December 11th, 2007

Edge cards and the mystery of the disappearing ink

I witnessed a rather frustrating occurence over Black Friday weekend at Gamestop, which, thankfully, did not happen to me.

A middle-aged man was buying some used games for his young son. The cashier was a jolly looking older man who earlier described himself as a retired college professor who “loves video games too much.” The cashier asked the customer if he had the Edge card, Gamestop’s 10% off discount card for used games. It costs $15 per annum and also gets you a subscription to the Gamestop-owned magazine Game Informer, which tells you which games you should be buying at Gamestop. No editorial conflict of interest there, no.

The customer presented his card, and after the cashier squinted at it, he responded, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think you can use your card today. The ink has rubbed off on it. You’ll have to bring in your address label with your account number on it to get your discount.”
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