Amazon: Did Piranhas Eat My Games...?

After writing about Amazon's trade-in program, I gave it a whirl.

I picked seven new 2009 games in near-mint, new-car-smell quality. I had zero interest in keeping them longer, and instead of adding more credit to my GameStop EDGE card, I decided to give Amazon a try.

I clicked through their site, found the games I wanted to trade in, made my list, checked it twice. The total credit value came out to $93.50 -- less than what I could have gotten from GameStop with their current 40% bonus trade-in deal, but shrug, I figured it was the price of a learning experience.

I printed out the automated shipping label, printed a second copy for my reference, threw the games into an old Amazon box -- recycling at its finest -- slapped on the shipping label, and headed over to the trusty local US post office.

When I say trusty, I mean, "trust me, this is going to take awhile." Twenty minutes later, the government had my package and sent it on their fastest ponies over to Amazon's third party vendor, who would open up my package, confirm that the listed goods are in sellable condition, and then mail me back an Amazon credit number within two days of receiving the package.

It's been ten days since I input the trade-in and shipped the package. I have yet to receive any delivery confirmation from Amazon or the third party reseller. I have no credit or notification of any kind. I don't have a contact name, number, or email for the third party company. It is three days after Amazon's cut-off date requirement for shipping the package. I haven't received any emails asking me if I mailed the package. Overall, it's not a very comforting feeling knowing nothing about my trade-in credit. If I had gone to GameStop, the entire transaction would have taken ten minutes...

While I await Amazon's credit, I've gone shopping at the local GameStop twice. Time to get all MadWorld on Amazon...

Edit: I finally received credit 11 days after shipping my games to Amazon. I only realized after coincidentally purchasing something on Amazon and having been given Amazon credit as the default paying method. Overall, a very painful process I don't think many people will be willing to endure. I never received Amazon's advertised bonus discount code, either.

And MadWorld, even at the Wii's "high-end" resolution of 480P, is fun to play, but excruciating to watch. The high contrast black and white palette makes the jaggies ripping their way across your screen and poking you in the eyes that much more painful.