Ex EB employee rages against the machine

By Vladimir Cole

This is making the rounds so we figured we'd share it with you. It's not fair to call this an expose. Exposes are supposed to be well-written, researched, and documented. This is merely a rant, but it's an entertaining one to be sure. Among the sins that EB Games commits, according to a former employee of the company writing as "The Mad Gamer":

  • "EB employees are not properly compensated for all the crap they have to go through." (Are any of us, dear
    child?)

  • "EB Corporate Headquarters wants its employees to harass the hell out of you until you buy something." (Imagine
    that! A store that wants to sell you things. Well, we never! Seriously, though: we hear this complaint often.)

  • EB employs "secret shoppers" to make sure that employees are in compliance with corporate policy. (Common retail
    practice, nothing new here.)

  • EB employees are not allowed to give negative opinions on game products. (Can anyone scan a page from an
    employee manual and send it to us?)

  • EB has stopped an employee game loan program due to alleged employee theft.

  • ?I actually had to lie to customers and tell them that Mad Catz made great accessories. NO! Mad Catz makes
    worthless pieces of shit that will almost always break during usage!?

  • EB makes money off of trade-ins. (Well, duh. You didn?t have to work for slave wages to figure that one out,
    Sherlock.)

  • EB has designed its point of sale system to deliberately fail to register game trade-ins in order to create
    ?positive inventory? to offset losses. (If this is true, it?s a scandal. Anybody else able to corroborate
    this?) 

  • Employees who steal an item from EB are fired. (Employee theft punished? Say it ain?t so!)

  • The pre-owned game systems EB sells are broken or nearly broken. (Do you have experience with a pre-owned system
    from EB?)

  • ?I have seen systems with roaches crawling in them go right out of the store, headed for the home of an
    unsuspecting buyer. Not only could they have a busted system, but now they have a freaking roach problem.? (The
    writer loses all credibility.)

  • EB games will keep pre-order deposits if pre-ordered items are not picked up after an unspecified number of
    months unless an individual brings in an receipt. (This is also common retail practice, depending on the number of
    months.)

  • EB is in the practice of storing used systems in the employee bathroom where they are promptly covered with
    urine. (Yeah?)

Can anyone back any of this up with real evidence?

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