Fed up with real banks, a 4chan user (I know, I know) claims to have shifted his personal finances to somewhere a little closer to home: GameStop. Now, grains of salt firmly between our teeth, his post seems equally crazy and mundane enough that such a scenario could actually be true, if you assume he doesn’t have stuff like a mortgage (or even that big of a savings account).
Here’s his plan:
Does anyone else use Gamestop as a bank?
I got really pissed off with US Bank because I kept overdrafting my account even though I opted out, and the same thing happened with my credit union when I got a debit card.
Now whenever I get paid I go preorder a whole shitload of games. Whenever I need money, I go to the nearest gamestop and ask for my money back on a game I don’t want and make a withdrawal. The lines are shorter at gamestop than at the bank and I can trade in old games and have money go straight to my savings account. Gamestops are just as prevalent as banks in my town and I work at a mall so it’s even more convenient than running an errand to the bank or using an ATM and getting charged.
The gamestop people are starting to catch on that I’m just moving money around and only buying one preordered game a year, if that, but there isn’t shit they can do about it. The best part is, since I always preorder every game coming out I’m still guaranteed to get all the exclusive content whether or not I’m sure I want a certain game. It’s like they’re rewarding me for banking with them.
Sure, this whole thing could be full of shit, but when you think about it, if video games are your thing, this does have its perks, as he outlines.
I wonder if GameStop would really care, beyond the hassle of the local clerks always having to juggle this guys’ stuff? I mean, if this guy’s money is in their account, and not a bank, wouldn’t they be getting the interest?
The First National Bank of GameStop [Kottke]
UPDATE: Hah!
Comments
25 responses to “Guy Claims To Be Using GameStop As His Personal Bank”
I don’t know about America but here in Aus preorders do get cleared after a couple months of release.
Kind of sounds like money laundering?
Money laundering is making dirty money clean. This guy is talking about putting his pay in. Unless he works for the mob…
Whilst laundering is making dirty money clean, this would/should still raise a few red flags if the business was paying proper attention. I’m not sure how things in the US work, but transactions over $10K here are all reported via a TTR, and multiple smaller transactions back and forth like this guy is doing are often reported to authorities if the business is on top of it.
Yea but it is definitely something that could be investigated, whether he really is doing anything wrong or not.
Investigated by who?
The Banks? You can’t get in trouble for not using a bank.
The Tax Office? He still pays tax
The Police? Hasn’t done anything illegal
Gamestop? Maybe, but in reality there is shit all they could do about it. They can’t deny service legally and cannot halt their refund service either.
I know if you get something like this online application / phone application credit cards, they’ll freeze your account if you add more than $500 for it and you have to prove who you are in Australia. It’s a legal requirement to stop money laundering.
That’s what something like this could be though. He pays the dirty money to put down the pre-orders, then gets the refund as legitimate money.
I don’t get what he means about the benefits of preorders and getting bonuses… surely if u cancel a preorder u don’t still get the bonus…… right?
Anyway, it sounds like much more hassle than its worth.
A lot of games you get a bonus when you put money down, especially in the states. Usually relating to another game.
Hen he mentioned trading in games I thought he meant he could take the bonuses, pick up his game, trade it in and get a bit of money for a still-sealed game.
It’s 4-Chan, it’s a joke. Like, so obviously a joke. This article shouldn’t have been published.
When I worked at EB I totally did this. It works, it’s free, and it’s convenient.
Admittedly I didn’t do it with all my pay check; I still had my bank account and used it (and ATMs) all the time. But when I had a little extra money I’d drop it all onto a pre-order for a game with no RRP or release date (they’re in the system at $9,999) and “withdraw” whatever I needed when I was short.
It’s working within the confines of the system and company policy, so regardless of how annoyed the clerks are, or how cottoned on they are to your scheme, they can’t do shit.
I highly recommend it.
Oh, and do you want cash for trades? Trade in towards that pre-order, leave it “in the bank” for a while, and then cancel it. If you “deposit” real money and trade in often enough, chances are excellent that your paper trail is way too elaborate for that employee to bother sifting through and they’ll just refund the “pre-order” anyway.
Naw in NSW we’re not allowed to give $$ for trade ins NSW gov’t says we’re not allowed under the 2nd hand trade agreement, which seems illegal, to deny EB that when pawn brokers can hand over $$ for shit people are getting rid of.
I know. My point is that if you complicate the transaction history enough, there’s the chance that the employee won’t be bothered to sift through the trades and cash deposits and just refund in cash because it’s easier. I know how unintuitive the EB POS can be, and manually going through an order’s transaction history is a hassle. If that history is long enough, if the credit has been shifted around enough times, the employee may just say yes rather than justifying via the paper trail why they’ve said no.
Oh right, got ya, I misread what you were saying sorry about that. Yeah that POS system is one of the worst i’ve used. Sadly the one Woolworths employ is one of the better ones.
EB’s is the only one I’ve ever really used (Thank God I’m out of retail) and although I knew all of its ins and outs I still really hated it.
When GAME went bust, everyone who paid for pre-orders did not get their money back.
Hmm, let’s see Govt. guaranteed,24 hour access with interest Vs. a chain that like GAME could go belly up without much warning, we all know bricks and mortar game shops are on the way out sooner or later.
if this is true this guy’s an idiot. First thing he’s constantly overdrawing his account. Second, he’s taking his koney out of his bank account so he’s earning no interest on it. Basically money that’s not in a bank account earning interest loses value every minute that goes by.
This is just the same as withdrawing your pay straight away so you don’t spend over your limit, which again is a stupid idea
You might be looking at this from an Aussie perspective. In north america savings accounts rarely make any interest at all. So there would be no loss of interest.
koney 2012
Gamestop going insolvent is far more likely than a bank – this guy could easily lose all of his money one day.
This was originally a Green Text, and it was told in a funny manner.. It’s highly unlikely it is true.
Aren’t pre-orders a good thing for Gamestop stores though? If anyone really did this, Gamestop would probably be alright with it because the pre-ordering works in their favour.
Here are some reasons it’s better to use an actual bank:
1) Banks are governed by legislation to make it less likely that you will lose all your money due to change of corporate policy, employee misconduct or the collapse of the institution.
2) Banks provide many convenient services (phone and internet banking, automatic payments, credit cards, cheques, etc).
3) You can earn interest on your money if it’s in the right kind of account or term deposit.