Rant about BT Games rental system...

Too many for my taste... Doesn't do much for faith in a stable store, does it?

EDIT: So much for getting back to me within "30 minutes"... Almost an hour now and nothing. They are so consistent in NOT sticking to their promises! Huzzah! :D

MINI UPDATE: Spoke to Jade at Head Office (I presume) and she promised to sort this out by today. I'm holding thumbs that THIS TIME a promise is kept... :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
Hi,

After hearing your whole story on the phone and reading here, I will definitely be escalating this issue to regional and national management. Again I want to apologise for the horrendous service you received, I'm not sure exactly what the story is with all the staff changes at the branch there, but it sounds fishy to me.

Kind Regards,
Adrian
 
Hi Adrian, I am waiting with bated breath to see the outcome of this scenario. Thanks for the feedback so far...
 
So, I had a rental contract from BT Games (the R99 option) for a few months, during which I only rented a single game. I didn't have time to play that many games, so I decided to cancel the contract. I canceled it during June and was notified by the sales person at the counter that they require a calendar month's notice, so I would effectively be billed for July as well. I told them I'm fine with that and was willing to sacrifice the July payment. My wife was pretty adamant that the sales person give me a proof of cancellation, which was provided and signed. The sales person assured me that the contract will be canceled and that July would be the last month that I am billed for.

And guess what? My credit card was billed another R99 at the beginning of August. I email the specific BT Games branch on the 11th of August, CC-ing Adrian as well. I had no reply by the 14th, so I dropped them another mail. I got a reply on the Monday, 17 August, stating that their mail server was down. I also got another mail the next day, with an apology and another statement that their mail server was down. The email also stated that I would receive an email the minute the problem was sorted out. I'm still waiting for that minute to happen, seeing as the R99 hasn't been refunded to my credit card yet. I'm also in the dark as to whether the contract was canceled or not!

On Monday I tried emailing them again, but the mail kept bouncing back stating that the BT Games mailbox is full. So, I dropped them another mail this morning, which (hopefully) went through. I'm holding thumbs now that they eventually sort this out.

Ok, so my rant / story now complete, has anyone here experienced similar difficulties in canceling a rental contract at BT Games? I, for one, will definitely never make use of that service again. I feel it is unreliable and that the cancellation thereof is completely out of my control.

not only that, but if only they would update their freaking website
http://www.mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php?t=2461

seriously what kind of a daft web designer would for example if you go search with criteria A and click next keep that "next" and when you switch your criteria you are suppose to be at the "first" result and not automatically at the next page already:

1) http://www.btgames.co.za/home.asp
2) platform > xbox
3) status > items on special
4) click next
5) status > preplayed items

geez, clear the bloody settings and reset if the criteria has changed not to mention if you close the tab the site was in and reopen a tab with the site to go back, have a look at the set filters...
 
Last edited:
I am a new member of BT games Rental and it is great at this stage.

I completely ignore the online rental system - it is useless.
E-mails are being sent weeks after a game has been rented already and the system does not always seem to work at store level!

I contact my local store and arrange the game that they have available for me.
They guys there are pretty cool and they always try and get the game that I want.
:D
 
I am a new member of BT games Rental and it is great at this stage.

I completely ignore the online rental system - it is useless.
E-mails are being sent weeks after a game has been rented already and the system does not always seem to work at store level!

I contact my local store and arrange the game that they have available for me.
They guys there are pretty cool and they always try and get the game that I want.
:D

Just wait until you go into the store to cancel your rental contract. That's where my fun began... I never touched the online system either.
 
I'd recommend you go into the store, request a proof of cancellation that is signed by the store attendant. THEN you phone head-office to make sure they received the request to cancel your contract and also asked an email proof of it. That should get you sorted... :)
 
I'd recommend you go into the store, request a proof of cancellation that is signed by the store attendant. THEN you phone head-office to make sure they received the request to cancel your contract and also asked an email proof of it. That should get you sorted... :)

That should get me sorted... I've become very cynical about service delivery in SA of late... and I work in a Customer Service related field! :erm:
 
Still no reply from BTAdrian? I would love to hear what Regional And National Management's opinions were of the shop... and what was done to rectify it
 
FarligOpptreden, in my opinion you should be given your R99 and reimbursed for the petrol and time you wasted to go to the store when you were told to go in for your refund and still did not end up getting it. If they make you waste time and money on a trip they should compensate you for it, either by cash or a game of your choice. After all because of the inefficiency of their systems and their staff you have lost time, money and the situation has definitely been mentally exhausting for you.

It was really smart of your wife to recommend that you get proof of the cancellation and a clever move on your part to communicate with them via email to keep a track record. I'd really hate to think what your situation would be like if you had none of the above proof of your account cancellation, chances are you would have been billed continuosly till present and probably have lost more than R99.

I have purchased my Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 from BT Games, I buy a fair number(3-4) of games from them every month, I've even gone to one of their game launch events (Wrath of the Lich King midnight launch in November 2008). Heck I was going to go tomorrow to get Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend from them. After reading your posts I've decided that I will wait to see what the outcome of your situation is. If they do not fix your problem by Wednesday (By giving you R99 as well as something else in compensation for their incompetance) I will take my future gaming business elsewhere. If this is the way they are willing to treat people I certainly do not wish to be one of their customers that has to go through a similar situation in the future. They probably won't care since they're losing just one customer, but seeing that I'm tired of the poor service delivery in SA I'm going to use my power as a consumer and line someone elses pockets with my cash :)
 
FarligOpptreden, in my opinion you should be given your R99 and reimbursed for the petrol and time you wasted to go to the store when you were told to go in for your refund and still did not end up getting it. If they make you waste time and money on a trip they should compensate you for it, either by cash or a game of your choice. After all because of the inefficiency of their systems and their staff you have lost time, money and the situation has definitely been mentally exhausting for you.

It was really smart of your wife to recommend that you get proof of the cancellation and a clever move on your part to communicate with them via email to keep a track record. I'd really hate to think what your situation would be like if you had none of the above proof of your account cancellation, chances are you would have been billed continuosly till present and probably have lost more than R99.

I have purchased my Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 from BT Games, I buy a fair number(3-4) of games from them every month, I've even gone to one of their game launch events (Wrath of the Lich King midnight launch in November 2008). Heck I was going to go tomorrow to get Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend from them. After reading your posts I've decided that I will wait to see what the outcome of your situation is. If they do not fix your problem by Wednesday (By giving you R99 as well as something else in compensation for their incompetance) I will take my future gaming business elsewhere. If this is the way they are willing to treat people I certainly do not wish to be one of their customers that has to go through a similar situation in the future. They probably won't care since they're losing just one customer, but seeing that I'm tired of the poor service delivery in SA I'm going to use my power as a consumer and line someone elses pockets with my cash :)

Wow, long post... :p The conclusion to the whole story was that I was eventually refunded the R99 by head office, facilitated by Jade of BT Games. In their defense, they sounded quite embarrassed about the whole scenario and how it played itself out, so I'm guessing that this doesn't happen TOO often. I was just a bit disappointed that the refund took quite long to get approved and eventually payed over to my credit card account. I guess it would've been fair of them to compensate me for my lost time, travel expenses and interest that I payed on the R99 for 2 months, but I'm just glad it was sorted out.

I don't ever hold grudges for long, so I have actually forgiven BT Games for this bit of a blunder, but it's not enough for me to warrant another visit to their store in the near future. If anyone has been having good service from BT Games then by all means, continue supporting them. The steam from my vent has evaporated long ago and I'm cooler than ice-cubes... :p
 
I've had reasonable service from BT Games...kudos to them for what is the "ONLY" rental service in JHB North (bar video stores that hire games at ridiculous prices and have really sad collections)....my only gripes are :

1. Sales staff at store are arrogant and perceive gamers as 'kids'....an example (among many) is when i requested to purchased a game i hired (as per contract, i'm entitled to purchase any game I hire) and was given a hard time in the store about purchasing it. I was only lucky that i had called head-office to confirm pricing before i arrived at the store.

2. Their systems are horrible (including the web wishlist)...sometimes down, takes forever to do a rental (my video store is about 10 times quicker - not exaggerated) .
Took me hours to get signed up, including a store visit where i was incorrectly told that i can't sign up in the store...and being billed R300 out of the blue, arranged for no deductions for the following 2 months...

3. Their new releases are limited and delayed, i've had to hire a game i hired earlier in the year this weekend cos they had nothing really new...

On the positive side, i've only had positive experiences with Adrian and Jade...BT is quite lucky to have customer-centric and dedicated peepz like these...
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X