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Gamestop, the retail giant most known for their pre-owned game buy back program is synonymous with Christmas for holiday shopping with gamers. However, what you may not know is that their holiday return policy falls right in line with families and shoppers who are looking to save that extra buck, or may not necessarily know how to go about navigating around the red tape.

That’s what this article is about. If you don’t want to drop a lot of money for Christmas, or are just unsure about what you want to get someone or yourself, it’s a cinch to take advantage of the policy that Gamestop practically designed for shoppers who need to either save a buck, or on the cheap play games that they consider too expensive for a few months.

The best way to explain this is to give you blueprints on how this will work in the US, as I haven’t tested it worldwide yet. So to start the items you want to buy are pre-owned items, as they’re the one’s you’ll be returning. We’ll use a few newer games for this example. Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Gears of War 4, and Battlefield 1. Gamestop Normally has a seven-day return policy for pre-owned items, but for the holiday’s they extend it out to January 15th. Between October 24th and December 24th, any pre-owned purchases made can be returned for a fully tendered refund of. However, the original payment was tendered at the point of sale.

This Holiday season has a lot to offer for Gamers worldwide.

What this means is you get practically 90 days to return the game (s) or consoles you purchase as long as they’re pre-owned, and you keep your receipt. Play the games you want on a budget and return them after beating them up. Buy the DLC and game back later when the price is dropped to almost half of its value after its launch date.

Now you’re already ahead on the board, but what would make that even better? Getting a free discount card on top of the savings you’re about to get going. Now if you buy a Gamestop Power Up Rewards Silver membership at $14.99, you’ll get 12 issues of their in store magazine Gameinformer, plus a bonus Buy 2 Get 1 free reward for signing up. This will come into play in a very important way in just a moment. So once you bring the three titles up to the register your math should look like this:

Gears of War 4 $54.99

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare $54.99

Battlefield 1 $54.99

Power up Rewards Card $14.99

“Power to the players!” Well, I sure hope so at least.

Before you, panic remember, you’re going to get a free rewards card and a refund within 90 days. So if you take 10% off of each of the titles, you get $15.00 back off the price of the purchase essentially making the rewards card free, and giving the associate a marker on their sales goal( they get judged on how many of these they sell heavily). Decline the offer for financing on the Gamestop credit card since 26% apr is ridiculous, and register the card for the Buy 2 Get 1 free deal. Now, if they aren’t advertising Buy 2 get 1 free in store already use it, but if they are, then save your online coupon, and pair it with another batch of games to gain more points and possibly a $10 discount coupon. This is where things get a little tricky, but I’ve got you.

If you choose you can walk away with the three games and a free rewards card and still get a full refund for the three games before January 15th. Or if you want to keep it going you can use your discount coupon to get a free game out of the three and get the refund for the difference back. The system will always choose the equal or lesser value to do so. To top it all off within 30 days of actually having the rewards card you can return with receipt in hand to the store, or another location and demand a refund for your rewards card. Let’s face it. You’ll probably never use it beyond this holiday purchase anyway. Your grand total? Over $60+ in savings, plus a free game–if you decide to do it that way. Now, if the associate tries to tell you that the Power Up Rewards card isn’t refundable when you go back for the refund on that, it’s not true at all.

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Which games do you intend to pick up during this year’s holiday season?

Simply inform them that you’re aware of their return policy, and that they must comply. If they still won’t help you speak to their Store Manager. If the Store Manager won’t help you, tell them you want their District Manager’s information. Should they fail to provide it, tell them you will take their survey on the bottom of the receipt and give them the lowest score all around. Mention their name as you state this to really drive your point home to get placed in contact with their District Manager.

The Gamestop District Managers read and see all of the negative scores from customers for the survey as well as the positive ones. The shareholders and investors need this information to keep the company afloat and attract more stock buyers or preferred shareholders if you will. Now that you have all the tools you need to have an excellent holiday shopping season, courtesy of Gamestop, go out and make your consoles great again this Christmas to play online and ring in the New Year!

Credit:
Robin Ek – Editor

Kenay Peterson
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheDark_Mage