GameStop Sued Over "Deceptive" Used Game Sales

[michiehoward]

The only that ever pisses me off with GS is when they put the wrong disc in the game I purchase and I never check til' I'm home, the fuckers. I bought DA used from GS at x-mas and the previous owner hadn't even used the DLC package. lol

 

[Timotei]

-Treating their customers like idiots - I, personally, have never been treated like an idiot.

You obviously have gone to god ones. But when you work in a district where every manager got their position because their friends with the District Manager you turn them into people unable to view their fellow employees as equals. This would bleed over to the customers.

During the last throes of my employment at Gamestop I witnessed my misogynist supervisor basically go tell a 5 year old girl trying to buy a Wii game for her father to go get the game herself, even though it was on the top shelf out of her reach by several feet. And then when I grabbed the game she wanted and gave it to her he shouted at me for not continuing to vacuum "like a woman should".

There were reported similar acts all across my district.

-Treating their employees like fucking slaves - Ok, that's a bit overdramatic. It's what they are paying you for. If you don't like it, quit. I'm all for laws that restrict businesses, but that is going too far, even for me.

There is a big difference between having your work coupled with a quick "good work" or a pat on the back unpon completion, but we just got yelled and threatened to be fired.

Another example. One of my fellow employees had worked hard without break or even lunch had just finished labeling the ten quadrillion games that had been turned in the day before. He goes to the same supervisor to ask what he could take a quick 5 minute break to head over to Carl's Jr. to grab a burger and a soda, only to be met with "Quit slacking off or I'll tell the DM you aren't doing your job."

-Not giving employees breaks - Again, this is their choice, although I would support a law for mandatory breaks (if there isn't one already), but it still seems like you should have quit if it's that important.

California state law demands that all employers give their part time workers a 15-minute break every two hours and full-time workers two 15-hour breaks and a 1-hour lunch break. Gamestop managers however didn't let us take breaks because that means you aren't working, so they disallowed us from doing so and then came out with the "It's their choice whether they take a break or not" whenever they ended up in front of a judge.

-Paying employees through cards that you have to pay the company to withdraw money from and can only draw your salary in certain increments - What the fuck? Ok, this is wrong.

Believe it or not, this was actually true when I worked there.
We were paid on these little cards that we had to use at certified teller machines to withdraw our meager paychecks. For my district and I'm pretty sure state we were restricted at being able to withdraw our PAYCHECKS in increments of $20.

One person who is in my senior class told me he still has $18 on his card that he can't withdraw.

-False advertising - Never seen it.

They market that if you want to take cash instead of store credit that you get 20% less (from what I last heard), but when you ask for cask the amount they take off is around 40%. There are many other instances where False advertising has come into play, particularly with how they will sometimes intentionally put a price sticker on a game that has a lower price than what is in theri system in hopes that the person *really* wants that game and is willing to fork over $5-10 extra.

-Selling brand new games that have been ripped from their original packaging and discarded yet are still sold at full price - Unless they have a thing to put the plastic wrapping and the stickers back on, this has never happened to me.

Then you have been lucky. However in order to save space a majority of game cases will be gutted and have the disks places in a paper sleeve that were infamous for scratching the games. Upon the release of a new game to stores you could sometimes find hundreds of gutted cases and manuals laying in the back room and a stack of sleeves with the game in them.

-New games being used employees yet still sold as new - Read above.

Employees during my day brand new games were allowed to be taken home for a maximum stretch of two days by the employees. Even if they returned them with scratches they would still be marked up as "NEW".

-Selling reserved copies to people other than who ordered them - Never has happened to me with Gamestop, but happened with my GoW2 Special Edition... at Blockbuster (the only other place to get games around here besides for Walmart)

Reserve copies can be sold if demand is so high that the store is running out of games.

-Exploitation of people working at Gamestop yet are not on Gamestop's payroll (i.e. people in school-to-work programs, managers would work them to death with no reward) - Well, no reward kinda goes with that territory, and are you sure it wasn't just "Ohhh, this is too much work for me, I should do no work while everyone else works because I don't get payed!"?

My school has a school-to-work program for the mentally and physically disabled. Often times these students would come to work at Gamestop. Because managers realized that these people were being paid by the school district and thus not on the company payroll, managers would often teach them to do their jobs and many others so they could sit back and work.

-Exploitation of female workers - Please elaborate.

I and a another, very well-endowed woman, were hired at Gamestop within the same week because the current manager realized an attractive young girl and a girl with balloons nailed to her chest were perfect ways to steal male customers from the other Gamestops. Then we were exploited by some racist, sexist asshole to do all the work because he thought llower of us.

-Wages disproportional to the amount of work - Tell that to waiters. They'd kill to just be payed minimum wage (rarely are they payed even minimum wage, as the employer feels it's made up in tips).

That is actually understandable, however when you work without break you step into the realm of "wrong".

-Lack of care for employees in dangerous situations (i.e. robberies, employees are replaceable) - I'm not sure what they say to do, so I'll respond to both. If you are supposed to protect the merchandise, just say you are, and when they tell you to stop, stop. If you are supposed to let them rob the place, that's logic.

One employees at another Gamestop was hospitalized with severe cranial trauma after a robbery and was simply ferried off the premises of the store so they could say he wasn't hurt on company property. The company refused compensation because they claimed he wasn't "on the job" the instant he was injured as they signed him out.

-Lack of company support in court cases (i.e. hurt on the job by another individual) - That's normal in the horrid world of capitalism.

This too is understandable. but every other place I have worked it was stated in our contract that if we were involved in a court case (i.e. a lawsuit filed against a customer who assaulted us) the company would help provide legal fees for the case because you were on the job.

Gamestop however will do the same, but have instructed the managers to sign you out if you are injured on the job so they aren't liable to lend you any support. This wasn't so much an official policy as it was a policy passed down by word from the District Manager to store managers.

 

[Dragonclaw]

Not to totally necromance a really old thread but any word on what happened with this suit? I actually worked as a manager for a Gamestop that could practically throw a rock and hit the store mentioned in the suit, AND I talked to the customer in question several times, it wasn't a kid it was a grown ass man who I have NO doubt planned this suit since day 1 (the guy called every store daily to get a used copy, I'd say he spent well over $5 worth of his time and energy to "save" that $5! one of my staff actually tried to make the sale on the new copies we had is stock by MENTIONING that the new copies had the DLC. I've since moved on from GS so I'm not privy to the suits details, but since I was close to the situation I've been curious to see how it turns out...