Gamefly Misreprentation and fraud Los Angeles, California

Gamefly is by far the worst video game rental company in the world with the worst customer service I have ever experienced. There is a reason why there are overwhelmingly negative complaints and reviews against them. Head the warnings or you too will be ripped off from this company as so many others have, including myself.

My complaint does not involve them charging my account against my will as so many others have, at least not yet. However I have already notified my bank and should Gamefly attempt to charge my card, the funds will be charged back. Wells Fargo protects their customers :).

My complaint has more to do with misrepresentation and incompetence. On their website as of (3/1/2012) it states they use 1st class mail and shipping takes 2 to 4 business days. Which is normal for 1st class mail.

When I signed up for Gamefly last year, I signed up for the FREE trial. I placed the game in my queue had the game in my hands the next day. After a few weeks I decided to up the account to two games out at a time and my trial ended around that time. Which is when the problems started. When I sent my game back to Gamefly during the second month, it took 5 days to get there. Which is one day more than the longest time listed on the website. Also the distribution center is less than 2 hours from where I live. It should have been there the next day... the second day at the latest.

Then I received the e-mail stating they have shipped my next game. Which again if it came from the distribution center two hours away should have only taken two days max. Had it come from the East Coast it should have taken two - three days. It took 10 days to get here. After seven days I reported it lost but it came three days later. So in all, it took 15 days of waiting before I was able to enjoy the benefits of my monthly membership with Gamefly. Since my first games were here lightning fast, I assumed this was just a case of "it happens" and let it slide.

The next month I sent back another game and guess what...? It took longer for me to get the game. Plus they had to send out a replacement as I never received the game. So in all it took 5 days for the game to register as a return and 12 days for me to actually get the game in my queue for a grand total of 17 days of waiting before I was able to enjoy the benefits of my monthly membership with Gamefly. For a grand total of 32 consecutive days. They of course blamed the post office for the delay and sent me a link to report the missing package as mail theft. Which the Post Office didn't want me to do. When I called Gamefly on this, they acted as though they never asked me to do that, even though I have forwarded them the e-mail where they asked me to do it.

Needless to say I wanted to know what Gamefly would do to make up for this. I thought that was a reasonable request considering what I pay per month and they were not delivering on their end. I get this response.
"We do not issue service credit for games delayed or lost in the mail. When you report a shipping problem, we take the loss and do our best to ship you a replacement as expediently as possible."

How is it my fault or even my responsibility when I am not the shipper? I am the customer. I am the one paying for a monthly membership where I only get to use 15 days of it each month. Gamefly misrepresented themselves to me when I signed up. They claimed it took 4-8 days to ship items back and forth and other than my initial trail month, it took 15-17 days.

Is that how they make up for the FREE trial period bymaking you wait 15+ days each month afterwards? I could go on how customer support was useless. Instead of addressing my concerns directly they were focusing on their own agenda so nothing I requested or asked them about was answered. I never called, as I wanted to keep it all in writing and I'm glad I did. That way if I ever think about going back, all I need to do is look at those e-mails to remind myself, it's cheaper in the long run to buy the games from Amazon.com. So I canceled my membership.

After researching the shipping issues of Gamefly, I noticed they had to file a formal complaint against the Postal Service demanding they get the same treatment with regards to handling their "DVD" packages as Netflix and Blockbuster. Not because of shipping delays mind you, but because of mishandled packages resulting in broken DVD's. Shockingly and despite Gamefly having on 4 or 5 distribution centers in this country (Netflix & Blockbuster have over ten times that many) they won the complaint. Which may or may not explain the lengthily delivery times so many people are experiencing through Gamefly.

Which brings me to this, make sure you Google Gamefly's shipping issues before you sign up. Don't take my word for it... Gamefly's poor service is posted everywhere.