Adam Sibley had preordered a PlayStation 4 from his local Blockbuster. He later decided to cancel that preorder. It turned out to be an even worse idea than preordering from Blockbuster in the first place.
Sibley’s local store, in Dunstable in the UK, had initially refused his request for a cash refund on the money he put down, saying that because the chain was going into administration, they couldn’t handle cash refunds. Instead, they offered him £450 ($762) in store credit.
“Who in their right mind is going to spend £450 on blu-rays and CDs a month before Christmas”, he told the BBC, “it’s unreasonable for them to expect me to do that when I was expecting a console.”
Fair enough! So Sibley took matters into his own hands, camping out in front of the store with a placard and megaphone, demanding his money back and telling other customers not to go inside.
It worked.
He got there at 9am, set up, started shouting and waving his banner around, and by 9.30am he had his money back.
“It’s a great result. I was the first customer in the store and my refund was the first transaction so I am very happy with that.”
Blockbuster refunds megaphone protest man [BBC, via Game Politics]
Comments
36 responses to “A Guy Had To Protest Outside A Blockbuster To Get A PS4 Refund”
Excellent work. Nice to see he got his money back 😀
Also nice to see one of the most overpriced rental stores ever is finally going kaput.
They already did in Australia, got bought out by FEG (Video Ezy) almost 5yrs ago, some franchises are still operating under the old brand…
Anyways serves him right for pre ordering from a video store and pre ordering a GS4…
It’s like pre ordering a DVD from Kmart..
Honestly even though people give them a lot of shit, their online store is great (from my experience) I buy CD’s from them all the time for about half of what I can get them for locally or ones I cannot get at all because they’re “out of print” supposedly.
$2 weekday bluray rentals shits all over paying $8 to stream anyday of the week.
7.95 brand new releases which stay at 7.95 up to six months after release? Nothankyousir.jpg
Hence why I said weekday :p. I don’t rent thurs – sunday, if I wanted to I’d just stream it for the same price lol.
lmao. Fair enough, though to be fair when they have their inevitable going out of business sale, I’ll be there with a few hundred bucks picking up games cheap…
But then you have to deal with all the scratches and jam :p
True that but I always make sure to check the discs first lol. Lets retcon couple hundred to read: 50 bucks lol
That’s only after maths and reality finally caught up with them, but for the longest time, Blockbuster was a nasty business. I still remember $7 overnights with rewind charges and late fees upon late fees. Plus, they put a little local rental store out of business, one that actually stocked niche titles, and replaced it with blockbusters.
They had a chance to transition into the 21st century but they simply hoped their customers wouldn’t discover the internet. No wonder Netflix/Hulu/iTunes ruined them.
this is the 2nd time in as many years that blockbuster has gone into administration
Well done! Ugh, the messed up excuses that stores give to avoid giving cash back. Store credit is the worst kind of refund. It’s also the worst kind of gift if you ask me. Which is why I don’t give or accept gift cards (ask for cash), if you still get cards, stand next to store checkouts and cash them through a willing customer.
The world will be a better place when the doors shut on the last Blockbuster store.
He’s lucky. Administrators don’t usually let these sorts of things through.
Maybe the owner just paid him out of his own pocket? Probably more unlikely.
soooooooooo lucky – if they were already under administration he would’ve, at best, been in line at the same time as all their other creditors, getting a percentage back on his money – and at worst he would’ve been behind all their business creditors, so pretty much definitely getting nothing. Bloody good effort
Could you imagine if he settled for the store credit, only to be told a few days later “Sorry, as we’re in administration we’re unable to honour any store credit.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking, and it’s probably exactly what they were going to do anyway. Good on him for getting his money back.
When big box retailers go into administration here the administrators usually call the police on people protesting not being able to pick up their $1500 fridge they bought yesterday.
I work in corporate insolvency and confirm we have done this for particularly rowdy protesters.
This is how I can see some of the positive benefits of social media, in regards to circumstances such as this.
Yet I’d be the one gong to prison for assault and battery.
I also like how it’s theft if you just go in and take what you paid for, because there are bigger more important people owed money than you.
…and that’s why you only put the minimum deposit down.
I was going to say, “And that’s why you don’t pre-order,” but the new consoles are probably one of the few cases where pre-ordering actually (should/doesn’t always) reserve you a copy of a product which will be in shortage.
The hell there’s ever a shortage of any of the other shit we’re told by advertising to preorder.
Though there is the case for waiting a few months for the console to mature a bit more before buying it.
Oh yeah, I’m not getting one at launch either. The launch line-up is weak and the consoles aren’t replacing my existing ones due to the features they’ve removed which I currently use heavily. There’s no good reason for me (or anyone really) to get one this month apart from ‘ooooh shiny and new!’ which is really only going to apply to a handful of games, out of which you may only be interested in one or two.
Seems like a pretty expensive investment which is only going to really pay off in 6-12 months. (By which time they’ll probably release a more awesome game bundle with upgraded hard drive/other specs.)
Sony seem to be removing a lot of media features, but what features have Microsoft removed?
Dude, haven’t you been Internet? They’re not in this race, can’t do 1080p at 60fps man, keep up!
….
🙂
Seem to be doing fine for quite a few games, also haven’t you seen titanfall? ~drools~
You can keep the un-optimised Ghosts :p
Or in my case….no money down!
Yikes, £450 for a PS4? No wonder why he wanted a refund. It’s £100 cheaper everywhere else
I don’t know about the UK but in Australia at least there is no obligation for any business to give a refund due to a customer changing their mind. Whilst many business do because customers have some misguided sense of arrogant righteousness and they fear bad PR it simply isn’t a requirement. If you buy something, and theres nothing wrong with, suck it up you short-sighted fool!
Oh my God… THAT’S STILL THERE?! That was my local Blockbuster… so awesome to see it again.
(They did suck though. Offered me 50p for LotR Return of the King for Gamecube in 2004. It was a good game, okay?)
I remember when I went to Dunstable and being very surprised Blockbuster still existed there let alone anywhere.
I’ve always thought that pre-orders/lay-buys should rank before even secured creditors when a company goes into receivership. Its not acceptable that a company can be operating one day, accepting pre-orders/lay-buys/deposits then having that money handed over to creditors the next.