"Pre-ordered Ultima Online: Anniversary Edition on the 29th. Order immediately showed as Processing, as is apparently typical. The ship date for this item is and was June 21st. Four (five, actually, but in the 4 hours before they close shop they don't answer their phone nor respond to e-mail) days before the game was to even ship out, I requested a cancellation on the order based on what I've learned since (For those who do not follow Ultima Online, my gripe was stupidly overpowered items on shards that did not wish to have them easily and cheaply purchasable). My first cancellation e-mail languished overnight, to be met with a "You cannot cancel an order that has been shipped. Regards, Gamestop." Well, I went back to the order tracking page. It's still four full days before they would even begin shipping the item to me. The order is listed as processing, and still listed on their webpage as a pre-order instead of an order. I point this out to them. I am told that "Due to high demand, we have started shipping this item early, and you cannot cancel it. Regards, Gamestop".

Yes, I see. High demand on a product that is only applicable to current subscribers to a dying MMOG, enough to merit breaking the golden rule of software retailing and to ship the item out *BEFORE* the official release date. There have been a lot of games I have begged and nagged to try to get a store to release to me before the official date, many from Electronic Arts itself. It's never worked: They say they would literally get sued by the company to release something before their publicized release date, even though they admit that in the back of the store there are entire pallet-fulls of said software.

So, I e-mail them once more asking how an order would be shipped out already and therefore unretrievable when my order status page still says... ORDER PROCESSING! This is still 4 days before the ship date of the product, much less the expected arrival. I'm told the next day (gotta love closing four hours before their hours indicate! And yes, I checked time zones.) again that the product has shipped and I cannot cancel the order. However, I should contact them if I wish to return the order. I've been trying for a day to get this resolved. My order still shows as processing.

Fourth e-mail now, I request an RMA for this game since I am apparently going to be receiving it regardless of whether or not I wish to cancel the order, and I know far, far too many people who have been refused refunds because the game "may have been tampered with", despite all games nowadays coming with more intact "NO RETURNS IF BROKEN" seals than prescription bottles. So my plan is simply to ship the entire UPS box back, unopened and unobserved, to avoid this.

To my surprise, I'm told by a fourth employee that "as long as your order is still processing, you can definitely cancel it". Well, I forward that e-mail to them two days before expected shipping, along with a another, completely reworded cancellation request. I get two "read message" recipts (which is a first, each other message has been read only once) for the e-mail.. and no reply at all.

An hour ago, I checked my order status again, and it's now marked shipped! ... Of course, the UPS tracking number doesn't work, so I can't find out when I'm getting my lovely bundle of unwanted game. I was never even told why I was getting contradictory reports on shipping out, and now I deeply suspect I will be required to ship back a $20 game for far more than that, as returns require full insurance and shipping via a carrier that provides a trackin number.

Added: Was advised by Gamestop to refuse shipment in an e-mail dated two days after the shipment arrived, but had already done so. Got the refund today (7/10/04), which I suppose is forgivable given the fourth holiday and weekends."

"Not very happy with gamestop. I pre-ordered a game about a month before it's release date. The release date was 4-27. 4/27 Comes, and No game. No email. No nothing. Now, when you preorder a game, you are supposed to get it on the release date, or at least be warned that it will be late. So, in the evening, on 4/27 I call gamestop to see where my game is. Oh, they shipped it today. But i still have gotten no invoice. It wasnt until 24 hours later that I finally get shipping conf. So the game will be 2 days late. Not a BIG deal, but there was no information relayed back to me at all. Will not shop there again. "

"I have placed several orders from GameStop and have gone back to them because of the great service. Even when I have used standard shipping, my order has arrived very quickly (3-5 days). When I have ordered using 2 day shipping, my item really arriving in 2 days!

I like GameStop’s tracking feature on their website that allows you to log in and check the status of your shipment. Last December, I ordered a couple video games for Christmas and noticed on their website that my package was held up in Dallas for two days. So, I called customer service, which was very polite and helpful. They found out that my order had been lost by FEDEX and offered to ship me a new order right away with 2 day shipping. They were true to their word.

Gamestop has a user-friendly website with decent prices. Often times, you can find coupon codes to use with your purchase there. I would buy from them again and recommend that you give them a try.
"

"Excellent service. However I did not get any emails about my order shipping status.

Will buy again.

"

"I ordered Looney Tunes B Ball for Super Nintendo and Time Splitters 2 for Gamecube. I payed for the value shipping and they still only took 5 days to arrive. The GC game was new, and the SNES game arrived in very good condition. I was very happy with my order. Gamestop's prices are fair, their webpage has a great setup, and they are a trustworthty place to order from. In spite of their low rating, I won't hesitate to order from them again and you shouldn't either. "

"I ordered 2 games on Tuesday and recieved them on Saturday (USPS). The items were well packaged/protected and the whole transaction went very smoothly.

On a sidenote; I agree with firestorm225, I don't think GameStop deserves the bum rating they've gotten just because a few opportunists weren't able to take advantage of them."

"Ordered on Thursday morning. Used coupon for free 2-day shipping. Received prompt email and tracking information. Games arrived Saturday morning. Perfect."

"Gamestop.com was offering a free bonus disk if you pre-ordered Lords of Everquest from them. I placed my order on 11/14/03. My order shipped on 12/01/03. I received my order on 12/02/03. I did not receive my bonus disk. I have e-mailed them numerous times and called them numerous times about this issue but no one will do anything about it. They say they do know about it and have the bonus disks but have no idea when they will be sending them out."

"I ordered for the wrong platform and called immediately to cancel the order.

The order was not cancelled. I cancelled a second time. A day later they shipped anyway.

I let them know that I would return the package and expected them to pay the shipping.

They ignored my request and will only refund the purchase price, which they say may take up to 60 days.

Very bad customer service."

"I ordered Quake 3 Gold and Soldier Of Fortune platinum combo. They do not sell SOF platinum alone. They sent me Quake 3 as a box retail and SOF as just a plain old CD.. no box, manual, case or anything!! They advertized it with a box and gave no indication whatsoever that it would be just plane game with anything else. I sent them an email complaining about it and said it was from a special deal from the manufacturer and there was nothing they could do about it. I am upset as I would never expect to order a new game from a retail store advertized with a box and receive just a cd."

"Order two games. Shipped promptly with no problems at all."

"Ordered PS2 game. Game was in stock and arrived quickly, but disc was fairly badly scratched up. I would not have knowingly sold (or bought) a game in such a condition. On the other hand, it DOES appear to work; presumably they tested it before sending it out.

For all you gamers out there, it's really not THAT hard to take care of your discs!"

"Ordered 4 PC games, got them all very quickly and all the game boxes were in perfect condition. I will definitely shop here again.

FYI, I wouldn't trust the rating of the store and most of the Radeon 9700 comments in the past few pages. Almost every single person that rated has made only one review on ResellerRatings."

"I placed my order last night on gamestop.com for Age of Mythology. Minutes after I placed it (while reviewing my order confirmation), I realized I had ordered the strategy guide as opposed to the actual game. I sent out an e-mail to them within 15 minutes of putting the order in to cancel the order so I can order the correct product from them. Instead of honoring my cancel, which was made within the hour and during a time when they are not in business, they tell me they shipped out the order the next morning at 8 AM and I couldn't cancel! I called their customer service desk, and the representative said they won't cancel the order, and I'll have to pay money to return the goods to them (and my credit card won't be refunded until 7-14 days of getting the good back). Pretty dumb of the gamestop to not cancel a $20 order in exchange of a $50 order and I will never do business with this company again.
"

"Ordered ATI Radeon9700 on 8/27, received it 8/30. 20% off made it a great deal."