Duo tries, and fails, to steal games in pants -- Joystiq

Duo tries, and fails, to steal games in pants

by Ross Miller { Aug 22nd 2006 at 8:55PM }

Two men from Berryville, Arkansas, were arrested after a week-long spree of game theft. The duo would venture into Wal-Mart, take games out of their cases, stuffed the CDs down their pants, and proceeded to sell them at the adjacent GameStop.

After a week of thievery, the 18-year old and 21-year old suspects had amassed $1,200 in games, which is about 22 games (unless they were stealing the value games, in which case you'd better double that number). Matches were made between the empty Wal-Mart cases and the GameStop resales, and video footage had caught the pants-stuffers in action.

Open and shut case. Mama always said, "stupid is as stupid does." Maybe next time they'll try using one of the many GameStop stores nationwide ... y'know, one that is not right next to the crime scene.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

foxhaze @ Aug 22nd 2006 8:57PM

I guess that this one wasn't big enough to have to call Jack Bauer out for. Too bad.

refinedsugar @ Aug 22nd 2006 9:07PM

Maybe next time they won't steal. Friggin retards.

WhaleMenace @ Aug 22nd 2006 9:23PM

Joystiq reads Fark.com.

KVN @ Aug 22nd 2006 9:23PM

Stupid guys there the one's getting robbed by selling those games to gamestop.

Mike Jenkins @ Aug 22nd 2006 9:30PM

Unfortunately this happens all too often, it's happened at teh Target I work at with people selling the games at the GameStop in the same shopping center, but it's never happened on such a large scale. They were probably stealing value games, since those are the only games not locked up behind glass. However, there is still a possibility that they were expensive games, since at my store there was a couple who stole (among other things) a PS2.

rhork. @ Aug 22nd 2006 10:27PM

haha.

you can only picture two guys like the bad guys in home alone who think they've stumbled onto some untamed loophole. You'd think if they had any sense, they'd AT LEAST go for ebay. Wouldn't you make more money there than at gamestop And leave yourself less vulnerable than you already were, legally?

There really aren't too many non-vulgar phrases to put to word how dumb these guys are.

What dumbf*cks. Those with room temperature IQs should not be allowed to go out in public unsupervised.

Dr.Swiss @ Aug 22nd 2006 10:39PM

Didn't Gamespot.com have a contest based off of this where they had users stuff as many video games in their pants as possible and post an image of the results?

Beltran4MVP @ Aug 22nd 2006 10:49PM

"$1200.. about 22 games"
I usually buy my games one at a time but this article made me realize how much i've probably spent when it's all added up.

Now i wish i didn't read it.

Psaakyrn @ Aug 22nd 2006 10:52PM

I'm suprized though, it took 1 week to catch a pants-stuffer? I thought most shops have RFID tags on CD cases by now..

Psaakyrn @ Aug 22nd 2006 10:54PM

Blergh, ignore my comment, Spent too much time on slashdot and didn't RTFA correctly. x.x

Judd @ Aug 22nd 2006 11:26PM

Actually, this happens all the time. The Gamestop I work at(my last day's tommorow!) is about a 2 minute work to the Walmart, as it's in the same complex. We have people come in all the time trading for cash, and many times we're pretty sure they steal it, and even though this might come off as generalization, many times it looks like these people need it for drugs. The deal with Gamestop as the insentive for store credit is you get 20% taken off, plus you can't use the Gamestop card to get 10% more. So in theory those getting cash are getting 30% less. The only people who really usually get cash is when it's a small difference. If someone is getting $5 in store credit they'll often take the $4 bucks cash.

The other day a woman came in with 38 games all without any cases or sleeves, just completely loose. Now if a person really had 38 games, don't you think that maybe she'd be a common enough gamer, that she would be willing to buy a few more games with the extra money she would've gotten with credit. I asked her about it without being accusatory at all and she told me she got them at a garage sale. I kept on proding her just for the fun and she was telling me how if I go to this certain town, they have really good deals where you can find people selling games from their houses for 2 for $1. Gamestop's policy with cash is we need ID and we put down tons of info like hair color, age, and we ask the customer for their phone number. But it didn't make a difference, since we put in all that information and she ended up getting $150+ in cash. The moral of the story, me, my co-workers, and my manager all know people are stealing this stuff and we give away hundreds of dollars a week.

Now the question is, if we take down all this information, how do these people walk away with so much cash? Simple, Gamestop does have a list of people we're not supposed to sell to. But it's only people who have been caught stealing from Gamestop. Let's say a guy trades in a game he took from the shelves at Walmart(they leave live copies on the floor, and that's why we open our cases and lock the discs up seperately). The game costs $20 new and after the 20% taken off, he gets $5 for it and we sell it for $15 used. That's $10 pure profit for Gamestop when Walmart loses $20. This is nothing specifically against Gamestop, as Walmart is pretty corrupt too, but it's pretty messed up how the business world runs.

>_> @ Aug 22nd 2006 11:41PM

Can't touch this

Gary @ Aug 23rd 2006 6:48AM

EBGames and Gamestop are all to happy to act as a fence. I see rows of generic cases lining shelves at these places and signs reading, "Cash For Games".

I wonder hammer-pants wearing shmo pays the same price for a disc in a generic box as a game with an original box and manual?

It would be easy for them to require a box and manual at the time of trade-in but their thirst for profits disregards the gamer and rubs the shiny belly of the petty thief before bedding down for a bout of profit making.

It is not a pretty sight.