(Moe_)
A man in Michigan grew so angry that GameStop wouldn’t take back his Xbox without a receipt that he threatened to kill someone and went to get something from his vehicle. The GameStop clerk called 911, and “Four Troy police officers, armed with rifles, stormed into [the] Oakland Mall store” and subdued him. He had an illegal stun gun on him but no firearm.
When police arrived, they used a tactic called active shooter response, meaning a team of officers works to stop an immediate threat. [GameStop employee David Roman] said coworkers told him officers put employees and a handful of customers in a back room and threw the man up against a counter, handcuffing him.
The moral of this story: keep your receipts.
“Armed cops subdue angry shopper denied a refund at Oakland Mall” [Detroit Free Press] (Thanks to Kendra!)
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“The moral of this story: keep your receipts.”
Other moral: Don’t make death threats.
Other Other moral: If you’re going to attack someone with intent to harm, don’t actually tell them that fact before – especially if you have to leave to get a weapon.
Other Other Other Moral: if you do slip up and make the threat and leave, don’t come back
other other other other moral: make sure you have your weapon of choice before making the threat.
The other moral: Follow Wil Weaton’s rule.
Well, that’s stupid.
If he had stunned them, how exactly was he going to get a refund?
People never cease to amaze.
His refund would have been in blood!
Ok, not blood but pain filled shrieks of terror.
If they’re stunned, he could simply go behind the counter, open the register, take out the money, set down the X-Box, and walk away happy.
Sounds like a happy solution to me!
Makes perfect sense to me!
Clearly he must have been a very reasonable man in the first place, so I don’t see why Gamestop wouldn’t just bend the rules for him.
I was at a GameStop once where a customer called the police over a trade in. He felt Game Stop was ripping him off with the trade in value that had placed on some game. The guy was probably about 85 years old but the look on the cop’s face was priceless – as he patiently explained to the man that GameStop had a right to make a profit and the GameStop employee explained that trade-in values were determined by corporate and he couldn’t arbitrarily change them.
It was funny to watch but I felt bad for the old guy that didn’t understand.
Ah well, I don’t blame him. They made me mad enough to do the same for a similar reason (except I actually HAD the recipt?!?! go figure that.)
I think the lesson here is don’t shop Gamestop or you might go to jail.
I think the more important lesson is don’t threaten to kill someone or you go to jail
Yeah, please *don’t* shop GameStop. I occasionally shop there (my local outlet rocks) and really prefer not to deal with homicidal assholes.
I feel for those employees. When I worked for GameStop in NYC we once had to threaten to call the cops on a guy, although when we picked up the phone he ran off. (And after that it wasn’t worth calling. “A 5’10″-ish maybe-white maybe-Hispanic guy in his 20s” isn’t exactly hard to find in Manhattan.)
He should not have threatened to kill, but definitely go higher. They have record, they are just being bastards. We all know to save receipts, especially on big purchases. I still have furniture receipts from over 2 years ago. Safety first!
The moral of the story is: Cut the phone lines before making terroristic threats.
why does everything have to be in the name of “Terror” or “Terroristic” these days? What ever happened to the good old days when you were just an asshole making threats?
Uttering “terroristic threats” is good old fashioned legalese for plain ol’ verbally threatening someone in many jurisdictions. For once, not 9/11.
“Uttering “terroristic threats” is good old fashioned legalese for plain ol’ verbally threatening someone in many jurisdictions.”
But when the Government does it, it’s termed ‘Anti-terrorism” Go figure….
PS, in common law countries, verbally threatening someone is usually termed Assault (not to be confused with battery, where someone strikes another) or Threatening Behavour.
No kidding. Reminds me of the kid in elementary school arrested for making terrorist threats for telling another kid he was going to beat him up after school.
My brother was suspended from elementary school for telling another student he was going to bring a bowling ball bomb to school.
Totally off-topic, The local news station reported on the local Game Stop being robbed. The story started with “There was a robbery yesterday at the local Game Stop.” I thought to myself, “There is a robbery every day at the game stop.” Only this time it was Game Stop getting robbed instead of Game Stop customers.
I assume you are referring to their trade in values?
Good for the employees. You never know who is going to actually have a gun/weapon. Protect yourself first. That guy’s a total douchebag.
Tip to customer – entering Gamestop is not the same as playing video games!
It would’ve been a little ironic if he had been trying to return a copy of Grand Theft Auto.
Lol… This place is right down the street from my house. That mall is getting super trashy, and this doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact seeing police officers with rifles in that mall wouldn’t even surprise me that much…
Uh, what does that say about your neighborhood? No offense meant, just sayin’…
I’d expect this behavior from a child— eh, maybe from a teen, but a 43-year-old man?!
Haven’t you heard? Some 43 year old men might as well be children, the way they behave when they don’t get their way.
Too many years dealing with customers taught me this lesson:
The age of a person is by no means an indicator of their maturity. In any way, shape, or form. Neither is the title they hold at their job, nor how many years they’ve been doing it.
Trust me. As I type this I’m listening to a 40 year old man standing not far from my office whining like a child about a fantasy football SNAFU.
I’m going to pretend not to offend any XBox people and just keep my mouth shut… (la la la la…)
I am offended, and I don’t even own an xbox. Might want to choose your words more carefully.
Alright, duly noted. I’m sorry. I thought it was funny at the time, but clearly it’s not.
At which point does a perfectly reasonable transaction become unreasonable?
The point where you walk into GameStop for said transaction . . .
To be fair, it wasn’t unreasonable. He was trying to return something without a receipt. For all Gamestop knew, it could have come from Craig’s List.
Sounds like the kind of tale that a guy would want to tell on a first date
Similar things happen more often than we’d like to think. At my old store in Burlington, VT, one guy had a similar problem with his PS2. Had one, wanted to return it, but it was opened and obviously well used. We told him no way, and he told one of my employees “you’re going to take this back or I will fucking kill you.”
Except in our case, one of our regulars was there to haul the asshole out. You don’t mess with 6′ 10″ of heavily accented Russian fury. That guy was awesome.
I’m picturing Ivan Drago from Rocky IV. Awesome.
“If he dies, he dies.”
Off-topic non-sequitur: Love the icon!
No the REAL moral of this story? Don’t shop at Gamestop.
Because they have cobag customers? Because they promptly respond to threats to protect their customers and employees? There are reasons one may not want to shop at Gamestop but I’m kind of puzzling over those two.
This is totally within the realm of reason … just being *IN* a Gamestop is enough to make most people homicidal.
Bwahaha, excellent! I was just told this story by a friend who works directly across from that GameStop at a Body Arts body jewelry kiosk. Apparently much less dramatic than what the local news and papers made it out to be.
Interesting tidbit; the guy who went apeshit? Dead ringer for Chris Tucker as Ruby Rhod in The Fifth Element.
Did he have the big cane and the pompadour hair? And did he have a feathery boa? Pure awesome.
UN-BELIEVEABLE!
I’ve been there.
When I was a mgr at sears I had a guy whose chainsaw I wouldn’t take back threaten to cut my head off with it.
I had to ask how he would do that since it didn’t work…
Many other threats were made by him
and yea, the police were called
it’s not gradeschool anymore, you can’t just go around bullying the world anymore
Moral of the story is:
1) Pay with a credit card
2) If they refuse to take it back – LEAVE IT THERE, WALK OUT.
3) Call credit card company, dispute the charge. Say it wasn’t as advertised. You contacted store, they weren’t cooperative. Tell the credit card company the store has the item.
4) Fill out the paperwork with credit card company, buy it somewhere else with better customer service…
5) Never stop at GameStop again… Pass right on by to The Internet – better service, and prices…