A few years ago, universal payment cards were a mini-fad online. The idea was that you carried one “smart” card which stored the numbers of all of your other credit cards. The most popular was Coin, which was ultimately acquired by Fitbit and shut down. Another card was Plastc, which has brought in $9 million through pre-orders since 2014, but has yet to ship — and is now out of business [More]
pre-orders
Oculus Suggests Bereft Rift Pre-Orderers Should Go To Best Buy Instead
By 5.2.16
Oculus began accepting pre-orders for their Rift virtual reality headsets back in January, but not everyone who ordered early has their device yet. Those customers will probably be disappointed to hear that Oculus is going ahead with its retail strategy. Some devices will be available for retail sale at Microsoft stores and from Amazon on Friday, May 6, and available for special demos and for sale at a few Best Buy locations on Saturday, May 7. [More]
T-Mobile iPhone Preorder Customer Rewarded With Getting Her Phone Next Wednesday
By 4.12.13
Today, the iPhone goes on sale from T-Mobile, which is something that many of our readers are very excited about. After years of being with the only major carrier without the phone, who can blame them? While people who line up in stores today will walk away cradling the precious, precious phone in their hands, some people who got a jump on ordering will have to wait for a while. [More]
Best Buy Accepts Pre-Orders For Jaws, Sells All Copies To Other People
By 8.15.12
The movie “Jaws” is out on Blu-Ray. Please try to contain your excitement. Reader Mark was pretty excited at the news, actually: he wanted Best Buy’s own exclusive version, and placed a pre-order for in-store pickup. He went to the store, waited around for an hour or so, and then finally learned: oh, yeah, all of the pre-ordered copies had been sold off the shelves accidentally. And an employee told Mark that this wasn’t the only store where that had happened. [More]
GameStop Will Honor Ancient Pre-Orders For Long-Gestating Video Game
By 5.30.11
Pre-order-pushing GameStop takes down payments and reservations on video games while developers are still working on them, so sometimes customers — who are free to cancel reservations and apply their credit to other purchases — end up putting $5 or more down on games that never come out. Some true believers hold out hope that their pre-ordered vaporware will someday see the light of day, as is the case with Duke Nukem Forever, which has been in off-and-on development for 14 years. The game will finally hit shelves June 14. [More]
Radio Shack Screws Up My Pre-Order, Threatens To 'Burn' My Gift Card
By 9.3.10
Corey pre-ordered a phone at RadioShack, placing a whopping $50 down on the handset of his dreams. Once the phone came in, the clerk couldn’t find a way to sell him the phone without charging an extra $200. When Corey withdrew his order, the clerk told him he’d “burn” the $50 gift card as a result. [More]
Adobe Rejects Refund Request From Last Month Because You Exceeded Their 30-Day Money Back Guarantee. What?
By 4.5.08
Edwards tried to cancel his pre-order for Photoshop Elements 6 a month before the software shipped, but was told that he would need to accept the shipment, destroy the CD, and fill out an affidavit attesting to the destruction. Edward did as he was told, which is reflected in Adobe’s notes, but they still rejected his request claiming that he “exceeded their 30 day money back trial guarantee.”
EBgames Taking Permanent Pre-Orders For Canceled Game
By 10.16.07
If you want to grab a copy of the non-existent game “Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising,” your best bet is to pre-order from EBgames, because it’s been put on “indefinite hold”—aka canceled—by the publisher and we’re not sure how else you’d get a copy. Obviously EBgames does, because they’re still taking orders as of 3:18pm EST, October 16th.
Gamestop Screws Up Pre-Orders, Still Hasn't Fixed Them
By 10.1.07
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.
Save 0%, Amazon.com Proudly Announces
By 3.29.06
Reader Julie received a perplexing pre-order notice:
