"You should hold it for me until I am ready to pick it up!"

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Ah, corporate. Check your balls at the door. I'm pretty sure they have special "ball-detectors" to make sure that no one with a pair can enter the building.

I'd really hate to work in that baggage claim...

That and bend over for the "Spinectomy" too. Corporate drones aren't allowed to have those either as well as balls.

[raw456]

Why would she demand a gift card if she claims she's never shopping there again?

Not gonna do her much good is it?

It's a real shame that those A**holes get the freebies, but if you have really good customers or customers who have been really screwed around but are cool about it, you have to virtually sign over your first born in order to get them a gift or such for their troubles. I had to fill out 6 pages of paperwork and wait 2 weeks just to send a company baseball cap to a customer who had been screwed over by us.

It's typical of todays society - the truley good people get walked over and left out by whinging idiots with low intelligence and loud attitudes....

[valhar2000]

Well, it doesn't always happen this way. My aunt manages a restaurant, and she tells me that she often fights the idiots who come in. Once, in fact, they were sued by some woman and instead of settling they won the case and then sued her for there lawyer's fees.

You are all right: the longer companies bend over the worse this behaviour will get, and it will eventually result in the breakdown of commerce as we know it. We'll end up back in the "Caveat Emptor" stone-age of retail.

[greensinestro]

I have to agree with others here. I think she planned this whole thing from the get-go. She needed the game right now, yet waited three weeks, then throws in the $25 gift card scheme. What is a deposit anyway? Most places have it as $5 to reserve a new game, so if that's what she paid, then she profited $20 off of this. And, I also agree that your store is not the first or only, nor the last store, she has pulled this on.

[TonyDonuts]

I love it how she had to have the game RIGHT NOW when she had waited nearly 3 weeks to pick it up! Hey lady, when I want something asap, I'm at the store for a midnight release (lol, usually I'm working it!) or make sure to get it within the first few days. Obviously you didn't care that much, despite your pre-order!

Customer time.

Where you'll see a customer wandering aimlessly through the store for hours looking at seemingly random things (a candy bar here, a can of pop there, a particularly interesting air molecule over there) with no particular purpose in mind and then BAM! I have to check out RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW! And SCREW these people who got to the check out before me, I have to pay for my stuff RIGHT NOW! NOWNOWNOWNOW! MOMMMMMMYYYYYYY!!!! MAKE THE BAD PEOPLE TAKE CARE OF ME RIGHT NOW!

The more patient you are with them, the angrier they get. Gives me a little thrill just THINKING about it.

[mharbourgirl]

Sheesh. I've complained to corporate HQ of some few companies a few times in the past for genuine bad service and/or defective products. Most I've EVER gotten is some coupons for orange juice. Then again, when I complain, I try to be calm and reasonable and generally don't throw a fake hissy fit because the world doesn't always bend to my whims. Probably why I don't get mountains of free shit.

My conscience would cripple me if I tried to pull something like that lady did.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

About the non-specific time frame on preorder holds: The receipt indicates 48 hours. HOWEVER, we don't always remember to restock the stuff right when those 48 hours are up. It's not uncommon for a game to stay in the "holds" drawer for four days before getting put back out for general sale.

Also "A few days" generally implies LESS than a week. So the lady had no defense either way.

About the rest of the story:

I talked to my manager about this after the fact and he's said he's gotten into heated discussions with the DM before about these kinds of customers. Bascially when a customer calls into complain, corporate just accepts their version of the story as truth and throws a gift card at them to make them go away.

Unless the customer implies a law has been broken there's no further action taken (i.e. they don't even bother to contact the store to get more info on what happened).

[MrSunshineState]

Corporate Offices are noting more than enablers.

[South Texan]

About the non-specific time frame on preorder holds: The receipt indicates 48 hours.

Glad to hear that. If the customer is told in writing that she has to pick up the game within forty-eight hours of either being informed of its arrival or some other starting time, then the customer has no grounds for complaining if she fails to abide by those terms. I hope that written time frame is pointed out to those who complain.

Bascially when a customer calls into complain, corporate just accepts their version of the story as truth and throws a gift card at them to make them go away.

That is because it is cheaper to send a card to make the SC shut up than to take up employee time investigating and documenting the complaint.

[TonyDonuts]

Glad to hear that. If the customer is told in writing that she has to pick up the game within forty-eight hours of either being informed of its arrival or some other starting time, then the customer has no grounds for complaining if she fails to abide by those terms. I hope that written time frame is pointed out to those who complain.
That is because it is cheaper to send a card to make the SC shut up than to take up employee time investigating and documenting the complaint.

The customer service manager at the company I work for operates under the assumption that if a customer complaint couldn't be handled at the store or the district manager level...


...then the customer is probably a jerk whose complaint should be taken, maybe, less than seriously.

[Tuxian]

Might I also point out, that if this is the game store I'm thinking of, not only does it state on the reciept that you have 48 hours to pick up the game once it comes out, but they ALSO have an auto-call that will _call the number you provide them_ the day before the game comes out, saying "Hi, this is <store>, your copy of <game> will be released on <day>, please come and pick it up!"

Amusing sidenote... my friend once worked for the one-of-these-stores in our local mall. And one day, a couple months back, his manager and he were going through the old pre-order data, seeing what had and hadn't been picked up.

They found about 10 pre-orders for God of War II. Which came out _last year_. And had never been picked up by the buyers...

[greensinestro]

They found about 10 pre-orders for God of War II. Which came out _last year_. And had never been picked up by the buyers...

I guess I have to ask......these SC's never came back to collect their deposit? I mean, if it's an average of $5 to reserve the game, and they find ten, that means the store makes $50! Wow! Now there's a way to make a profit.

[Tuxian]

Nope, the money was still in the system. That's one way that company makes money, I suppose... hoping people forget about their pre-orders and thus the deposit they put down. That's one thing I always do when reserving something, is mark a calendar with the release date, and make sure I get the call telling me that the item is in and I can go buy it the next day.