How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

[ODogg]

I was just wondering how much money Gamestop and others are making on customers who plunk down $5 to preorder a title and then forget about it and just lose that $5.

So I ask all of you, who here has ever preordered a game for $5 down (or whatever amount) and then forgotten about it when the game came out?

Anyone?

[NoleFan]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

I think I’ve got $5 on a preorder at GameStop and don’t even own a console now. I’m going to get my money tomorrow. Lol


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[fsufan4423]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

I’ve done it, walked into GameStop knowing I’ve done it, and they still didn’t mention it at check out until I said something. If you look around on YouTube, you’ll find ex employees who claim that GameStop encourages them not to mention it.

I’m sure they make a killing on it.

[ODogg]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

I’ve done it, walked into GameStop knowing I’ve done it, and they still didn’t mention it at check out until I said something. If you look around on YouTube, you’ll find ex employees who claim that GameStop encourages them not to mention it.

I’m sure they make a killing on it.

You know now that I think about it I do recall employees encouraging me "oh you only need $5" when I tried to pay the full amount. That makes sense because they know you maybe will forget $5 but you will NOT forget a full game you bought.

[franch1se]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

Never. Whenever you put it down you get a giant CVS sized receipt you can't lose lol. But IF I pre-order now it's usually only a day or 2 in advance.


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[itsmb8]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

Ive done it before, went back and asked about it, and they claimed it wasnt in the system...

But now i just make all preorders digitally.

[Murph]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

I always thought GameStop called you to let you know your reserved game was in and ready for pickup.

[m1ke_nyc]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

I have . This was some years back. I pre ordered Madden forget which version it was. Completely forgot about it. One day I went to GameStop and happened to remember. I forget which game I got that day but it was either Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe or Fight Night Round 4.

[ODogg]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

I always thought GameStop called you to let you know your reserved game was in and ready for pickup.

I think they're supposed to but don't always do so


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[Blzer]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

I haven't, but I thought after some time they would just cancel it and refund you? For example, if I order an item to pick up in-store at Best Buy and I don't pick it up, they just cancel your order and refund you in that scenario. Maybe pre-orders are the same?

Anyway, a bit unrelated, but if your forgetfulness is a matter of pre-ordering something too far in advance, I provided a cautionary tale about my RDR 2 pre-order experience with a debit card that was due to expire between the order and the game's release date (and it's not like I only plopped $5 down, I had paid it in full). I don't know if it was just a Best Buy thing, though.

[ODogg]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

I haven't, but I thought after some time they would just cancel it and refund you? For example, if I order an item to pick up in-store at Best Buy and I don't pick it up, they just cancel your order and refund you in that scenario. Maybe pre-orders are the same?

Anyway, a bit unrelated, but if your forgetfulness is a matter of pre-ordering something too far in advance, I provided a cautionary tale about my RDR 2 pre-order experience with a debit card that was due to expire between the order and the game's release date (and it's not like I only plopped $5 down, I had paid it in full). I don't know if it was just a Best Buy thing, though.

Well gamestop never does refund it until you ask them to. I say that because I recall one year I preordered Madden with $5 and then I ended up getting it early and forgot all about it until nearly a year later I was cleaning out my wallet and found the receipt. Went back in and transferred the $5 to another game.

[KSUowls]

Re: How many of you have put $5 down on a preorder and forgotten about it?

Regarding the belief that gamestop employees are supposed to not tell someone if they have an old reservation. It's been 10+ years since I worked at gamestop, but unless things have changed there isn't some directive to withhold information about unclaimed reservations. IIRC when give your phone number for your account if you have any unclaimed reservations then a message will pop up for the employee to let them know about the unclaimed reserve and they can't continue until they click "yes"/"no" that the person is picking up the game. Plus (again this information is 10 years old at this point) the two most important metrics for a store are daily game reservations and powerup rewards subscriptions. If you tell someone they have some old reservation there is a chance you can get them to pick up that game and "roll $5 onto another reservation". There may have also been some metrics around number of reservations which were completed for purpose (I don't recall for sure). Either way it's counter productive for a store manager to tell his employees to try and keep reserves unclaimed. Also, from an accounting perspective those reservations are a liability until the purchase is completed, even if they do result in some nominal cash increase.

Regarding the thread topic. I've definitely done this before. I used to do a lot of reservations back in HS/College, and there were a couple of times where I forgot about them. The next time I made a trip to the store I found out about them though and usually just applied that $5 to whatever I was buying at the time since I obviously wasn't excited enough about the reserved game to keep up with the release of it.