ex-eb-ers

Texas GameStop Manager Only Sells to Good Students

Posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 2:37 am, under Gamer Life, Games Industry

If you want to buy games from a certain GameStop in Texas, you’d better make sure your grades are in check, first.

A GameStop manager in southern Dallas, Texas is requiring children who come to the store to purchase games to have their parents confirm that they are getting good grades. And not only that, but the kids have to mind their manners, too.

“They know when they come in here, they do not curse, they do not use the N-word, pull your clothes up,” Brandon Scott, the GameStop manager, said in a recent article by WFAA-TV. “I’m probably going to get in trouble for this, but to me it’s worth it, because the kids understand that somebody cares.”

Some students might think this is a bit harsh, but he’s all about the giving, too.

“If you give me straight As with your teachers signature, endorsing it and your parent up here, I’ll buy you a brand new game,” Scott said in the article.

It will be interesting to see if anyone higher up in the GameStop chain of command will take any action. Retailers do have the right to refuse service to anyone, but I’m not sure if any retailers have come up with anything like this before.

The GameStop in question is located along the I-20 in Texas, though no specific information was given in the article.

Personally...I think this guy is doing the kids in his neighborhood a great deed. Talk about a modern day Robin Hood. :-)

Anyone out there? If you are an 'ex-eb-er', please let us know how you are doing, what you are doing these days, and where you are. This site is a great memory for us long time EB folks.

Leave a comment with your email address and we can get you set up to post on this blog. Just know, we don't want anything negative. This is a site for remembering a great company.

We would love to know if anyone has gotten married, had babies, where they work now, pretty much anything, if they are an 'ex-eb-er'.

Let's keep this site alive.

Anyone remember Jeff Stein? He was the LP Director after Birch Hall left. Jeff was with EB for about a year. Here is an article that Joe Deeney sent me.

Posted on Sat, Aug 11, 2007
http://www.dailylocal.com
To catch a thief
By Brian McCullough

Jeff Stein has been in the trenches in the battle against retail theft for decades. And he has the scars to prove it.

In 1989 while working as a security guard at a John Wanamaker’s department store in the King of Prussia Plaza, Stein was run down by a car operated by a fleeing shoplifter.

According to a newspaper report at the time, Stein and a partner were pursuing two shoplifters who cut a security chain and grabbed an armful of men’s leather jackets as they fled the store.

They captured one on the sidewalk outside the mall and as the second was plowing through the parking lot at 40 miles per hour, the car struck Stein, who bounced over the hood and hit his head on a curb.

Stein ended up in the University of Pennsylvania Hospital for two weeks, the first three days in intensive care with a fractured skull, a fractured inner ear bone and other injuries.

“I still can’t smell and my sense of taste is lessened,” Stein said matter-of-factly last week. “There’s a constant ringing in the ears.

“I’ve stayed with it,” he said. “I just look both ways a little more.”

After spending 19 years working in loss prevention at stores such as Wanamaker’s, J.C. Penney, Radio Shack and Electronics Boutique, Stein set out on his own in 2005, starting Executive LP Services, a loss prevention provider.

Ironically, it wasn’t the bad guys that motivated him to leave the store floor. Instead, it was what was happening in the corporate board rooms at large retailers: Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, mergers and store closings.

“I got tired of moving and changing jobs, and I got tired of being laid off,” said Stein, 38, of East Caln.

In his new role as consultant, he has worked with BC Sports Collectibles, Hallmark stores, doctor’s offices and small retailers.

And in May, Stein expanded his line, buying the southeastern Pennsylvania franchise rights for MonitorClosely.com Digital Surveillance Systems, a national security company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio

The systems, which range in cost from $3,000 to $5,000, include cameras and software that enable owners to monitor their businesses when they’re off site. The equipment can be programmed with motion sensors to go on only when there’s movement in a room. Or, if an employer wants to check on what is happening at his business at a specific time, they can do that through the MonitorClosely.com Web site.

The customer base would include daycare centers, schools, assisted-living facilities, retail businesses, apartment complexes, multi-unit fast-food restaurants and hotels.

“Your large retailers have this in-house but there’s nobody focused on small or mid-sized firms,” Stein said. “This basically gives them a (loss prevention) department that they wouldn’t be able to afford.”

One area business that has put the system in use is La Spada’s Original Steaks in Parkside, Delaware County.

Michael Ruger, who owns the steak shop and deli with his wife, Maria, said he purchased the system for peace of mind.

Ruger said he had Stein put cameras inside and outside of his shop because “you can never be too safe.”

“They all know (the cameras) are here,” Ruger noted. “Basically, I’m here all the time now. I can be in Hawaii and check on what’s happening in live time.”

Stein said he’s particularly optimistic in the daycare market for MonitorClosely.com. For about a dollar extra a day, daycare centers could offer parents the opportunity to monitor their children’s activities live via the Internet.

“It also reduces general liability insurance costs,” he said. “It pays for itself in two years.”

Retailers, meanwhile, could focus one of the cameras directly on the cash register, and video can be stored for up to 30 days – enough time to review the tape should a problem be discovered later, Stein said, adding that the systems can also catch fraudulent slip-and-fall claims.

Retailers, and any business that handles cash, have good reason to be concerned about shoplifting and internal theft, known in loss prevention circles as “shrinkage.”

According to the Unites States Department of Labor, 30 percent of all new business failures are a direct result of employee dishonesty.

According to a recent National Retail Security Survey report, retailers lost:

$19.5 billion in employee theft;

$13.3 billion from shoplifting;

$ 5.8 billion in administrative error;

$ 1.7 billion in vendor fraud.

The problem has gotten worse with the growth of organized retail theft rings, Stein said.

“It’s so bad the FBI has instituted a task force to investigate it,” he said.

Pat Waters, chief operating officer for BC Sports, based in East Goshen, said shrinkage is a concern for his company, the largest sports memorabilia company in the U.S., just like it is for any other retailer.

“It’s the number one challenge of every retailer out there,” Waters said. “Some spend tens of thousands of dollars to prevent it.”

With 48 stores, 314 employees and plans to expand, BC Sports was spun off into a private company when its former owner, Electronics Boutique, was purchase by GameStop of Grapevine, Texas, in 2005.

Waters hired Stein, both former Electronics Boutique employees, to institute procedures to stop employee theft and shoplifting for the sports collectibles chain.

The policies included mandatory bag checks for employees leaving the store, a consistent method for validating returns, a checklist for store managers, a system for checking the electronic sales journal, and a guide on how to provide the type of customer service that dissuades shoplifting.

“What shoplifters prey on is employees who are not aware of their surroundings,” Waters said.

For BC Sports, shrinkage of about three-quarters of a percent of sales was better than the national average of 1 to 3 percent, Waters said, but based on revenues of $30 million last year, he estimated the company still lost $247,000 due to shrinkage.

One employee ran a scam in which he would return marked-down jerseys and get a full price return, pocketing the difference.

“He had done it 63 times by the time we had caught it from what Jeff had put in place,” said Waters, who added that the company received restitution from its $4,300 loss.

“Our first and foremost priority is that we will prosecute to the full extent of the law,” he added.

Stein said fraudulent cash refunds are one of the most common methods employees use to steal from the employers.

“They start out small and before you know it they’ve stolen $30,000,” he said.

Dave Walsh, DM
Ron Tepner, HR recruiter
Joe Deeney, Director of International Finance

Good luck to all of you.

Today, Friday, September 7th, is a sad day for us. Josh Jones has packed up and moved to PA. His friend came down to help him pack and is driving back with him and Indie (Josh's Yorkie), Saturday morning. We wish Josh the best of luck. We hope he visits us soon.

Here is Josh at our house at Thanksgiving, boxing on the Wii. :-)

Mike,

This is a great blog, thanks for keeping it going. Looking it over brought back a lot of fond memories.

Steve