If I had not read these reviews before I called The Game Station, I would have been completely…read morebaffled. I was hoping to get quotes on some items I had, especially items that other area stores would not take. While asking these basic questions, the owner was brash and seemed offended that I had gone to other stores first. Thankfully, I had read the reviews, so, by the time he started telling me that I had been "scammed" and taken advantage of by the other stores, I kind of just knew to roll with it.
As I read through my inventory, hoping to get yes/no answers, he was critical of what I had "Oh, it's model X and it doesn't have the cables? What do you expect me to do?" Well, Wayne, will you give me $5 for it? That's about the extent of it. It's a fat PS2, not fine art. He said he'd take it along with my Wii Balance Board, though not for much. He guaranteed he'd give me better prices than anywhere else. Fine by me.
A few weeks later, I found a trove--and I mean a trove--of GBA and PS1 games in my parents' attic. I called and mentioned I respected him being straight with me and saying he'd take some of my undesirable stuff and then told him that I had found hundreds of dollars in retro gaming items--what might we be looking at and when could I bring it down? As I asked for estimates on some of the more notable PS1 games, I was met with a tirade about people who shop around and use him for price discovery. I get it! But then he told me prices anyway, while oscillating between asking if I had other desirable games and criticizing some of my other, less-popular games. Again--you'd think they didn't want my business--but we got through it and the estimates were consistent with what I found online.
I showed up with three boxes of electronics and I stood back as they were unloaded. In person, the owner and his wife are really pleasant people. We don't need to get into details, but we exchanged small-talk for an extended period of time and I enjoyed the social interaction.
The prices offered were fine but, hey, wait a minute, what about the fat PS2 and Wii Balance Board? They didn't want to take them. With the largest cache of PS1 games that anyone has seen in 2020 on the line, we were able to work something out. I left the store with $400 in my pocket and felt like I had befriended the husband and wife team.
A week and a half later, as I unloaded what few items remained, I realized that I was missing my 5th-generation iPod (~$50). I knew that someone at the Game Station must have taken it out of the box and we hadn't discussed it or anything. But almost two weeks and no heads-up call?
I called and identified myself ("Hi Wayne, this is Tim O ... ... I was in a few weeks ago and sold you some games ..."), but was stonewalled ("Ok?") into actually explaining why I was calling, at which point the owner admitted "oh, yeah, we put it on the side and were wondering when you were going to come back for that."
Err... you were in possession of something belonging to a customer due to your mistake, had my name, address, phone number, *and* the knowledge of when I was leaving NEPA for Chicago and you sat there wondering when I was going to try to come back for it? Sorry--I didn't see a need to write a review but, upon reflecting, it's hard to classify this as an honest oversight.
I headed down and was asked to name a song on the iPod I had last used in 2009 in order to prove it was mine. Naming a song correctly, I was provided with the iPod and the comment "nobody listens to that shit anymore."
Truer than you'd want to believe.