Knowing this, if GameStop had in fact had consumers in their best interests they would have surely put the default to stockpile your earned points, no? Instead the default was set to shoot out certificates at the lowest and fastest amount of points accruable. I would think any company would know that in todays world of the constant flooding of “Terms and Conditions” and bombardments of promotional e-mails that the vast majority of consumers (A) never even bother to open these e-mails (B) never even see them or (C) just skim through most terms and conditions. Smart on their part from a financial stance, but on grounds of morality this seemed pretty screwed up for lack of better words. Here’s where it gets shady. In the e-mail it states “if you don’t make a selection before 5/26/16, your selection will default to a $5 rewards certificate.” What this means is all the points you had accumulated up until then (or would in the future) would begin depleting by 5000 points ($5) a month if you, like me, never seen the e-mail amidst all their others in your junk box, simply skimmed by it, or opened it and didn’t think anything of it. Just like the ones I had unknowingly been receiving. In short it reads that members could now stockpile their points (which to my knowledge, they had previously been doing) or choose to opt in for automatic certificates of $5, $10, or $15 when the accumulated points hit their respective amounts. So much so that this email itself was even automatically thrown straight into the junk drawer. I found it amongst all the other junk mail they continuously send me. After some research I found out that GameStop had sent e-mails out to PowerUp Rewards members all the way back in May of 2016 which you can read in the image below. Off to the Google! Surely I had to find some answers and I couldn’t have been the only one that lost all of their points. By this time it was October 17th, 2018 and I realized all these certificates and all the points I had accumulated over the years were gone. “A measly month to use a certificate, which they decided I wanted to use my points on without my permission” I thought to myself. One that was issued on July 1st, 2018 and expired on July 31st, 2018. Success!… “Not!” – Borat, 2006. I got a certificate alright. I began digging through all the junk they send me and find one. Still strange though, because I also thought they used to stockpile, but ok, I’ll just go find them. “Oh well, big deal”. “ They must have just turned my points into $5 certificates and emailed them to me” I thought. Instead there was a handful of transactions labeled “Auto Issued Reward Certificate” subtracting 5000 points each. A few thoughts ran through my mind, the first of which was “Had I in fact used them?” So I checked the transaction history to confirm that I in fact had not. Understandably I was then instantly puzzled as I read the number under Current Points (1170) and compared them to the not so stellar amount of Lifetime Points (29,279) I had earned over the years. So I proceed to log in and go check my balance, which I have yet to touch since the inception of the account. I then thought “Hey remember all those stupid reward points you got when you bought games and actually remembered to hand them your PowerUp Rewards card?” (because I’ll be honest most of the time I either didn’t bother or didn’t think of it and lost a lot of potential points in doing so, oh well). To help me justify my over-the-top purchase, I searched for coupons which I was sure didn’t exist for GameStop (I was right). Hell, I think Rockstar deserves my money for the quality games they continue to put out, especially the upcoming title which I’m sure to sink endless hours into. I went to pre-order the Big ‘ Ole $100 copy of Red Dead Redemption 2, with $40 worth of useless digital bull crap that I of course “need”. Your GameStop PowerUp rewards points are most likely gone, if like me you haven’t been paying attention to the tens of emails they send you on a monthly basis. Where they went and how to get at least some of them back.
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