On November 26 (Black Friday week) my son went into our local GameStop located in Matamoras PA with the money he saved up from his birthday. His plan was to purchase a few Microsoft XBOX gift cards in order to purchase online games from the Microsoft website. RJ had to do it this way because he doesn’t have a credit card to purchase the games directly from the Microsoft website.
Sadly, RJ’s excitement of purchasing his own games quickly turned into distress and disappointment. 1 of RJ’s 3 Microsoft XBOX gift card codes did not work. He basically received an error message that stated, “This code has been deactivated.”
GameStop Starts The “Blame Game”
That same day RJ called GameStop. He was told to contact Microsoft because it was a Microsoft issue not a GameStop issue. When my son told me what had happened I immediately thought he misunderstood what the Gamestop employee told him. I called GameStop that evening when I got home and I was told the same information as my son. I even tried calling the next closest GameStop store to verify the information and the employee told me the same thing.
Microsoft Disagrees With GameStop
When I called Microsoft the Representative quickly verified the card was deactivated. She said the retailer (which is GameStop) was suppose to activate the gift card at the time of purchase. The Rep advised me to contact the store manager which I did and it didn’t go anywhere because he repeated the same information. The manager told me that GameStop corporate office trained them to forward all gift card matters to the gift card company.
After that conversation I tried reaching out to the GameStop corporate Customer Service department over 5 times. Each time the Gamestop Representative told me someone from a different department will call me back within a few days but no one ever call me back. I even tried emailing them a few times with no success.
GameStop Corporate Website Reviews
When I logged into GameStop corporate website to locate the telephone I was shocked with all the bad reviews. Some of the reviews were even worst than ours. You can read some here reviews.
It is infuriating to see GameStop has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) with poor reviews. Also, Google advertises GameStop with a 4 1/2 rating with a lot of unhappy reviews.
What To Do As A Consumer Who Was Taken Advantage Of:
First step: File a compliant!
Second step: Dispute resolution programs are ways to solve disagreements between buyers and sellers, without going to court.
- State Consumer Protection Offices (in my state is the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General),
- Better Business Bureau (BBB),
- law school clinics
Finally, I just recently filed a compliant with the Better Business Bureau and today with my state Attorney General office to prevent more consumer abuse. The BBB quickly reached out to verify the information in order to reach out to GameStop to solve this issue.
I’ve never heard of this company before and I don’t think we have them here. Sorry this happened to you. Good on you for bringing this up. It’s a great warning to others.
There are too many consumers GameStop took advantage of. I want to be a voice for them by helping others.
Oh that is so frustrating. I haven’t been to a GameStop in so many years, I can’t even remember the last time. The blame game is the worst, and now all the frustration for you both plus all the wasted time is unacceptable.
It sure is Stephanie!
Navigating big businesses can be so tricky- I’m sorry that you and your son had such a rough time with GameStop! Thanks for giving us all the heads up!
Thank you, Lois.
I’ve never heard of GameStop company. But they seem like a terrible company. 🙁 Great review. People need to be aware of this.
Thank you. That is why I did the review.
I’ve had a few friends who had bad experiences with them recently. They use to be pretty awesome but things have definitely degraded over the years.
I agree with you, Angela. There are a lot of angry customers.
My husband is a huge gamer. He used to shop at GameStop ALL the time but recently we’ve been buying our new games from Best Buy. Sorry that you had some big issues with them!
Thank you Amanda! We are starting to buy our games at Best Buy too. Someone even told me we should buy our cards in Walmart.
They still have a lot of stores around the country.
Honestly, I did not know GameStop still existed! It’s been so many years.
They are still open.
That is just awful. They should be ashamed of themselves for trying to stiff a kid out of his hard earned money. Reach out to them on Twitter and share your tweet with us to retweet. My kids used to buy games there but not anymore.
They should be ashamed but are not.I did reached out to them on Twitter and Facebook too.
Ugh. This happened to my son once. Yeah, I was not a happy mom when I walked back into GameStop. I demanded they activate the card because I was literally in there a few days before and it was the same cashier. They can tell if the card has been redeemed or not. I’m sorry this happened to you. It’s frustrating.
I tried doing the same but the manager did not listen. This is why I contacted the GameStop corporate office. So glad to hear you got your son’s gift card activated.
I’m so sorry you had such a frustrating experience. It’s terrible when companies just continue to bounce you around without actually helping.
Exactly, Christa!
They have such terrible customer service! My husband used to be a regular customer and has had enough bad experiences that he rarely shops there now.
I agree with you! I’ve told my family and friends not to shop there too. My son is doing the same with his friends. we don’t want what happened to us to happen others.
That’s really awful that it happened to you. I hope you get it resolved soon. Never shop there again.
Thank you, Busola.
Never heard of this company before. But I am really sorry to hear about what happened to you.
Thank you, Melanie.
That really sucks. And it’s awful when corporations treat you that way. I have to laugh at me misreading something and maybe you can use it in your social media about them. I thought it said BlameStop. Hahaha! Anyway, I’m sorry it was such a bad experience.
Thank you David. It does make sense because they do liking blaming others.