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Using GameStop as a bank
- tehwebguy 13y agoOr just buy games with your rewards credit card, return them for a cash refund, then pay off your credit card bill with the cash. You can return new games if they are unopened, used games within 7 days. You get free points and GameStop foots the bill for the credit card fee. Not sure if it's illegal, but definitely a dick move.
- TheSoftwareGuy 13y agonot to mention that if gamestop changes their return policy, you could end up getting royally fucked.
- fiatmoney 13y agoEvery store I've heard of refunds credit card purchases to the card in question, not cash (although with a no-receipt you can sometimes exchange it for store credit, & possibly sell that at a smaller discount than the rewards payoff), and every credit card I've ever heard of doesn't give you rewards if the charges are reversed (either because of a refund or a chargeback). Many stores (eg, Home Depot) also track their customers' refunds and will stop allowing you to return merchandise if you're an outlier.
- tehwebguy 13y agoRight, but GameStop lets you return credit card purchases for cash. Just last month I returned a used game that I didn't like they gave me cash even though the original purchase was with a credit card. My guess is that since they've already eaten the processing % to debit your card they don't want to pay it again to credit your card. Not sure if large scale retail still pays on the reverse, I'm assuming.
- gfodor 13y agoTwo words: counterparty risk. If GameStop goes under, I don't know where "customers who have pre-orders" end up on the line of 'creditors'.
- fiatmoney 13y agoSame as other unsecured creditors, unless the company convinces the bankruptcy court & the other creditors it's to the benefit of the business in the long run to give them what they paid for. Most corporate bankruptcies are restructurings, not liquidations.
- chadillac 13y agoThat's why I transferred all of my earnings to BTC via MTGoX. /s
- robobro 13y agoBet that works real well for paying bills / making online purchases
- dcc1 13y agoI doubt Gamestop accountants are too thrilled about having to do extra work, or potentially be accused of money laundering or running an unlicensed money transmitted business. They can put an end to this overnight by having a simple TOC having to be signed on every preorder. In US you wouldn't want to break TOC...
- josu 13y agoThis seems like satire to me, I wouldn't read to much into it. And I think that the fact that some people are taking it seriously just proves that it's actually pretty good satire.
- teraflop 13y ago"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
- unknownian 13y agoThat's only /b/ though. Based on post numbers this is from /v/, but yeah, anyone can lie.
- aosmith 13y agoThis is retarded. What happens if GameStop goes belly up? You could be out the games and the money. I think this must be a trolling.
- gesman 13y agoGames are like porn - is the best way for people to procrastinate and delay facing the real life issues. This industry will die the last.
- derekp7 13y agoThis guy complains about overdraft fees. Isn't the simple solution not to overdraft? Almost any bank has online access to your account, and ATM/Debit transactions seem to show up immediately. If you are getting toward the end of your pay cycle, make a daily check of your balance. Have a habit of mentally subtracting some fixed amount (say, 1,000) from your balance whenever you look at it, so you always have a cushion too. BTW, when you have a bank turn off overdraft privileges, that applies to your debit card only (i.e., instead of letting a transaction go through it will get denied at the terminal). But any check or automatic withdraw will still generate an overdraft fee. If you need something a bit simpler, set up two accounts -- one for recurring bills, a second one just for your debit card. Have your paycheck split accordingly between the two accounts (or set up an bi-weekly transfer to coincide with your paycheck deposits). Any utility bills, mortgage / rent payment, etc comes out of the bills account. Then you never miss an important bill payment. Bonus -- to make this work, you need a bit more going into the bills account than what goes out. At the end of the year, you will then have a surprise savings balance sitting there.
- thefreeman 13y agoMan, no offense, but you sound like someone who has never worked paycheck to paycheck. I'm not endorsing his banking scheme, but I can sympathize with the shityt overdraft fees are. Also "seem to come in order" is not really good enough when you are down to 5 or 10 dollars left. Also, I have seen many examples of banks processing things out of order to maximize the overdraft fees. Ie. processing larger transactions before smaller ones that occured before them chronologically, so that a number of 4 or 5 dollar purchases would end up each having a $35 overdraft fee. For 95% of situations it would be much more in the customers interest to just reject the transactions. But the banks make a killing off of exploiting the people who can least afford it (those with almost no money in their account). edit: downvotes? Anyone care to actually tell me what is downvote worthy in this post? The guy's recommendation to "subtract 1000" from whatever your balance is is totally infeasible for a large portion of the population.
- ajcarpy2005 13y agoShouldn't this be an illegal banking practice?
- kenrikm 13y agoWhy not just use a reload-able prepaid debit card if he/she is that bad at managing money? Managing your bank account is not that difficult. I bank with Chase and they warn you if you get under the notification level you set, my phone will actually vibrate in my pocket with the message just after I swipe the card. Also even if you do overdraft and you get notified (with Chase)and can go make a cash deposit that same day and they won't charge you any fees. BOA is a different beast, stay far, far away from BOA if you can.
- warmwaffles 13y agoMoney laundering?
- kennywinker 13y agoWalmart gives cash back when you return something purchased on a credit card. Not sure what the parameters of this are, but I had it happen once with a ~$300 purchase and it was weird and very "money launder-y"
- brownbat 13y agoWalmart gift cards on cardpool.com generally have a pretty tight spread and high supply (liquidity?). I'm kind of curious how many Walmart cards are actually bought as a legitimate gift rather than as some kind of vehicle to transfer money.
- ivanca 13y agoInstead of posting judgement over this guy it would be more interesting to talk about other financial hacks. One 'hack' I do is to use my credit card outside my country, but when I get paid in my own country my family repays the credit card debt with that money; is cheaper than using wire-transfer (i.e. western union) or direct bank transfer.
- arjie 13y agoI'm not sure if I understand. Essentially you're saying your credit card company has a better exchange rate than the other two services?
- pak 13y agoYes, I can believe that is what he is saying. Certain banks/credit cards have relationships with foreign institutions that can cause unexpectedly low fees, given the right circumstances. On top of which, I've found that both Western Union and bank-to-bank transfers, on the whole, are a huge ripoff on both rates and fees--especially for frequent, small volume scenarios. When I worked in Canada, I used the no-ATM-fee agreement [1] between ScotiaBank and Bank of America to convert USD to CAD and transfer money between the accounts. This involved the rather odd procedure of going to a ScotiaBank ATM, withdrawing a lot of CAD off of the USD in the BofA account, and stuffing the cash right back into the ATM as a deposit on the ScotiaBank account. Any other procedure, including using a teller or trying an online wire transfer, would have been more expensive and inconvenient. The above had no per-transaction fees and only a 3% conversion fee added to the market rate, which is about average compared to credit cards. (Any of Western Union's "instant" options for this kind of transaction require about 9% in fees.) There are some credit cards with no foreign transaction fees, which is what I would use today if I had to do it again. Using such a card to purchase items in the foreign country, and then paying off the balance with the home country bank, results in "free" currency conversion. That's what GP is referring to. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_ATM_Alliance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_ATM_Alliance
- dnr 13y ago
- dimitar 13y agoThis is finance. Anon is storing his assets, dealing with uncertainty. In 'Poor Economics' there was a chapter about saving in West Africa. Apparently the way some people there do it by contributing some money in a pool on a periodical basis and each time the group meets, the pool is immediately given to one member, whose turn it is. So if you are in $10-per day group that withdraws once a month, you can be sure that once every 30 days you'll withdraw your $300, without worrying too much about banks, withdrawal fees, etc.
- mmmdelishus 13y agoIt's actually very widespread in all sorts of countries and cultures. There was a good Planet Money show that talked about it here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/18/193176928/episode-466-diy-finance http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/18/193176928/episode-... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susu_(savings) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susu_(savings)
- jdn 13y agoWhat is going on with that Wikipedia article. The first two sentences are written badly to the point of being incomprehensible.
- arrrg 13y agoIf you understand German (I couldn’t find the French version) you can also watch this about the same principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A2LYK9x9eM&t=325s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A2LYK9x9eM&t=325s It’s basically identical to the Susu in the Wikipedia article you linked to (and many of the same points are made in the radio and TV show), but this time it’s called a Tontine and it’s being used in France (imported from Africa): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine The Tontine described in that article is a bit different from what you were describing and from what Susu is – but the Tontine described in the TV show is basically identical to the one described in the radio show.
- bbosh 13y agoI think this idea first appeared in the United States. I'm sure there's a story about how Ford sold the Model T. Few people could afford to purchase up front, so groups of people joined together and paid a set amount each month. Say $50 amongst 100 people. Each month, they'd buy a Model T and a few lucky people would get the car. So, rather than 100 people waiting a year to purchase, on average they waited only 6 months. That spawned the creation of mail order, then revolving credit, and the Western world has never looked back.
- noonespecial 13y agoConsider a venn diagram containing "people smart enough to game GameStop into being their bank", "people not smart enough to avoid overdrafts", and "people not creative enough just to set up a prepaid debit card system for themselves". In the overlapping space of these three circles, you'll find this guy, and a very confused leprechaun riding a unicorn.
- joe_inferno 13y agoBest laugh I've had all day.
- ubernostrum 13y agopeople not smart enough to avoid overdrafts Remember that historically, banks have processed transactions in whatever order is most likely to produce an overdraft, even if the same set of transactions, processed in chronological order, would not produce an overdraft. Also note that the complaint is not that he overdrafted, but that he can't turn off the overdraft "protection" that charges him a fee -- he'd rather just have the transaction declined, and can't get his bank to do that.
- cordite 13y agoCan you produce a source on the "banks have processed transactions in whatever order is most likely to produce an overdraft"?
- ahlatimer 13y agoWikipedia article has some sources on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdraft#Transaction_processing_order http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdraft#Transaction_processin...
- anigbrowl 13y agoHere's an example: http://consumerist.com/2013/10/22/bank-of-america-stops-overdraft-friendly-practice-of-re-ordering-transactions-from-high-to-low/ http://consumerist.com/2013/10/22/bank-of-america-stops-over... Most big banks have done this for a while and only recently abandoned or are abandoning the practice. I anticipate a large class-ation suit and payout within the next few years, because they took this to wildly abusive levels. For example a few years ago I went out one day and made 2 small (<$10) debit card purchases, passed an ATM of my bank and made a cash deposit, and then made a larger purchase an hour later (which was why I had deposited the cash, as I had a low balance). Chronologically this was all good, but thanks to transaction re-ordering I got hit with $105 in fees (#35 x 3).* I got it reversed, but the sad fact is that for a long time the transactions shown on your account and your available balance were treated as fictions to be re-arranged at the bank's convenience if doing so would yield fee income. * eg for illustration, though I don't remember the specifics: a. starting balance $30 b. debit card -$10 = $20 c. debit card -$10 = $10 d. cash deposit +$60 = $70 e. debit card -$65 = $ 5 Which all looked fine at the time (eg checking recent transactions and available balance at ATM following deposit), but 24 hours later the transactions had been reordered from smallest to largest and my account looked like this: a. starting balance $30 e. debit card -$65 =-$35 A. Overdraft fee! -$35 =-$70 d. cash deposit +$60 =-$10 b. debit card -$10 =-$20 B. Overdraft fee! -$35 =-$55 c. debit card -$10 =-$65 C. Overdraft fee! -$35=-$100 I wish I were making this up, but sadly not. I was just lucky enough to have the smarts and time to go into a branch and browbeat a manager into getting the charges reversed. However, my understanding is that millions of people have been ripped off by this trick in recent years.
- webwielder 13y agoGamification is clearly the future of banking.
- vxNsr 13y agoI'm kinda confused, has this dude never heard of Credit cards? Or is he already so bad at money that his credit score is too low?
- hendzen 13y agoI guess Aaron Greenspan needs to sue Gamestop now...
- ulfw 13y agoOr he could... just... I dunno. Use cash. If cash = empty, then no more purchase? Because clearly the guy can't handle his finances using debit cards and keeps on overdrafting his account.
- icebraining 13y agoBy using cash, if his/her house gets robbed, s/he would lose the whole paycheck. Hell, for all we know, s/he might not even be able to trust the people s/he lives with.
- ulfw 13y agoYea and gamespot might go bankrupt or a meteor could hit him on the head. I mean we aren't talking large sums of money here if he is over drafting his checking regularly.
- brixon 13y agoSounds like this scheme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qesFpsi2mII http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qesFpsi2mII
- moot 13y agoQuality contribution(s) in an anonymous community? Who'd a thunk!
- spajus 13y agoSounds better than keeping your money in bitcoins
- spajus 13y agoSounds better than keeping your money in bitcoins
- Houshalter 13y agoI think the larger point of this is that this guy found a system not intended for this at all, and it still works better than businesses set up for this purpose.
- notahacker 13y agoI dunno, my bank not only pays me 3% interest on a current account with free withdrawals from most ATMs and free payments to other bank accounts, it also doesn't send me computer games I don't want if I don't forget to cancel them.
- Nicholas_C 13y agoWhat bank pays 3%?
- notahacker 13y agoSantander in the UK. It's a big market share ploy, but it's a good one, and there isn't really any catch.
- gambiting 13y agoIt strikes me as really weird that a company would take your money for a preorder. It's not really a thing here in the UK, I don't think. Amazon certainly doesn't take my money before the product actually ships, and large stores like GAME or HMV only take a small, non-refundable deposit.
- joshvm 13y agoWhen I worked at GAME we didn't even take a deposit. Managers are pushed to get as many preorders as they can, and as a store it directly affects how many units of a game you get in so there's a big incentive there. It got to the point when we'd ask people if they wanted to preorder anything just in case they wanted it later; there was no obligation to buy it so no harm to the customer and the store would benefit by getting more stock. It was always fun looking at the preorder list.. there were quite a few vapourware titles on it.
- Kluny 13y agoReally? That's what passes for journalism? Straight up copy garbage from reddit, which copied it from 4chan, and republish it without adding ANY original thought to it? That's normal on Buzzfeed, but I didn't know kottke.org was this worthless.
- zwily 13y agoKottke isn't a journalist, he's a blogger.
- anon4 13y agoIf anyone wishes for whatever reason to read the original thread, http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/235956257/#235956257 http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/235956257/#235956257 here. Caution: it may contain content that you find offensive, but was posted in jest in the original context. There is also content that is offensive and posted with the intent to offend. There is also content that is funny, but was posted with the intent to offend. There is no known algorithm to distinguish between them. Read with caution. Images are not archived, only thumbnails. Edit: And before I forget. This thread is on the videogames board, but some people post pictures of anime girls wearing clothes. I've seen people get extremely angry at that practise, so if you're one of them, turn images off or something.