Be Excellent To Each Other

Split from bargain thread by Myp.



This to me is still uncomfortably close to theft.

Just because they don't catch you doesn't make it any less dishonest.

How is it theft? They should have set up the site better to avoid loopholes.

So, it's not theft if you take something off a shelf in a shop and manage to get away with it? They should've hired better security, obv.

Please explain, how getting £5 off is theft? If you cancle any part of teh order then the £5 should be cancelled, if it is the same loop hole as last year...etc etc..

Or are you just trying to start another tedious argument with me, to show me how clever you are and how stupid I am!!

You should have secured your car better to stop me driving off in it.

You should have inspected the magazine I bought to make sure I hadn't hidden another one in it.

It's a textbook example of "Obtaining property through deception" under law even thought I doubt you'd ever get a conviction. There's a defined wounded party, which in itself makes it more theft that ooh, software piracy.

Yup, but as they set the site and the offer up, and allow it to happen.. the loop hole should have been locked doen.. no?

Again, that exact reasoning makes stealing a console off a shelf in a store perfectly fine.

No your logic is flawed, it is like buying a console, with a £5 off voucher they should not be allowed to use...

Isn't this more akin to buying something in the knowledge that there has been a pricing mistake? Certainly I'd say it's at least somewhere between that and theft.

Yeah, me and the rest of the forum.

Yep.

This from the morally upright guy who would prefer to drive at 30 through congested urban areas than cut his speed to 20 and just maybe not kill some kid?

No not rest of the forum.... just you!!

I think you just take the opposite view from me on purpose.. if you don't then we must be polar opposites.. your the yin to my yang

Don't make me separate you two.

I disagree.

Is it going to be me & the doc 'V' Myp & Dudley. In a tag team wrestling match

Sometimes. I feel that you do exactly the same, though.

I disagree

Cool...

Firstly, they'll catch on to this in no time, so meh. I think Game can afford a few hundred quid, especially as part of a promotion that'll make them a profit of possibly several grand anyway. Thirdly, this is no more theft than is that trick where you buy a ticket from warwick to manchester, but get off at stoke on trent because arse-about-face rail companies charge more for shorter journeys. It's just a loophole, and comparing it to shoplifting is absurd.

Edit: Actually that's unfair of me, sorry. In the context, the comparison was reasonable, as you were responding to a suggestion that it's their own fault for not having measures in place.

I'm with Mark on this one like the pricing error they don't have to sell you it at that price.

To answer the original point , realistically it comes down to your own set of moral values.

If this particular thing makes you feel uneasy don’t do it.

I’m not sure what you get from saying that this feels uneasy in regards to your morals ,if it feels okay for me I’ll do it – if it doesn’t I won’t.

You should know that there are some very wide ranges of moral code on this forum ,
and there no one person to turn around and say who’s right and who’s wrong [back off Grim…]

Here’s another one to thrown in the mix which I think was on Bitterwallet last week

A number of supermarkets are doing “Spend £50 get 5p a litre off fuel” , however if you go in and buy a mars bar , and get £50 cashback the till will give you a voucher for fuel. Is this right ? Is it theft ?

It would be theft if it wasn't video games we were talking about, but as it is they are ludicrously expensive anyway, so the company is the REAL thief! Using this loophole is justing stealing from the thief, which is morally brilliant if anything... kind of like Robin Hood

Yeah, a new Robin Hood game would be great.

They won't. They haven't fixed this from the last time they did this promotion, so fuck 'em. If you knowingly—and you'd probably be naive to think they don't know about this—let people walk out with your stuff, you're an idiot.

If the amount they make from customers not (ab)using a loophole way exceeds the money they might lose from people being a bit tricksy, is it so bad? If they are still making a profit, but just a bit less of a profit...

Yeah, that just occurred to me as I scrolled down. Chances are though that they know about it, but a) know that keeping in the loophole will in fact make them more money as people who would normally buy nothing (hi!) will buy stuff, or (b ), they will make a big profit out of the promotion even with some people taking advantage of the loophole, to the extent that it's more hassle than it's worth for them to fix the glitch.

It's even conceivable that they did this deliberately, cleverly taking full advantage of the fact that there are plenty of people who love to think they've got a bit of an extra bargain a bit cheekily, while they will in fact still make a tasty profit, making us the real suckers. If not the first time round, then deliberately repeating the oversight the second time suggests this to me.

No it's not, you're getting a £5 advantage by scamming them, obtaining it by deception, it's only different if you somehow think because it's online it's different to in person. It's specifically against the law.

The train thing is the absurd comparison. In that you're buying 2 products they offer and advertise, you're obtaining the advantage by buying the right combination of products. A better GAME comparison would be using the "This for £10 less if you buy any item" thing and the other item is £4.99.

--

As for the "Well they haven't fixed this" thing.

a) Suggest how they can. They have to allow cancelling preorders and they can't then charge you the extra fiver because they don't have the credit card authorisation. I guess they could perhaps go against all convention and charge you straight away.
b) That's as much sense as saying "They didn't catch me last time I stole a console, if I do it again it's really their fault."


All the "They can afford it anyway" arguments don't work at all and can be used to justify virtually any theft.

I don't think it is anything like theft. I think it is like doing something that a retailer allows you to do, following the terms and conditions they lay out.

I think it is perfectly moral, and definitely completely legal.

The loophole is using a preorder to bump the contents of your basket over £50 , if so why dont they put the voucher against this pre-order item then ?

Lewies 'trick' is to buy one cheap item now , and one expensive pre-order and the system calculates the voucher against the cheap item - i cant imagine its that hard to change it and have the voucher against the pre-order , and in this scenareo i cant see a way this disadvantages the buyer ?

They could always decline the offer, given they don't take money immediately and it passes humans at several points.

They CAN afford it anyway though.

Is reversing the charges on a gay chat wank line theft?

It's so naughty it's got to be fattening.

The way I see it, it's the same as buying some items in a 3 for 2 offer, using a voucher on that, and then later returning one of the items.

With that it depends on who you get serving you as to whether or not they allow you to refund that third item. (note: I don't go around trying to do this, but it has happened to me, or someone I've known about 3 or 4 times, and it's varied between, can't take one item back without returning them all to a straight refund for the item no questions asked.

Equally, the way I see it, these shops should know what they are doing, if they don't (and I mean this online, or in the shop or whatever) then it's their own fault.

The other day I was in a shop and bought about 10 things, but I only got charged for 9 of them, when I was asked for my money I thought it was a little low, but wondered if there was a multibuy deal that I'd missed or something. When I was at home, I looked at the receipt again, and indeed they had only charged for 9 of the things. I had got one of the items free.

I hadn't tried to do that, It just worked out that way, and if it wasn't for my quite good mental addition skills, I probably wouldn't even have noticed it at all. But what if I was quicker off the ball, and realised straight away that I had been undercharged? Should I have been honest about it? Just because I'm good at maths, I should 'suffer' when an ignorant person would benefit (but wouldn't know about it)?

In those situations I tend to make a judgement call, if it's a big shop then I'll probably take advantage of it, however, if they are a small outfit I probably wouldn't and I'd be honest with them. However, if they've offered poor service in the past, then I might just keep schtum and pocket the change.

I think something like this is the same. Game are big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves, if you can save £5 doing this, then so be it. If it was some small cottage company then perhaps you shouldn't do it. Also Game bought the company I used to work for, and didn't retain me as an employee, so they can go fuck themselves.



Malc

I wouldn't call it stealing but If it was a small indie-store or something like that I would feel it would be really horrible to go against the spirit of the voucher and most likely lose them money.

As GAME has positioned itself as a monopoly on the high street (how were they allowed to buy gamestation?) it is really hard to feel bad for them in any way - but in principle the same thoughts should apply.

We need to get one of the lawyers to the thread to answer Dudley's assertion that this is actually illegal, I'm not so sure it is. As I've said it seems more like a pricing error situation.

Also - it is entirely possible that someone could buy one item, then actually preorder a game too, bringing the total to £50+, then after receiving the first item, see the second game cheaper. Is it morally wrong of them to cancel the preorder?

Ooh Malc reminds me of something.

I once bought the three last gen games in GAMEs 3 for 2 deal, 2 were for presents and one (jungle beat) was for me. I popped two in post and went home with jungle beat.

When I get home I peel of the blue sticker thing they use to seal it, and I realise he's put Donkey Konga in the case instead of Jungle Beat. I ring up straight away (costing me money) so they don't think I'm making a switcheroo. Over the phone they told me I was fucked as I had posted the other games away. I went back to the store (costing me £4 travel) and had to (really politely) argue for about an hour (out of principle really) that I wanted Jungle Beat. They told me that I couldn't return it without all three games and that I couldn't have the actuall copy of the game instead (with lines like 'what do you expect me to do, ring another store to ask if they have it?' - er, yes.)

Eventually after explaining to the people queing why I was still waiting (whilst being ignored by the staff) they actually bothered ringing around and getting me the game I paid for.

I'm in too much pain (stupid foot) to explain in detail why I wasn't being a dick - but I really wasn't. I've worked in retail and I realise how outrageous some requests by the public can be, but I've never been so rudely treated as that day in game. One passerby butted in to tell the guy that she couldn't believe he was talking to me like that!

This doesn't mean you can rip off GAME because they are dicks, but it does mean that I won't feel sorry for them for a second.

That's ridiculous! I hate those stickers they put on game boxes, the staff in the shop seem to think that it exempts them from all responsibility. Although when my little sister got her Xbox one of the discs she got in the bundle was all scratched so she took it back to Gamestation. The staff looked at it and said it wasn't sold like that and so she must have done it herself. She refused to leave and said she most certainly hadn't so they said it must have been damaged by the Xbox, but the way they said it was as if, but we think you did it and so won't have the cheek to agree with that. So my wee sister left and returned 5 minutes later with her Xbox. They looked really annoyed but had to exchange the disc and the Xbox just because they refused to accept the game was sold like that. Idiots.

Because they aren't a monopoly on high street games sales, not even close. Consider Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Blockbuster, HMV, Zavii, etc etc.

Making an offer in bad faith (i.e. it's a pricing error and you know it) means the retailer can reject the trade, as it renders the contract of sale null and void. If they accept it anyway, it's up to them. Shops don't have to honour pricing errors but they can't change their mind once they have accepted it.

I know a fair bit about this because I was one of the lucky people who bought a £330 Kodak camera for £100, although only after getting Trading Standards involved. Also: I fucked Carcraft over about car finance too, by haggling a great sticker price and a shit APR, then clearing the debt the next day; Carcraft probably ended up losing money on the deal overall.

In this case, the website is accepting the transaction; legally Game wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Particularly as:There is a perfectly logical flow of actions that result in you getting using the voucher "wrongly" which involves no duplicity on the part of the buyer.

Don't allow the voucher to be used against any basket where the subtotal of all non-preordered items is below £50. And then, don't allow any order where a voucher has been used to be cancelled in part. Seems pretty simple to me.

People just don't want to admit they're going to Stoke.

Can you blame them?

No, it's no different to finding a loophole to an in-store promotion, like when that bloke got a lifetime's supply of free bananas or something ridiculous like that because he worked out a formula taking advantage of an obscure supermarket discount. Or opening a bank account or credit card to take advantage of a cash giveaway, then closing it again the next week, having never given any money.



The train thing is perfectly valid. It was notorious on moneysavingexpert a few years back - a train ticket from A to F on one line cost more than a ticket from A to Z on the same line, so people bought the ticket to Z and got off early, saving money. A loophole, and incidentally one without which several people I know wouldn't have travelled on the train at all.

No it's not. On the train thing you're buying products they offer. It's no different than seeing 2x1 litre of coke cheaper than 2l of coke. It's not even a loophole, it's just a case of finding a way to get what you want with a different combination of products.

Here you're deliberately ripping them off by finding a way to get a discount for a product you haven't bought and have no intention of buying. Stealing, in other words.

I believe the rules on pricing errors is: The retailer has two options, either decline the sale, or take the sale at the incorrect price. If they accept the incorrect price, they can't later charge you more. They also cannot say: 'You want this, but its priced wrong, I'll ring up the correct price for you'

In this case, once you've cancelled the pre-order, you get a screen saying

Item 1:£price
Discount: -£5
-------------
Total: £price-£5

Therefore, it's been offered to you at the discounted price, GAME then has to either: refuse the sale or take it like Craster's badger after Craster's been on a heady mix of viagra and PCP. From their point of view, its probably easier and cheaper to take the hit.

Indeed, or to use a more correct analogy, deliberately going in because you know it's wrongly priced, leaving the price minus £5 on the counter and running for it without giving them that choice.

I'm surprised they've let it happen again though. And no-one should be under any illusions: they'll know all about this fault with the website from their accounting procedures from last time this happened (not to mention that they probably keep half an eye on MSE and HUKD). They've taken a commercial decision that fixing it is more hassle than it's worth. That tells you how much money they are losing overall (none).

No, the terms and conditions of the train tickets state that you shouldn't get off early. The train companies officially made a stink about it, so it had to be withdrawn as a recommended practice from mse. The produce they offer is passage to station z, when what you actually take is passage to station f, which 'steals' the difference in fares from the train company, going by the same principle.

Stealing is taking money from someone. If someone wouldn't have bought a game at £15, the company gets nothing. If they buy it for £10, the company gets £10. That's not theft, however uncomfortable it might make someone.

Also, if getting a fiver off a twenty quid game is "ripping them off", charging £45 for a video game is outright extortion.

This. There's no way they can't be aware of this - a repeat promotion would only happen after careful analysis of the previous one. The fact that they went for it suggests they're well aware of it, and know that it actually works in their favour. Quite apart from anything else, I've just given them £30 which they'd otherwise never have got.