Console game companies and billing

daveboy

I've placed this thread in this forum as I judged it the most relevant place.

Recently, those with an Xbox 360 will know that Gear of War 3 came out - the release date was a Tuesday.

I pre-ordered this game from Play.com. The problem I have noticed recently is that the company will send an 'item despatched' email out (for this game I received this email on the previous Thursday).

Now, even allowing for 2nd class post, you'd expect this to arrive on Saturday at the latest. I know some will say about postal delays, but the huge majority of post sent on a Thursday will arrive by Saturday morning.

I knew the game didn't come out until the Tuesday, so I was almost certain there was no way I'd get it until at least the Monday. Even more annoying - the game did arrive. On the Tuesday.

So how can companies send out 'item despatched' emails on a Thursday when it is quite obvious it has not been posted? For the record, the package had a 1st class sticker on it with my address.

It is purely so they can charge your card earlier than would be allowed.

As a different example, I have pre-ordered an iPhone 4S with Vodafone. Yesterday I ordered a case for it. At 4.45pm.

The case arrived this morning.

As far as I am concerned game companies, such as Play.com, are playing a bit of a trick with customers. Yes you have ordered the product. Yes, you have agreed for them to charge your card. But only when items have been sent.

It is purely so they can get your money a couple of days quicker - what difference that makes would depend on the size of the company. In my opinion it is a trick and should be illegal.

Any other experiences similar to this? I'd love to hear from anyone else who has noticed this.

fwor

I've noticed this from other companies, and it does feel like a bit of a con.

However, when you're looking at perhaps several hundred pre-orders, getting the payments in 2 days early can make a huge difference to cashflow, and can allow them to place bigger orders for more stock, which will thus be cheaper (or the same price to us but more profitable for them).

It's also true that they only have a limited number of staff to actually do the shipping, so it's inevitable that big pre-orders will ship over a period of several days, and it saves them effort if they don't have to track every shipment individually.

Generally - provided the company otherwise has good customer service - I just ignore it, as interest rates are so low these days that I'm losing next to nothing by paying a bit early...

bluenoseam

If the game arrives on the Saturday & you naturally start playing it, it will flag up on Xbox Live that you have done so, now while there's no way to know exactly where that game came from, if Microsoft investigated and you said to them "oh i pre-ordered it from *insert random vendor here*" then there's a mightly big problem as technically that company has then broken embargo, something which can incur hefty fines & reduction in supply. (independant games retailers have often found themselves foul of this and not recieve stock of "A grade" titles until the morning of release, if at all!)

There's also the fact it was potentially dispatched from their picking side on Thursday and sent to store in order to avoid breaking embargo, so while it didn't technically leave the warehouse, it was picked & dispatched ready for delivery to you - i hope that makes sense to you. I'm not excusing the practise, but knowing how companies can be with regards to things like this (and believe me, Microsoft are far from the worst!) it's basically them playing it very safe, the consequences of an investigation pointing back to them are pretty tough - like i said, not unheard of for them to not be supplied until extremely short notice. There's an old "myth" floats around that George Lucas is one of the worst to cross with regards to breaking embargos, apparently his distributors are told to clamp down on it viciously - ofcourse that could be a load of tosh, but when it comes to supply you don't take risks!

xxdeebeexx

If it's anything like Amazon Market place the 'order dispatch' email is sent as soon as you accept the money...... it's an automatic email.

dx

Hodge4ever

I believe (but have been wrong on many occasions) that they were dispatched (possibly on the Thursday), but held at couriers for delivery on the specified release date.

I agree with your point though, as they sent an e-mail basically saying that due to demand they were going to check available funds before actually allocating me a pre-order of the game I 'pre-ordered' months ago! :mad:

P.S Mine was via Game

closed

did it come from Jersey?

http://www.play.com/Helpdesk/Getting_started/Play_com_delivery_policy.aspx

marvell-kid

Everywhere seems to have this practise, or a similar one.
I ordered a few new components for my PC from ebuyer, and opted for free delivery, which would take about 7 days, fine by me, I could wait.
But strangely one of my components was shipped and delivered by the next day, which I was really happy about. The rest of the components were delivered smack dead on 7 days. They both came from different warehouses (ebuyer I believe have 4).
This got me thinking, and using my Dad (who is a Amazon trader) as an example, I will tell you what I think.
For Amazon, my dad will pick the product for the order and print of the packaging slip, put it in packaging and mark it as dispatched. Due to the amount of orders (esp on a monday) and other business the postage will not go out till later in the day, thus probably bringing the postage time to the latest it can be.

Big businesses will get these A* titles very close to the the delivery dates, and will probably process the order as soon as they have stock, and then moving the products to the postage area, thus triggering the 'dispatched' information for the product. Due to the embargo (as stated by another poster) the stock will off sat, packaged, in the warehouse postage room (or other place) waiting to be passed on to the courier/postal worker on the Monday, to be delivered first thing on the Tuesday. This seems a more logical way to process the orders as the company will only deal with a certain amount of orders everyday, if all the orders had to go through on Monday, that would take loads of man hours (that they dont want to pay) so they use other times in the build up to the release date to process all the orders, thus 'posting' the product (and charging you) but keeping hold of it.

Also In the Delivery Helpdesk part of Play, as posted by someone else, it states:
Our free UK delivery service (including the Channel Islands) for all products from Play.com usually takes 3-5 working days from date of posting.
So the product would of arrived (From being sent out on Thursday) Tuesday - Thursday, so you received the product in 3 working days (Note: I'm not including Saturday). So you probs can ignore everything else I've just said

Hopefully this helps and isn't too Mumbo-Jumbo

12bdebt3

They probably did dispatch Gears of War 3 on the Thursday from their warehouse, along with thousands of other copies of the same game. It would have been sitting waiting with the courier for the dispatch day. I suppose it's to make it run more smoothly and you definitely receive the product on the day.

Lucy_In_The_Sky_2

I've found in my experiences that when they say it's been dispatched, it means they've dispatched it from their main warehouse and it's going to their dispatch centers around the country. And it won't be dispatched to you from their dispatch centers until a later date when they're actually able to sell it (when it's been release). I've had the odd game that has arrived the day before release but that was mainly just luck and a bonus.

Apart from dragon age that got 'lost in the post' and i had to wait 30 days before i could file a complain to get a new one sent. Damn you Play.com