From an old Reddit post of mine:
If you buy an item and the seller sends one that differs significantly from the description or is defective, you have the right to reject the item and require the seller to retrieve it at their expense - no matter what the seller’s return policy says. You also have the right to a full refund. Rightful Rejection is part of state law and based on the Uniform Commercial Code. It is also written into Visa International’s rules. Don’t believe Citibank representatives or anyone else who tells you otherwise.
If you don’t want to pay new prices for a used item, it’s 100% up to GameStop to make it right. They have to pay to retrieve it and for return shipping. They have to give you a full refund on everything, including shipping charges.
How does that work when Amazon forces me to travel to a whole foods, kohls, or UPS to return items. Since the item was brought to my doorstep can I force Amazon or other retailers to come to my doorstep to get the item? Honest question since the process of going to those locations costs fuel.
State law always trumps seller policies. The seller can force you to check a box agreeing to their terms of sale but those terms are not enforceable if state law gives you other rights. Unenforceable clauses have been in literally every contract or terms of sale I’ve ever read.
Rightful rejection laws make sense too, especially when you start looking at large purchases. Let’s say you ordered a black car from a dealer 500 miles away and the dealer delivered a pink one. The terms of sale say that you have to return the car to the dealer and pay a restocking fee for a refund. Those terms mean that the dealer has no obligation to deliver what you ordered or paid for and will make a profit (from you) even if they deliver something you didn’t order. That’s where Rightful Rejection laws become indispensable. All you have to do by law is make the product available for retrieval by the seller.
Funny you should mention Amazon - I’m literally dealing with this issue this week. They sent me a DOA item that has to be sent back. Amazon suddenly wants to charge me a fee to return a defective item that they have the legal obligation to retrieve. While I don’t mind dropping things off at a UPS store because I’m regularly a block away, they want me to make a special trip to a Staples or Whole Foods which is not convenient or reasonable. I was just going to order a replacement from them, but because of their new return fee I won’t be buying the replacement from Amazon, or much else going forward. My Amazon purchases will easily decrease by 90%.
Here’s the rub - a retailer does not have to continue to do business with you. If you force Amazon to retrieve an item they can close your account and refuse to sell to you again.
Just fucking return it. If I made a post for everytime Amazon did something like this to me, it would get really annoying really quick.
I’ll probably be downvoted for not joining the GS hate train, but just reach out to them, their CS is usually pretty decent. Hell, tag Ryan Cohen on Twitter and you’re half likely to get a response from the CEO himself offering to correct the mistake.
New to you, I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Bought a smartwatch from Amazon while I was out of town, my brother recived it a few days ago. Got home yesterday and opened the package to find inside a freaking cheap microphone, I’m guessing for influencers, or YouTubers, I know the feeling.
On a little more positive note, yeah, reach out to them, customer service agreed to send me the correct item by tomorrow. (Fingers crossed they get it right this time)
So, here’s what probably happened.
Physical GameStop stores will usually open a handful of new games that they receive, so that they can put the boxes on the shelves. But the boxes are empty. You take the box from the shelf for the game you want to buy, bring it to the counter, and they go into a locked drawer that has their stock of games, and they put the game into the box, and then sell it to you. This is assuming that they don’t have any unopened copies available; usually they will, but if you’re unlucky and happen to catch them at the end of their stock for a particular title, you might get one that’s been opened so that the box can be used on display.
Unfortunately, a lot of would-be thieves don’t realize that the boxes on the shelves are empty, and steal them. So if you’re really unlucky, you’ll get a generic box that they print out like this if they don’t have any originals left. Usually these boxes are only used for used games (where they bought the game without the box), but sometimes they use them with new copies if they absolutely have to. Depending on the store and the cashier, you can sometimes get them to give you a small discount for the missing box, but I’m not sure if that’s a corporate policy or not.
I believe that they can technically still sell these as “new” product, as opposed to “unused”, because the product never left the store’s possession during this opening/storing process, and isn’t the same as a returned product being resold. So what likely went down here is that when OP ordered this game, due to availability or logistics or whatever, they sent a copy that was being held at a physical GameStop store, instead of from some warehouse.
If you’re really worried about it, OP, you can probably contact GameStop and request a return or replacement for an unopened copy. In my experience, they’re usually pretty understanding about that. It’s an annoying extra hoop to jump through, but unfortunately that’s just always been a risk one takes when buying from GameStop.
That’s a fuckload of words to explain why they sent OP an open box product as new. Like a super shitty company.
I hate that they do this. You opened it, you touched the disc, the disc was run in a system. That’s not new, that’s not unused. GameStop should have never done this in the first place, and I can’t believe they still do it.
What system? “The system” is to put it in a plastic sleeve in a glorified filing cabinet. The game is never played, the box is just used for display. What’s asinine is that the video game manufacturers never realized they could sell cover boxes to gamestop and the like and probably make extra profit… which would stop the entire need for them to do this at all.
Try returning an open game to GameStop under the same rationale and see if they agree.
Twenty Years ago they let employees “check out” brand new games that were opened like this so it was all bullshit.
Yet, other stores don’t do this. Avoid GameStop and you avoid this, and all that comes with it. It’s fine to learn what happened. It’s not OK to do this or have this happen to you.
Return that immediately. I worked for gamestop for about 6 years from 11-16. It was a horribly run company that should be a relic of the past like circuit city and blockbuster. Executive management would rather make tiny profits than make pro-consumer changes that would draw in gamers (things like tournaments were actively discouraged).
I really hated that gamestop became a meme stock. It meant executive made a lot of money from no effort on their own. I would have much rather seen their shares go to zero and then get bought for pennies on the dollar, leaving the top brass on their ass.
Yeah, people forget that Gamestop basically ran all of their favorite local game and card shops out of business. They should not be celebrated.
Fuck now I want to invent a game hangout space that has indie game tournaments, sells games, cards and comics and regularly holds tournaments. Online gambling is legal now, right as long as its base off a skilled game? Stream that shit and take bets…
As a casual yugioh enjoyer that went to Barnes and noble every few Saturdays to play and trade, I never saw GameStop even try to compete. I can’t imagine it had any impact on running game/card shops out of business.
I may be older than you. But there used to be a lot of those combo game stores when I was a kid I used to call them “the fun shop” as a child. Only the stores that had enough card volume survived, everyone else lost their business to Gamestop or another store that Gamestop ended up buying. So yeah, there are a few card places that do tourneys, Gamestop never really got into that business so if your sales were heavily card/comic based you had a chance to survive.
I try to patronize my local game shops as much as I can. I’m not into card or board games which limits where I go but I’m lucky enough to have a few local game stores that sell a lot of retro games for fair prices.
Of course with new games (I still like to buy physical quite often) I generally have to buy from the big stores but I make it a point to avoid gamestop.
That sucks. Suggestion, return it and buy this for $49: https://www.amazon.com/Pokemon-Sword-Nintendo-Switch/dp/B07PC7X38X
There’s going to be a new movie out about GME and Reddit called “Dumb Money” out soon, directed by the same guy who directed “I, Tonya” (Could have won that Oscar if they named it “It’s Hardin’ Time” like I asked)
Don’t watch it. Both GameStop and reddit are terrible companies.
GameStop still exists?
This has been known behavior from them for so long that at this point it’s your own fault.
