It almost goes without saying that you should never trust Gamestop, but you’d at least expect them to honor ads that they’ve approved and printed. Gamestop pre-sold a Consumerist reader the new Medal of Honor game for Xbox 360 back in August. Part of the deal—according to their ad—was a card good for 400 free Marketplace Points for use on Xbox Live. But instead, they cancelled the card from his order, then gave him an incorrect reason for the cancellation, then admitted fault and promised to make everything right. As of today—almost a full month since the game was released—he still hasn’t received the points.

When Bill noticed the card had been removed from his order, he contacted Gamestop’s customer service. Their response:

Unfortunately, the MOH 400 XB Points Card was cancelled from your order due to product cancellation.

He wrote back and pointed out that the item was a free promotion, and that it was available when he pre-ordered the game. On September 5th, they responded:

The 400 point card was cancelled from all MOH: Airborne orders; however, we were previously mistaken as to the reason.  The card was removed as all 400 point MS codes are being emailed out to customers digitally instead of a physical card.  Customers will still receive the 400 MS points offered with the order, but will receive them via email.  We apologize for previous any misunderstanding concerning this order.

That same day, they sent out a form email that announced the same message. And nearly a month later, still nothing. (Well, email does take a long time to arrive, what with the tubes being clogged up by BitTorrent and all.)

To readers, this might look like gross incompetence, but try imagine what Gamestop execs must be thinking—probably something along the lines of, “What a cost-effective way to extend the value of our ad budget! Great idea, Johnson! Harrumph!”

(Thanks, Bill!)

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