Using GameStop as a bank

[noonespecial]

Consider a venn diagram containing "people smart enough to game GameStop into being their bank", "people not smart enough to avoid overdrafts", and "people not creative enough just to set up a prepaid debit card system for themselves". In the overlapping space of these three circles, you'll find this guy, and a very confused leprechaun riding a unicorn.

[ubernostrum]

people not smart enough to avoid overdrafts

Remember that historically, banks have processed transactions in whatever order is most likely to produce an overdraft, even if the same set of transactions, processed in chronological order, would not produce an overdraft. Also note that the complaint is not that he overdrafted, but that he can't turn off the overdraft "protection" that charges him a fee -- he'd rather just have the transaction declined, and can't get his bank to do that.

[ninkendo]

You forgot "People who have a small enough amount of money to not exceed the number of games available for pre-order."

[joe_inferno]

Best laugh I've had all day.

[dimitar]

This is finance. Anon is storing his assets, dealing with uncertainty.

In 'Poor Economics' there was a chapter about saving in West Africa. Apparently the way some people there do it by contributing some money in a pool on a periodical basis and each time the group meets, the pool is immediately given to one member, whose turn it is. So if you are in $10-per day group that withdraws once a month, you can be sure that once every 30 days you'll withdraw your $300, without worrying too much about banks, withdrawal fees, etc.

[mmmdelishus]

It's actually very widespread in all sorts of countries and cultures.

There was a good Planet Money show that talked about it here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/18/193176928/episode-...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susu_(savings)

[bbosh]

I think this idea first appeared in the United States. I'm sure there's a story about how Ford sold the Model T. Few people could afford to purchase up front, so groups of people joined together and paid a set amount each month. Say $50 amongst 100 people. Each month, they'd buy a Model T and a few lucky people would get the car. So, rather than 100 people waiting a year to purchase, on average they waited only 6 months. That spawned the creation of mail order, then revolving credit, and the Western world has never looked back.

[luch]

I've heard somewhere that, until recently, in Myanmar sim cards were so expensive (couple grands each) that they were used as assets (like gold teeth, but more convenient to use).

[sin7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandas

[josu]

This seems like satire to me, I wouldn't read to much into it. And I think that the fact that some people are taking it seriously just proves that it's actually pretty good satire.

[teraflop]

"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

[gfodor]

Two words: counterparty risk.

If GameStop goes under, I don't know where "customers who have pre-orders" end up on the line of 'creditors'.

[fiatmoney]

Same as other unsecured creditors, unless the company convinces the bankruptcy court & the other creditors it's to the benefit of the business in the long run to give them what they paid for.

Most corporate bankruptcies are restructurings, not liquidations.

[chadillac]

That's why I transferred all of my earnings to BTC via MTGoX.

/s

[ivanca]

Instead of posting judgement over this guy it would be more interesting to talk about other financial hacks.

One 'hack' I do is to use my credit card outside my country, but when I get paid in my own country my family repays the credit card debt with that money; is cheaper than using wire-transfer (i.e. western union) or direct bank transfer.

[jedrek]

I once worked for a German company that would pay me by bank transfer. It's a lot cheaper to send international transfers around the EU now, but then fees were high and transfers took quite a bit of time. So I went out to Germany, set up an account at DeutscheBank there using an uncle's place as a mailing address. Got my debit card, used it to get cash from the DB ATMs in my country.

[arjie]

I'm not sure if I understand. Essentially you're saying your credit card company has a better exchange rate than the other two services?

[derekp7]

This guy complains about overdraft fees. Isn't the simple solution not to overdraft? Almost any bank has online access to your account, and ATM/Debit transactions seem to show up immediately. If you are getting toward the end of your pay cycle, make a daily check of your balance. Have a habit of mentally subtracting some fixed amount (say, 1,000) from your balance whenever you look at it, so you always have a cushion too. BTW, when you have a bank turn off overdraft privileges, that applies to your debit card only (i.e., instead of letting a transaction go through it will get denied at the terminal). But any check or automatic withdraw will still generate an overdraft fee.

If you need something a bit simpler, set up two accounts -- one for recurring bills, a second one just for your debit card. Have your paycheck split accordingly between the two accounts (or set up an bi-weekly transfer to coincide with your paycheck deposits). Any utility bills, mortgage / rent payment, etc comes out of the bills account. Then you never miss an important bill payment. Bonus -- to make this work, you need a bit more going into the bills account than what goes out. At the end of the year, you will then have a surprise savings balance sitting there.

[thefreeman]

Man, no offense, but you sound like someone who has never worked paycheck to paycheck. I'm not endorsing his banking scheme, but I can sympathize with the shityt overdraft fees are.

Also "seem to come in order" is not really good enough when you are down to 5 or 10 dollars left. Also, I have seen many examples of banks processing things out of order to maximize the overdraft fees. Ie. processing larger transactions before smaller ones that occured before them chronologically, so that a number of 4 or 5 dollar purchases would end up each having a $35 overdraft fee.

For 95% of situations it would be much more in the customers interest to just reject the transactions. But the banks make a killing off of exploiting the people who can least afford it (those with almost no money in their account).

edit: downvotes? Anyone care to actually tell me what is downvote worthy in this post? The guy's recommendation to "subtract 1000" from whatever your balance is is totally infeasible for a large portion of the population.

[anigbrowl]

Bonus -- to make this work, you need a bit more going into the bills account than what goes out.

Easier said than done. Working in a mall he's probably not making top $. Theoretically you can have your bank decline a transaction rather than charging you an overdraft fee, but in practice they often ignore such requests, claiming that they're trying to save their customers from embarrassment, though I think most people would rather be slightly embarrassed than pay a $35 fee.

Overdraft fees used to be quite low, like 45 or $10 so if you did it occasionally it wouldn't be a big deal, but after the financial crisis most banks jacked them up substantially.

[dcc1]

I doubt Gamestop accountants are too thrilled about having to do extra work, or potentially be accused of money laundering or running an unlicensed money transmitted business.

They can put an end to this overnight by having a simple TOC having to be signed on every preorder. In US you wouldn't want to break TOC...

[Houshalter]

I think the larger point of this is that this guy found a system not intended for this at all, and it still works better than businesses set up for this purpose.

[notahacker]

I dunno, my bank not only pays me 3% interest on a current account with free withdrawals from most ATMs and free payments to other bank accounts, it also doesn't send me computer games I don't want if I don't forget to cancel them.

[moot]

Quality contribution(s) in an anonymous community? Who'd a thunk!

[Kluny]

Really? That's what passes for journalism? Straight up copy garbage from reddit, which copied it from 4chan, and republish it without adding ANY original thought to it? That's normal on Buzzfeed, but I didn't know kottke.org was this worthless.

[zwily]

Kottke isn't a journalist, he's a blogger.

[webwielder]

Gamification is clearly the future of banking.

[ulfw]

Or he could... just... I dunno. Use cash. If cash = empty, then no more purchase? Because clearly the guy can't handle his finances using debit cards and keeps on overdrafting his account.

[icebraining]

By using cash, if his/her house gets robbed, s/he would lose the whole paycheck. Hell, for all we know, s/he might not even be able to trust the people s/he lives with.

[brixon]

Sounds like this scheme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qesFpsi2mII

[kenrikm]

Why not just use a reload-able prepaid debit card if he/she is that bad at managing money? Managing your bank account is not that difficult.

I bank with Chase and they warn you if you get under the notification level you set, my phone will actually vibrate in my pocket with the message just after I swipe the card. Also even if you do overdraft and you get notified (with Chase)and can go make a cash deposit that same day and they won't charge you any fees. BOA is a different beast, stay far, far away from BOA if you can.

[gambiting]

It strikes me as really weird that a company would take your money for a preorder. It's not really a thing here in the UK, I don't think. Amazon certainly doesn't take my money before the product actually ships, and large stores like GAME or HMV only take a small, non-refundable deposit.

[joshvm]

When I worked at GAME we didn't even take a deposit. Managers are pushed to get as many preorders as they can, and as a store it directly affects how many units of a game you get in so there's a big incentive there. It got to the point when we'd ask people if they wanted to preorder anything just in case they wanted it later; there was no obligation to buy it so no harm to the customer and the store would benefit by getting more stock.

It was always fun looking at the preorder list.. there were quite a few vapourware titles on it.

[tehwebguy]

Or just buy games with your rewards credit card, return them for a cash refund, then pay off your credit card bill with the cash.

You can return new games if they are unopened, used games within 7 days. You get free points and GameStop foots the bill for the credit card fee.

Not sure if it's illegal, but definitely a dick move.

[fiatmoney]

Every store I've heard of refunds credit card purchases to the card in question, not cash (although with a no-receipt you can sometimes exchange it for store credit, & possibly sell that at a smaller discount than the rewards payoff), and every credit card I've ever heard of doesn't give you rewards if the charges are reversed (either because of a refund or a chargeback).

Many stores (eg, Home Depot) also track their customers' refunds and will stop allowing you to return merchandise if you're an outlier.

[TheSoftwareGuy]

not to mention that if gamestop changes their return policy, you could end up getting royally fucked.

[robobro]

Bet that works real well for paying bills / making online purchases

[aosmith]

This is retarded. What happens if GameStop goes belly up? You could be out the games and the money. I think this must be a trolling.

[gesman]

Games are like porn - is the best way for people to procrastinate and delay facing the real life issues.

This industry will die the last.

[vxNsr]

I'm kinda confused, has this dude never heard of Credit cards? Or is he already so bad at money that his credit score is too low?

[spajus]

Sounds better than keeping your money in bitcoins

[warmwaffles]

Money laundering?

[kennywinker]

Walmart gives cash back when you return something purchased on a credit card. Not sure what the parameters of this are, but I had it happen once with a ~$300 purchase and it was weird and very "money launder-y"