Reward Zone Gamer's Club

[poseidon7902]

In the last 3 years I have spent easily $10,000 at Best Buy and while many have predicted the death throwes of the company, I've defended them and done what I could to keep their reputation good (Despite your incompetent customer service sometimes).  It appears though that I too have run into incompetent customer service.  For the longest time I just bought my games wherever I happened to be.  If I pre-ordered a game at Best Buy, great, if it was Game Stop, great, I had no loyalties.  When I went in to get my copy of Gears 3 on release night, I was asked to pay to join the gamers club.  The benefits seemed good enough to me to sway me, so I purchased my membership and went on my way. 

In the last 5 to 6 months, I've traded in about 6 games, none of which are duplicate games.  Last night I decide I want to trade in 2 games that I wouldn't play again, so I treked over to my nearest Best Buy to trade them in and pre-order 5 more games. I get my games checked out and chat with the guy who I normally deal with when I'm in the store.  As he's wrapping everything up he gets a confused look on this face then turns the screen to face me.  I have a message that I'm flagged to not be able to trade in any more equipment because I've violated a Best Buy policy.  If I feel this is an error, I can call and 877 number. 

Thinking something is wrong because 1. all my trade ins are in mint condition with all game manuals and extra flyers from the day I bought them, and 2. Every time I traded in something, I did it in store, so how could I violate a policy.  If a policy was violated, it was the employee, not me who did it.  I call and receive the cheerfully, oh so happy response that,  "Yes, you're not allowed to trade in anything because you violated a policy.  Best Buy reserves the right to deny any trade in it wants from anyone for any reason.  No, I can't tell you what policy you violated, just that you're not allowed to trade in anymore".  I ask who i can talk to rectify this and am told that sorry, there's no one you can talk to.  It's set by Best Buy and is not disputible. 

What kind of hoobed pile of crap policy is this?  You can ban someone, tell the customer, who just in the last few weeks spent 2 grand on a tv and is now wanting to spend another $200 to $300 on video games that they are baned and sorry about your luck?  How about this.  If I don't get a valid response to my complaint that this ban is improperly applied to me that I will take my new TV and return it and go buy it at a competitor that appreciates my business. 

My Reward Zone number is (removed per forum guidelines)

[Jimmienomam]

How many games have you traded in total, round about? Btw this coming from a banned unlocked member also.

[Jimmienomam]

How many games have you traded in total, round about? Btw this coming from a banned unlocked member also.

I say total because it goes by ID used, not by reward number or GCU number. So how many in total have you traded in using that ID?

[poseidon7902]

I've traded in maybe a total of 10 games over the last 2 to 3 years at Best Buy.  I used primarily GameStop and Amazon for my previous trade ins. 

[Mike-BBY Community Connector]

Hello poseidon7902,

I am very sorry for the disappointment and frustration this trade-in limitation has caused you.  I do appreciate your business and would love to continue to be a go-to resource for your electronics needs.  We do not have access to the system used for trade-ins, so I am unable to provide any additional insights or information.  The resources I can direct you to are the 877-310-4227 phone number or you can email Tradein@bestbuy.com.  Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

[poseidon7902]

Well, that solved that. 

1st off, that phone number is a joke.  If you call that, they tell you that they don't know why you are calling because there is nothing they can tell you other than what I mentioned in my first post.  I'm going to just guess that the email address will have the same response.  Good job throwing away customers. 

[Jimmienomam]

Yes both give you the same canned response. The only reason I can imagine that you were banned was possible theft.

The games database can/will be given to local police if there are reports of stolen items (this is a township regulation for paw laws so they are different all over). I assume if your games match up with the thefts they can flag you. Since there is no serial numbers to debate it then it's just speculation on their part. Since they can deny any trade they might have chosen to blacklist you INCASE you might have stolen them. Because if you do those games are seized with no compensation.

This info and the following is coming from personal experience, A District Manager and other posters. No one completely understands the banning process, including the DM. The DM even stated that his info was just hearsay.

Apparently BBY wanted a TRE type system for their game trade in. Pretty much an unbias division that purely goes by numbers and data. Instead of outsourcing they created a division pretty much completely seperate from BBY but still part of BBY. As such most people don't know and cannot access this information that people are asking questions about, like yourself. The people at the line just are a face and have very little info themselves (I know it's stupid to have the number when they can't do much, if anything, at all).

Apparently there are 3 things that can get you banned. Possible theft, Dealer and profiteer/abuser.

Theft is hairy as they need to walk the line trying to protect themselves, but not putting people off.

Dealer is just a person that is contracted and gets cheaper games from manufacturers to resell in their store, but when they can't or major sales hit they pawn them off to BBY. These are usually denoted by multiple copies of newer games.

Profiteer is just abusing the system by readin in lots of games they got cheaper other places, thus abusing their system.

Like I said you were either flagged/lined up with theft or just wrongfully flagged. I still know of no way to get UN-banned, but there have been a couple on other forums that spent hours talking to lots of different people that finally were able to get work arounds (that shouldn't have been done as it wiped any info of previous trades from their ID, which can become a HUGE mess if police subpoena those records)

Overall all I can say is sorry. a mod will be along in 2-5 days and will try to help, but will probably hit a wall and not be able to resolve it the way you want