Karma and The Problematic Customer [DP Store]

[Mangar]

Let me preface this by saying - I am NOT a nice person(in fact, i'm kind of a dick), however i am a fair and honest one.

1. I'd have taken the Space Invaders I had in stock, shown her the price and remained firm. I'd have blatantly let her know that she was mistaken, and if she insisted that she was told via phone. I'd simply have told her tough - This is what we pay. The problem I'd have had with this situation, is that i'd have known i was CLEARLY being railroaded and taken advantage of. Which don't fly with me. If that costs me a customer? So be it. Sometimes you have to think like that.

2. I'd have probably handled this situation the exact same way and taken the 10$ loss. The fact that she came back later and such would have led me to believe that she felt genuinely slighted, and I'd have just eaten the difference, while assuring my cashier in the way you did.

3. I'd have let them work out the trade, and sort of held my annoyance in. The problem with booting them out, or yelling at them is that you end up looking like a greedy prick no matter what. Visions of "The Comic Book Guy" from the Simpsons enter my head immediately. It's not as if the person trading the items in was soliciting them to others. Someone simply overheard, and offered him more for items he want. It's something that probably most of us would do. If i seen for example some guy trying to sell Q-Berts Qubes for the Colecovision(A game i currently want for my collection) for 2$ at some shoppe, i'd immediately pipe in with a better offer. I probably wouldn't give a shit if the shopkeeper cared either. More importantly i'd say: Is that the overall bad feelings you would generate by kicking them out or interfering with people who are obviously interested in the exact sort of product and merchandise that you sell, isn't worth the small gain on the trade-in's. By not interfering, they will be more inclined to come back and give you future business.

[Mayhem]

Personally in those situations...

1) Refuse, and then make sure never to give trade in values over the phone as policy.

2) Take her details and check the totals at the end of the day.

3) Politely inform the female customer she may not enter into a transaction with the guy on your premises. That would probably mean they would leave the shop I guess.

[roxybaby]

You have to do whatever will let you sleep at night. Might not make the most sense business-wise, but your work is what you love and you don't want to end up with guilt. It all works out in the end.

[Fuyukaze]

If I sound like I'm being an ass, please understand having worked retail for the past 6 years I've come to see how ugly customers can get.

1.You've been had. Unless your emp agreed to be there to finish it, I highly doubt your emp would ever quote her $12 for a complete copy. She may have been quoted $3 on the phone (if the seller even called) but I'm more then willing to bet the only miscomunication was all on her part. Perhaps a son had called and believed he could expect $12 for it. Perhaps a number of things. I'd have sugested her come when the person who quoted the price was present as she's the one who "agreed" to $12 for it. Sure, you'd have posibly lost a customer (potential or other) but you also wouldnt have lost $9.

2.Wait, oh, wait! I cant stop laughing! You got burned!!!! Atleast she was honest and gave the $10 back. People used to try this on me all the time and the owners of the gas station would tell me to just give them the money. At closing my register would oddly enough come up short each and every time. Funny but the same people would often come in and shop lift beer reguardless of the times I'd request the owners have them banned from the place.

3.You pay rent right? All your bills are paid by you right? I'm sure you have a security/alarm system set up for the shop as well, right? Those people who work for you, you pay their wages I'm going to guess as well. Kinda certain they dont all volunteer from the bottem of their heart either. Ok, now that we've established some facts about this, then perhaps you need to put up a sign? Something about NO SOLICITING in your store? Your store, your buisness, YOUR LOSS if you dont make any money. If she doesnt like that then she can get her own place and set up shop. Your in this to make money. Maybe not enough to rival gamestop, EB, or gamecrazy, but enough to make ends meet atleast.


All in all, you dont have to be the bad guy to make money. You dont have to nickle and dime people and you dont have to de-humanize them either. Your doing none of that though. Your being taken advantage of. Dont agree to an agreement you know nothing of, get a camera on that register so you know what's going in and coming out (have it so it shows customers and emps both), and for the love of god, remember it's your shop, not theirs! If this continues (and it will once your shop's name gets around) you will be out of buisness. Be the nice guy, dont be the gimp.


Also, for future refrence, your not a bank so if someone comes in, buys something dirt cheap, give them only exact change. If they give you a $20 bill and buy something that only costs $3.27, dont let them tell you they want 16 one dollor bills and then change their mind that they want a $10 bill. Exspecialy when your busy as they are probly only handing you 9 of those ones back. Money changers will eventualy target you. Dont let that be another story you feel guilty about in the future.

[suckerpunch5]

1. Every store I trade games at NEVER gives out prices over the phone, probably to avoid this very circumstance. To many posibilities for miscommunication. Condition also plays a role, so you need to see the item. What if the disc is all scratched up, ect? I think its reasonable to just not give trade-in prices over the phone.

2. Well, that was the good guy thing to do. And good on her for bringing it back. Well done.

3. You don't have to put up with other people buying stuff out from under you in your own store. You pay the rent. They are using your place of business for their own gain. You can politely tell her that she can't do that sort of thing, and if she has a problem with it, politely tell her you don't need her business. That is terribly rude.

[chrisbid]

1. no price quotes over the phone, in a different scenario a price can be quoted for a game over the phone, and when the person on the phone brings in the game with the word 'bitch' written in marker before the title, you would not want to give full value for that.

2. when i was a cashier at a grocery store in the day, some woman with a baby pulled that trick on me, but it was just a simple hustle. i counted my cash drawer twice, and had the manager count it. so then she accused me of pocketing the money. so the manager gave her the ten bucks. to this day, that still pisses me off.

3. one warning that the practice is not acceptable and after that they get the permanent boot. if you want to be a nice guy, then you at least deserve a finders fee. thats how ebay and amazon make their millions.


i am a firm believer in firing the absolute worst customers. they are a drain on resources, and likely do not give you either profit or positive word of mouth.

[FVJVMVP]

Wow, I should stop by your store. The payouts at my sources are'nt nearly as high.

Before I give my thoughts, I want you to know that I think karma is a whole lot of crap. Go ahead and sue me, I believe that just because somebody acts like a dick to somebody, does'nt mean that person will be charred to a cinder the next day. The same goes for nice people; if somebody carries an old woman's groceries across the street he/she is not going to get some kind of reward from out of the blue. Of course, bad deeds and good deeds have their consequences, but I do not believe this is karma but instead our human understanding of right and wrong and basic understanding of action versus reaction. If you think that some guy got arrested for stealing fifty dollars out of a colledge kid's purse because some omnipotent yet unseen force willed it to, I will not hold back: you are an idiot.

So without further ado...
Scenario 1: Okay, this should be easy. If the costumer complains that he/she is'nt getting what they expect as far as trade-ins, that's their beef. You run the store, it's your rules. Tell her that's all you can offer and there's no exceptions. You lose the overexagerrated game but keep the money. She/he will probably look for other people who'll buy the game, get dissapointed and eventually the product will make fine nesting for the birds.

Scenario 2: I think you handled this perfectly, though luck played a big part. Even if the lady had been playing you for a fool you'd still learn an invaluable lesson that would probably save you more than a mere ten bucks.

Scenario 3: Again, this goes back to the "your store, your rules" thing. I visited a guy like you who ran a third party game shop who dealed with this stuff all the time (god, I miss him). Generally he'd let this thing fly by as he was pretty easygoing and was never really interested in any of the stuff he was brought. Still, I think you should've denied the lady her in-store bartering rights. It's a tough descision, but if you want something bad enough you'll do anything to get it. Pulling the "it's against stoe policy" trick out of your ass is a shitty move but it gets the job done. You may not want to do this with frequent visitors, however.

Oh, how I can see the flames now...

[Mianrtcv]

All scenarios are what make drinking more socially acceptable.

[MF_Luder]

#3 is obviously the toughest, but I think you made a good call. What's the most you could do? Probably ask them to take it outside the store. The woman was wrong for initiating that transaction, but once that starts you can't do much to stop it. You would have came off as a complete jerk if you tried to stop the woman from haggling with them. First, often a private party can offer more than you because they don't have to resell them at a profit in the store. Obviously you have a business to run and can't make any profit if you pay full price for the games-- but in this case, the woman doesn't have that same interest in mind, so she can offer more. And who's offer do you think the 2 guys want: yours or hers?

So if the woman came up and was like "Wait, I'll give you $50 for all those!" and you were like "Sorry ma'am, you can't do that!", what's probably going to happen?... if the 2 guys had any common sense they would tell you to shut up and keep your $35. Right? Now, if they were 2 regulars they might be willing to take your offer out of respect to you, but if they're just 2 guys off the street then they're always going to take the higher offer.

It seems like some people have suggested that you should have cut off that transaction between the two, asked the woman to leave, and forced the guys into your $35 offer. But this isn't quite plausible and no matter what, you could do nothing to completely stop the transaction (in any possible scenario the 2 guys could have always turned down your offer and sold the games to her outside the store). So in being a "nice guy" without being too generous, I think the best idea in future cases is to say that you don't allow that kind of solicitation in the store, and make the 2 guys decide whether they want to take it outside or accept your $35 offer. I think doing this may have deterred the 2 guys from selling to her-- at that point you had already offered a good price and this woman hadn't even had a chance to looks through the games and make her own offer. So there's a decent chance the guys would have just taken the $35 and passed on haggling outside the store with some random woman.

[Buyatari]

It seems like some people have suggested that you should have cut off that transaction between the two, asked the woman to leave, and forced the guys into your $35 offer. But this isn't quite plausible and no matter what, you could do nothing to completely stop the transaction.

Ohh its VERY possible to stop. I've done it for years with a 100% success rate. Not only does Joe have the games in his hand this is taking place IN HIS STORE! You just try to pull this stunt in a mom and pop shop where the owner isn't as nice as Joe. Go hang out in the next random pawn shop you see and try to haggle with the next guy who walks in with something to pawn. You are in for it. Don't believe me go try it.

So if he lets his customers do this now his employees will want the same chance. TRUST ME. Employees feel they deserve more than the avg customer. Give them LESS RIGHTS than the avg customer is not good for morale. Low morale leads to other problems like out right theft which they justify because they weren't able to get the same deals (aka shafted by the greedy owner). So now what do you do? You go from the only game in town to an in-store auction with every trade. This one is huge. I'd never under any circumstances let it happen and the employees have to know how you strongly you feel because they will find items every day they would like to purchase. If you pass on the item then and only then and take it outside off the store property.

[walrusmonger]

^^^ Damn straight, far too many times a jerkoff boss made the staff at the old store I worked at feel like shit, some of them stole, but me and one other employee would rape every trade in that came in. I think that taking the cream of the crop before the store can mark it up and make loads of easy profit is actually more damaging to the store.

So for 1- I would have told the woman that prices don't change, and you will have to handle the situation with the employee. Say that you'll really give it to her, to make the jerkoff customer feel a little guilt if possible

2- Couting out the register is always the best thing to do, but if you want your rep. to be "mr nice guy" then trusting the customer is the best way to do it. Since she took cash though, I doubt she'll be buying very much though, but at least now she can tell her friends that she knows a good place to get rid of the old games!

3- "I'm sorry guys, you can't do that here." Then you go into the whole "We give you a warranty on the game, etc" and make the other person feel like they're taking a risk by buying off of someone else. Maybe throw in a "we professionally clean everything with the highest quality products to ensure they work, you can damage the carts if you are not careful."

I would also post a sign, or maybe host a "trade day" once in a while. Charge everyone $5 as a "testing service fee" (to make sure they dont trade a dracula x for chrono trigger and mario rpg, only to have a street fighter 2 board inside of drac x) and stamp their hands, require traders to be 18 or with a parent, and offer to tell them the value of the games to ensure everyone gets a fair deal.

[Barbarianoutkast85]

#1 I would of told the woman that there was a miscommunication. If she wants to sell it, she will get $3. You'r a bussiness not a sucker.

#2 I would have counted the drawer, if the drawer was off then you owe her the 10 if not, then explain to her that your drawer is dead-on and she's out of luck.

#3 I would have done the same thing as you since it was the first time this has happened. Now if I were you and saw this same customer pull the same move. Then I would tell him how it is.

[MF_Luder]

Ohh its VERY possible to stop. I've done it for years with a 100% success rate. Not only does Joe have the games in his hand this is taking place IN HIS STORE! You just try to pull this stunt in a mom and pop shop where the owner isn't as nice as Joe. Go hang out in the next random pawn shop you see and try to haggle with the next guy who walks in with something to pawn. You are in for it. Don't believe me go try it.

So if he lets his customers do this now his employees will want the same chance. TRUST ME. Employees feel they deserve more than the avg customer. Give them LESS RIGHTS than the avg customer is not good for morale. Low morale leads to other problems like out right theft which they justify because they weren't able to get the same deals (aka shafted by the greedy owner). So now what do you do? You go from the only game in town to an in-store auction with every trade. This one is huge. I'd never under any circumstances let it happen and the employees have to know how you strongly you feel because they will find items every day they would like to purchase. If you pass on the item then and only then and take it outside off the store property.

I understand what you're saying and agree that having a very strict policy against this is a very good idea. However, my point is that Joe can't just stop it completely, even though you're saying it can be stopped 100%. The games belong to the 2 guys, not Joe yet, so they are welcome to do whatever they want with them. If someone runs up to the 2 guys and says "Hey, I'll give you $15 more than he's offering you for those!", Joe can completely flip out on the woman if he wants to, but it still doesn't prevent the 2 guys from walking out of the store and selling it to the woman anyways! So the point is, there is no way to 100% stop it... all you can do is find ways to deter it as much as possible.

Some people were suggesting that if Joe had played the "bad guy" for once and asked the woman to stop, that he definitely would have gotten the full $35 trade in from the 2 guys. I was merely pointing out that, while stepping in may have been a good idea, it's not like Joe can force the guys to accept his offer. I've also been to Joe's store a couple times and met him and he doesn't seem the type that would flip out on customer-- he has a very polite demeanor with customers, so I couldn't picture him doing anything more than politely asking them not to engage in that in the store. So while you can have a 100% strict policy to stop it in INSIDE your store and say "I'm sorry, but I don't allow that in here", there is absolutely nothing that can be done once they say "OK, we'll step outside then". Sure, you can ban them from coming back to the store, but I'm sure Joe would prefer to save that for multiple offenders rather than losing customers over one-time incidents.

[Push Upstairs]

Scenario 1: I've dealt with numerous times when I worked behind the counter.

Like everyone else said, no quotes over the phone...EVER. I would have told the lady that my employee was mistaken and that the quote has always been $3...end of conversation. If she didn't like the going price then that is her tough luck. It's a business, not a charity. The store is how you put food on the table.

I had one person call me up and give me the "but the other guy gave me quotes!" to which I snapped back "Well he shouldn't have!" Customers pulled this crap all the time even saying other stores gave quotes too (they don't).

Scenario 3: I had to deal with this once. I simply told the two that I can't allow them to do their business in the store, but once they were outside there was nothing I could do. I recall that it wasn't something overly rare or something we didn't get in good supply, so it wasn't really a huge loss.

[Cryomancer]

If you still have the space invaders, auction it off on DP! "be the one to own the fabled cart spoken of in this topic!"

well it might get you the 12 back anyway.

the third thing is tricky, as I myself have sorta done that in a store...but i bought the stuff off the guy that the store turned down, after their trade was done. Maybe that's different. It was still in the store though... if she was yelling at the guy while he was being checked out though, I say too bad, you got the sale first. A sign might not be a bad idea.

[digitalpress]

Wow, guess this was more of a hot-button than I thought. Thanks for all the replies, I'm sorta working backwards through them now as I catch up.

So if he lets his customers do this now his employees will want the same chance. TRUST ME. Employees feel they deserve more than the avg customer. Give them LESS RIGHTS than the avg customer is not good for morale.

I've made it very clear to my team that this isn't acceptable. They know that they're not to undercut my prices or make side deals, and they know that most of my customers come back and talk to me so I'm going to find out about it if they even try. Not that it matters, they're a great bunch, I take care of them (they can put *anything* aside for themselves and we'll work out a much better deal than the store's price, especially on high end items). No one has broken this policy to date.

I do have a follow-up question to all of the "don't give estimates over the phone". I've considered this in the past, but doesn't GameStop and Game Crazy give estimates? If not, then this is a no-brainer for our store as well. Quite frankly I hate the calls asking "how much will you give me".

[walrusmonger]

I know the gamestops in my area (queens, ny) and the gamecrazy I worked at never give trade prices over the phone. The reason they told me, was because they want the customer to come into the store and just get rid of their stuff.

Since you will take back older games too, you have less competition in that area, but with newer stuff I would stick to a no price giving policy. You probably give more than the other stores, but at least make it harder on the customer to find a reason to not want to go into your store

[scooterb23]

I've seen a Gamestop employee give prices over the phone once, and only once, in my however many years of shopping there. This was about 3 months ago.

It went something like this...

"No sir, we don't give prices over the phone, you need to bring them in...yes, I understand but...but...*sigh* ok, you'd get $1 in trade for that game, thank you and...ummm 50 cents...$2...$1.50...no we don't even take those anymore...$1...$1...25 cents..." *insert 10 more minutes of this* "Sir, I really need to go, I'm not even supp...$1...$2...50 cents...have a good day."

So, the next week I went back, and asked if that guy ever came in, and the guy behind the counter said yeah...and all the games were burns. That one ended with mall security and eventually the police being called.

Moral of the story, don't give prices over the phone.

[MF_Luder]

I do have a follow-up question to all of the "don't give estimates over the phone". I've considered this in the past, but doesn't GameStop and Game Crazy give estimates? If not, then this is a no-brainer for our store as well. Quite frankly I hate the calls asking "how much will you give me".

I agree with what everyone else said about not giving prices over the phone. First, it's a hassle to you, and takes time away from the customers who are actually in the store. Second, the prices offered for trade-ins are never going to be compelling enough to get someone to come to the store. You have a business to run and can't offer a "Wow!" kind of price for trade-ins, unless you were charging "WTF!" kind of prices to customers. So all giving trade-in prices over the phone is going to do is scare people away. Once they've already made the trip to the store, it's much more likely that they'll trade-in at least part of what they bring. Plus, when dealing with older games, condition is such an important factor. You don't want to offer $10 on the phone and then get some scratched up Saturn disc in a smashed up case, and then have to explain to the guy that your offer no longer stands. I think the best thing to do is say that you can only give accurate trade-in prices in person, but that you typically offer more than the big chain stores. This way you avoid scaring them off while also making it more likely that the don't take their trade-in elsewhere.

I even use this when dealing with people in my local area. When ever people want to sell gaming stuff to me, they usually ask me to make an offer. I usually tell them that I need to see the stuff in person to make a decision-- partly because I want to know the exact condition of everything I'm buying, and partly because I know they'll be more willing to haggle on the price if I'm already there with cash in hand.

[Apollo]

The first one, I think you should've met halfway betweenthe rice you would've given her and the twelve dollars.

For the second, you did the right thing. Good job, Joe.

For the third, dropkick her, then throw her into a table lined with cake and a punch bowl. Like some sort of bizarro 8th grade school dance.