Refresh My Memory... Buy Rite Sucks, Right?

I personally never had problems with them and used them a lot in the early days.

But there are simply better and more professional importers out there these days, like ncsx and play-asia, so there's really no reason to use buy-rite now.
 
yeah, i can't talk shit about them. i imported MK Super Circuit when they were selling it for $12 right before the US version came out, and everything went smooth as hell.

but being that every single last person out there talks shit about them, i say better safe than sorry.
 
I was thinking of getting a used Brigandine off of their yesterday for 19.99, but shipping was like $8, and I wasn't sure I'd get the box/manual.
 
I dealt with them in the N64 days. I bought StarFox64 JP and an JP->US Adapter for it. The adapter was like $15 and they forgot to send it. It was a bitch to get them to admit they fucked up and get it sent.

I, of course, being younger didn't realize that I could have just taken out a piece in my N64 and didn't even need the adapter.
 
I bought an imported GBA SP when they first came out. Be prepared for no updates or emails or info on your order. I placed it, never heard anything for two weeks. I sent a letter stating how I was forewarned about them but gave them a chance and how upset I was and how I was going to look into the BBB. I then got a response within 24 hours and my product two days later. Just don't be impatient and check with them often.
 
I can tell you from personal experience, and the experience my best friend had with the company, it is best to stay far away!

For a good time, visit these links!

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller3699.html

http://www.bbbenc.org/commonreport.html?compid=19394

"Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record due to unanswered complaints concerning delivery problems & product dissatisfaction. The Bureau has processed 380 complaints about this company in the last 36 months. One hundred and seventy-five of those were processed in the last 12 months. Of all the complaints 315 were resolved but not always within the Bureau's time frame, 13 were unresolved and 52 were no response."


Report as of February 21, 2005
Copyright© 2005 Better Business Bureau®, Inc.
 
Won a new copy of Unlimited SaGa for $20 off of eBay. I get an email from Buy Rite confirming my "order". I was quite pissed as they weren't listed anywhere on the eBay auction. Anyway, I get an opened copy. I bitched and so on and eventually got my shipping refunded. Still, they are crap.
 
LIKE A HOOVER.

I've never had an experience with Buy-Rite that didn't end in tears. I think I've only ordered from them twice, of course, because I'm not stupid. The first time was X-Men vs. Street Fighter plus a 4-in-one RAM card/convertor. The RAM card broke and I had to send it back; they did replace it but sent it Priority Mail when I had originally paid for two-day shipping.

The second and last ever time was about three years later; I ordered a modded GameCube and Super Mario Sunshine. After telling me on the phone numerous times that the package would go out on street date, they sent it out about a week after it launched. And the packaging was atrocious; the box wasn't closed all the way and everything was just shoved inside with no packing material.

And yet, I actually had a better-than-average experience because I got my products. Which is more than many can say. Anyway, fool me twice and you can't get fooled again, as the saying apparently goes.
 
Crap. Crap. Crap.

They billed me four times for the same item, then had a condescending attitude when I called long distance to get it resolved. This was years and years ago. I could hear a garage door opening and a clothes dryer buzzing in the background during my conversations with them.
 
My most memorable experience was during the Playstation 1 launch. After telling the guy the details on the system for like 6 months, they couldn't get me a system, but they did sell me Ridge Racer.

I paid the low LOW Buy-Rite price of $109 + 2 day air mail.

Took 4 days to arrive, reshrinkwrapped, bottom of CD scratched up and the back of the manual had a nice coffee cup stain ring on it.

I later bought Zeta Gundam (the PS1 game with link mode) from them as they were the only place to stock it for a decent price and had it next day air shipped here. No problems that time.

I think that's the last time I ordered from them. Now if I want something, I either use Users Side, Himeya or Wanpaku USA.
 
They had some deal on their site like a year ago, so I placed an order for like a dozen used games. They only shipped one, and charged me for all of them. They were impossible to contact via the phone (I tried for hours for weeks). Eventually, I just disputed the charge with my credit card company.
 
First order: FFVII, no real problems

Second order: Fire Pro S, no issues

Third order: Astra Superstars, COD. (they forgot to send COD, result one free Astra Superstars for me)

Fourth order: they had a bunch of 8/16 bit games 'on clearance', and went so far as to list relatively oddball stuff including TG16/Sega CDs. I make a list of around 100 games I wanted to order, and send it off. I get an email back a week later saying 'we're sorry we don't have any of those in stock other than XXXX, so we'll ship XXXX and charge you $8.00 shipping on a 2.00 game.' I quickly reply and tell them to forget it if they're just going to post a list of stuff that they don't even have then have the nerve to charge me $10.00 for one NES game that I could just as easily get for $1 somewhere else and was only ordering for the convenience of getting all the other stuff.

Fifth order: Giant Gram, it doesn't ship for nearly 2 weeks, yet my credit card was charged. I finally call after getting no response via email, am put on hold for 30 min, then told rather rudely 'we'll get it out when we get a chance.' I quickly call my CC company and chargeback. Order it from NCS the same day, and it's in my hands 2 days later.
 
Reading through BBB emails about Buy-Rite is always entertaining.

Some poor fuck said:
Today I received the package from buy-rite, opened it and noted that it only contained one of the games that I ordered (Halo). The game wasn't even new as advertised, The case was the type distributed by game rental chains, with "not for resale" printed on the cover. This gets worse, I opened the case and there was no disc in it!
 
DO NOT ORDER FROM BUY-RITE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

They bill you and don't ship the item for months, and when you do get the item it's in terrible condition, and you CAN'T CANCEL ORDERS (it's their policy) and you CAN'T RETURN ITEMS and oh my god do NOT USE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I've also had bad experiences with BUY WRONG. It's pretty much the same story as the others have posted here:

1. ordered stuff
2. cc got charged first
3. no response to emails / phonecalls
4. product took forever to arrive
5. package arrives in shitty condition and not as advertised. It was opened and definitely used.

How can a company run like this still stay in business? *mind boggles*
 
yeah I ordered from them once- what follows is a story to keep you up at night-

I had decided 2 years back that I'd buy a saturn and get some games off of Ebay, Whippinsean was kind enough to give me his sega saturn and some games for some of my games, other titles I was interested in were later found on Ebay .. excapt for a couple..

I checked out buyrite games and found they had pretty low prices so I picked out I think 3 games which with shipping totaled around 60 USD , so I was expecting at the time to pay 90-100 canadian once everything was said and done. After about 3 weeks I get an email saying my order had been changed , and card refunded for some items. I'd only be getting 2 games instead of all 3 and it was being shipped soon. 2 weeks later I had to go pick up this package at purulator, which cost me 20 bucks to open it and find only 1 of the games I'd ordered inside and about 6 months later I reiceved an importing charge bill in the mail for another 12 bucks.

IN then end all things tallied up it cost me 80 canadian dollars to buy the 20 USD Legend of Oasis from buyrite and it took 2 months.

So yeah I wouldnt' use them .
 
I've had an overall shitty time with them, but not as bad as it could have been.

1. Super Mario Advance 2 JPN (beginning of 2002)
I order it because it was cheapest there ($45.50)... until I find the $9 shipping charge they didn't tell me about. The order arrived, although a little late.

2. Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO JPN (GameCube, middle of 2002)
It arrives on time and in good condition, yay.

3. Virtua Fighter 3tb/Power Stone/Marvel vs. Capcom/DC Monitor Adapter JPN (Dreamcast, middle of 2002)
All arrive on time and in good condition... so far, so good.

4. Dairantou Smash Bros. DX (GameCube, summer of 2002)
Order doesn't ship or arrive at all, nor is it charged. Pisses me off, so I'll never order from there again.

That said, my experiences with them are overall alright, but I only found out the TRUE horror stores after my fourth order... so never again.
 
Stay away from these guys. I used to deal w/ these guys in my old retail/distribution job...bad service, bad overall. Pay a little more and go with NCS (for imports), as Peter is very cool about shit. Is Tommo still around? I always liked these guys and Tom is definitely one of the coolest people that I've ever dealt with.
 
i think there are so many other good import and used sites out there that there's no reason to go with buy-rite. what good is slightly lower prices if there's a 50% chance you might not actually get what you want? why ign continues to suggest that people buy from them boggles my mind. unless.
 
i think buyrite is the only place i've ever called and just got such a creepy, slimy, wrong vibe from them i just hung up halfway through the conversation. this was years ago, but i just knew from the way the guy spoke and what he was saying that he was completely unreliable.

good move, me!
 
sucks Sucks SUCKS!

ill never tire of seeing these threads. ill preach untill the day i die that these are NOT he people to do business with. do not give them your money. they do not deserve it, and will fuck you given 1/2 the chance.

stay far away.

sucks.
 
I'm awed that some of you took multiple chances on them. I avoided them like the plague when I was importing weekly for the Saturn. They had the same rep back then. Why chance it to save a few bucks? Even if it works out, you're still supporting a crook.
 
Haha, did anyone see this image on their front page?

eagle_front.jpg


Fucking scumbags.

On a side note, I accidentally went to buyrite.com which is some electronics retailer. On their home page, they have a big message that says they don't sell videogames with a link to the real buyrite. Poor company...I wonder how many BBB complaints they've received by mistake...
 
Buy-Rite sucks, doesn't swallow, then gives you venereal disease.

They're local to me, so I can't comment on their mail order business, only the Laff Riot(tm) that visiting their retail location is. Used games repackaged as new, systems riffled for new components and replaced with generic, bizzare pricing, the whole nine yards. Their storefront is like a giant blinking neon sign that says "RAW DEAL WAITING TO HAPPEN, COME ON IN, SUCKER".

My favorite anecdote comes from a friend of mine who wound up there recently looking for one game or another. Here's the transaction:

Friend: How much is this game?

BR: Let's see...oh, $50.

Friend: Okay, I'd like to buy it.

BR: Sure. (Grabs a calculator.) So, we'll add sales tax and that's...$62.

Friend: ...North Carolina sales tax is %7.

BR: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Um...that's $53.50.

Apparently, the owner has a deal with his employees. He sets a base rate for the games, and they can charge whatever they think they can get away with beyond that. Thanks, Buy-Rite!

FnordChan
 
A few years ago I met a guy in Japan who was their supplier. Or one of them, anyway. He told me how he would go around and buy used games. Buy-Rite shipped them as new. He also asked me not to tell anyone.

HI, GUESS WHAT, I'M TELLING EVERYONE, FUCK YOU.

Oh yeah, and their 'overnight shipping' is overnight from when they feel like processing the order.
 
I actually won something on ebay from them, Star Soldier for the Gamecube. took 3 weeks to get to me but it was actually new :) Of course I didn't know I was buying from them...
 
FnordChan said:
Buy-Rite sucks, doesn't swallow, then gives you venereal disease.

They're local to me, so I can't comment on their mail order business, only the Laff Riot(tm) that visiting their retail location is. Used games repackaged as new, systems riffled for new components and replaced with generic, bizzare pricing, the whole nine yards. Their storefront is like a giant blinking neon sign that says "RAW DEAL WAITING TO HAPPEN, COME ON IN, SUCKER".

My favorite anecdote comes from a friend of mine who wound up there recently looking for one game or another. Here's the transaction:

Friend: How much is this game?

BR: Let's see...oh, $50.

Friend: Okay, I'd like to buy it.

BR: Sure. (Grabs a calculator.) So, we'll add sales tax and that's...$62.

Friend: ...North Carolina sales tax is %7.

BR: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Um...that's $53.50.

Apparently, the owner has a deal with his employees. He sets a base rate for the games, and they can charge whatever they think they can get away with beyond that. Thanks, Buy-Rite!

FnordChan

Thanks. That was a hilarious story of attempted petty crime. The owner's 'deal' is probably incentive for being underpayed but that's funny too. How can these people sleep at night?
 
My official policy is to stay away from any company that uses funky spellings in place of normal ones. This goes double for Buy Rite, which can't seem to grasp that "rite" and "right" were never interchangable.
 
I'll add my horror story as well.

I ordered Virtua Pro Wrestling 2 when it first came out cause all the other places like The Rage were on Back Order. So the price was nice for a brand new, sealed N64 import, $68.99, but they never disclosed the amount for the shipping since they claimed shipping costs were calculated according to weight and address.

I thought to myself, alright this is an N64 game, inside the US, so it can't be more than $6-$7. Wrong!! 2 weeks go by, no package, and best of all, no email or no customer page on the site that you can use to check your order or invoice. I email them, wait 1 more week, no response. Then the Visa bill arrives, I see a charge worth about $86, which by my calculations means they charged $16 for shipping. A few days later I'm about to call them on the phone when a small cardboard box gets delivered to my home, I pick it up from the floor and immediately I'm like "oh fuck no", cause the box was really small, really light and as I turned it around I could hear the contents move around freely inside it.

I open it to find a VPW2 cartridge, by itself, no box, no instructions, nothing more, plus shipping was about $2 first class shipping. I reported them to my credit card company and even though it took a few months and had to send the piece of shit game back to them, I got a full refund, shipping charges and all.

Nowadays I only use NCSX or Tronixweb for my import needs.
 
I used to use Tronix when I was buying imports (then later, when Sega stopped shipping North American Saturn titles to Canada). I looked at Buy Rite more than once, but even then the rep was poor. The fact that it hasn't changed speaks volumes, IMO.

I think there's room for an online business to start out rocky and grow if they're getting slammed by too much business or something, but to remain continously rocky is not a good sign.
 
almokla said:
worst customer service EVER.. it just,,, doesn't exist


Don't get me started! I order a game from them once (I think it was the import of Dark Stalkers: NIght Warriors for the Saturn). Not only did they send me an opened case, but there was no game inside. I called and raised hell. and they werelike whatever (I could here them playing the gamein the background). Probaly one of the top 2 gaming customer experiences that I'ce had (I'll tell you about #2 sometime).

Stay the hell away from Buy-Rite, they've been investigated more times than you could shake a stick at. But them again, that was years ago, and I'n SURe they've gotten better customer service. I won't risk my money to find out though.........

I take it your looking for cheap stuff or imports go with NCSX.com or my man Joe at Tronix (Tronixweb.com). Those two places are tops. If you're looking for cheap used games in near mint condition...you'd be surprised with Gamefly. I've been ordering a lot of stuff form them and so far it's all been in prestine condition.

But please forgivr me I never swear on message boards but....

Buy-Rite......MOTHERFUCK YOU!!!! Slimy fucking bastards!!!
 
Well my friend is looking for a hard to find domestic release, not an import, which is where most of the horror stories stem from. But what RevenantKioku said reminded me of a similar incident that happen to me, and I too was pissed and the game was not new as adverstised, hence why I would never dare to business with them again.
 
Apharmd Battler said:
But them again, that was years ago, and I'n SURe they've gotten better customer service.
See, you'd think that. I thought that, which is why I tried them again four years after my first experience. It's not true.
 
This is my only Buy Rite experience:

I sent in an email to them, just asking about pricing for a few import Saturn titles that were coming out. The email they sent back was a form letter that had nothing to do with the question at all, and there was a FUCKING VIRUS on the email.


I ordered from NCSX :P
 
Kobun Heat said:
See, you'd think that. I thought that, which is why I tried them again four years after my first experience. It's not true.

To be completely fair, you should acknowledge that their reseller ratings score for the last six months is 0.19 out of 10, which is better than their lifetime 0.14 out of 10 rating.
 
Avoid Buyrite...they screwed me over every time I dealt with them.

I bought FF8 (ended up being the Asian version for $90), and 2 packages were sent to me. I thought nothing of it and could only take one.

I bought Bust a Move, and after a month I finally got..Bust a Move 2.

While waiting for Bust a Move, I ordered Chrono Trigger for the PSX, and they said I owed them $16 for sending that 2nd package with FF8, and could not order from them online until I paid them for sending that 2nd FF8 that I never ordered and they sent on their own error.

I've gotten stuff from NCS ever since, and never had any problems (except my silver PS2 forgot to come with the stand thing, but I wouldn't have used it anyway).
 
I ordered the first couple of Rockman PSX ports from them back when I didn't know any better. Everything went fine, and after reading people's stories some time after I obviously lucked out hardcore and walked away without incident.
 
My Story:

I ordered an import Game Boy Advance (regular) off their site. Put it in the cart, put in my credit card info, placed the order, hooray.

The next day, I got a mail telling me that I couldn't buy just the GBA unit; I had to purchase 2 (or was it 3?) games as well. Though the base GBA hardware was a decent price, the software was (unsurprisingly) markup hell. There was only one game I wanted at the time, so I asked them to cancel my order as I didn't realize the hardware was sold in bundles only.

They refused absolutely, claiming I had placed my order for the hardware and I'd best hurry up and choose my games, too.

In the end, they balked when I threatened to write them up on the GIA-- but I still had to call my bank to cancel my credit card and get it reissued with a new number.

If you're looking for import games, I really recommend tronixweb.com. Joe has moved heaven and earth in the past to get games to me for timely import reviews. Some people swear by NCSX, and I've used them in the past with no problems, but my heart belongs to Tronix.
 
JackFrost2012 said:
My Story:

I ordered an import Game Boy Advance (regular) off their site. Put it in the cart, put in my credit card info, placed the order, hooray.

The next day, I got a mail telling me that I couldn't buy just the GBA unit; I had to purchase 2 (or was it 3?) games as well. Though the base GBA hardware was a decent price, the software was (unsurprisingly) markup hell. There was only one game I wanted at the time, so I asked them to cancel my order as I didn't realize the hardware was sold in bundles only.

They refused absolutely, claiming I had placed my order for the hardware and I'd best hurry up and choose my games, too.

In the end, they balked when I threatened to write them up on the GIA-- but I still had to call my bank to cancel my credit card and get it reissued with a new number.

thats is INSANE.

how do these people still do business? too many horror stories. who cares if they get an order right every once in a while.

i just dont get it.

but if, just IF, every time i post about how incredibly bad this place is, one person decides to spend their money elsewhere, then job well done.

save yourself the aggravation: Do NOT buy from Buy-Rite!

ncsx, play asia, and tronix (from what ive heard), all have great customer service. there are way better options. no matter what price or selection buy-rite claims to have.

it cant be said enough. fuck em. they did it to all of us.
 
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