GameStop - 4792 - Pickett Center

Went in for a trade in quote for my ps5 and spent over an hour waiting for one of the employees (Jonathan) while he assisted other customers that came after me. Once he finally decided to check my system, he said that the disc drive was ruined. It was not. When you don't have a user account linked to the PS5, it will not work. I unlinked my accounts because I was going to trade it in. Then he offered a very low offer of $100 for a ps5, 2 controllers, and a game. Another customer even mentioned that it was ridiculous. Not only did he not value my time, he did not provide a good service for my trade in. I did not accept the offer and left and will never be returning to this location. Go somewhere else where the employees are more knowledgeable about games as well as have great customer service.

Title: Horrible customer service and complete lack of basic empathy. This place is super interesting, but the customer service completely ruined the experience. I am a tourist passing through and a huge Pokémon fan—I ve visited the Pokémon Centers in Ueno, Shibuya, and Kyoto in Japan, frequented EB Games stores in Melbourne, Australia for years, and visited the GameStop locations in Harrisonburg and Waynesboro on this trip, and I have never experienced anything like this. On July 21st around 6:00 PM, purely out of curiosity, I picked up some Pokémon cards in protective slabs that were on the counter to look at them. There were two employees present, but it was specifically the female staff member (not the male employee working alongside her) who overreacted and shouted at me not to touch them because they belonged to someone else, making me feel judged as if I were committing an offense. Even though I put the card back instantly and stepped away, she aggressively pulled the rest of the cards back toward herself, treating customers like potential suspects (as the saying goes: “a thief thinks everyone steals”). Despite this terrible customer service, my husband and my mom still bought items at the store. Someone who cannot manage their paranoia or communicate with composure should not be in a customer-facing role. It demonstrates a clear lack of customer service skills and emotional intelligence. Management should properly train their staff to interact professionally and with cultural sensitivity toward all visitors. I will definitely keep visiting GameStop, but never this location—I ll stick to the Harrisonburg store instead, where the woman who works there is always super cool and welcoming.

I always look forward to visiting this store because Alexandria is absolute gold, especially when it comes to helping children. Every single time we shop here, she greets my kids with genuine warmth, patience, and expert knowledge. She doesn't just scan items; she listens to them, explains things beautifully on their level, and truly connects with them. On a recent rainy day, she went completely above and beyond by taking extra time to carefully wrap and protect their purchases from the downpour so they wouldn't get ruined. It’s rare to find someone so thoughtful, attentive, and genuinely caring with young shoppers. GameStop is incredibly lucky to have her on their team!

They deserve to go out of business after staffing the place with 1 employee and a new hire (their literal first day) on a Saturday. The line to check out was 7 people and the cashiers were ignoring everyone to do a trade in. Be so for real.

I have generally had positive experiences trading in games and systems over the years, but after two similar situations at different GameStop locations, I feel it is important to share my experience. A few months ago, I attempted to trade in my Nintendo Switch at another GameStop location. During that visit, the employee repeatedly tried to reproduce an error with the controller in order to justify lowering the trade-in value. After several attempts, I decided to leave and visit another GameStop location the same day. At the second store, the employees tested the console and controller and found no issues at all. Because that situation could have simply been a misunderstanding, I chose not to leave a review at the time. However, a very similar experience recently occurred at the GameStop located in Pickett Shopping Center, which is why I am sharing this feedback. I visited the store to trade in two Xbox One systems. The employee who assisted me, Jonathan, initially commented on how well maintained both consoles were and noted that they appeared to be in great condition. However, when he began testing the controllers, he stated that both of them were showing errors.This immediately reminded me of my previous experience with the Nintendo Switch trade-in, which I mentioned to him. 
Then the store’s testing system froze and had to be restarted. Even after restarting, the system remained unresponsive, and Jonathan had to open a new cable from a box in order to continue testing. After the system and cable were replaced, the controller that previously showed an issue suddenly passed the test. Jonathan explained that the button needed to be pressed in a certain way for the test to register correctly. Because both controllers had previously shown “errors,” he decided to proceed with one of the console trade-ins without any issue. However, he insisted that the other controller was still failing intermittently due to one button, which reduced the already low trade-in value by $26. At one point he mentioned that if the controller passed the test, he would provide the full trade-in value. I politely asked if he could try testing it again. When he did, the controller passed the test twice. However, he attempted the test a third time and then claimed that it failed again. From my perspective, it felt like an unusual amount of effort was being made to produce a failure result in order to justify lowering the trade-in value. This was especially surprising given that Jonathan himself had initially commented on the excellent condition of the systems when I first walked into the store. To make sure the issue was not actually with my equipment, I visited another GameStop location afterward. Two employees there tested the same console and controller and found no issues, and they offered the full trade-in value without hesitation. I understand that employees must follow certain procedures and testing requirements, and I respect that. However, when store equipment freezes, needs to be restarted, and even requires replacing cables during the process, it would be reasonable to give the customer the benefit of the doubt rather than immediately assuming the hardware is defective. I am sharing this experience not out of frustration, but in hopes that the trade-in process can be handled more consistently and transparently in the future. Unfortunately, this experience left me feeling that the evaluation process was not entirely fair.