GAME - A memoir.

Barely being able to contain my excitement, I nervously punched in the digits I needed to call to open my very own GAME account...

Opened account. No problem. Pay my account manually for a while (even though I have a debit order set up - salary goes in earlier than debit date). Call store - need to provide banking details AGAIN (can't make time to do manual payments anymore). No problem. Go to store. Provide details. All is well. A good while later - after ZERO communication - my phone rings. Oh, what's that? You haven't been debiting my account? I've been handed over? Oh me. Oh my. No explanation as to why my account wasn't debited. Overly aggressive collections department. Provide banking details AGAIN. Please debit my account. I want it payed off.

Account starts being debited. Roughly 4 months before the account is due to be payed off - "collection department" starts calling to thank me for paying my account. Right. They want to lower my installment I'm paying. Umm... No? At least one call, every day, EVERY day, after repeated requests to stop calling - sometimes as late as 21:00 at night. Eventually I need to call a manager at head office and threaten legal action. Phone calls magically stop. In the interim, I have suddenly started to get regular statements - attached to said statements are letters I haven't seen before - letters from a Mr Clint Brink - informing me that my credit limit has been decreased (because I'm a naughty delinquent who needs to be reprimanded), and that I am welcome to apply for an increase again when my account has been paid up.

Thank you Mr Brink. I want to personally thank you, because all I wanted to do, all I yearned for, was to increase my credit limit again, after digging myself out of a situation that your amazing company put me in in the first place. But alas, I digress.

The day has finally arrived. My salary has been paid into my account - and true to the vultures that you are, the moment that money clears, yours is the first debit to go off. Thankfully it's the last. A few weeks then go by. No thank you calls this time around hey? No letter from you confirming that the account has been paid. Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zip. But wait. What's this? An SMS. An SMS a few days after the first of the following month. My account is in arrears again. Wat.jpeg. Call customer service - at my expense - again. This is where I start losing my cool somewhat.

There's no record of my account having being handed over. I've been paying my account every month. So then who was I dealing with? Well, you can't tell me. I need to go find out. ME. I had to go and find out who has been harassing me, who called, etc. ME. At MY expense. AGAIN. To hell with this I think. GAME can call me back. And, unbelievably, they do - this time though, surprise surprise, the call is from collections. When am I going to pay? That unfortunately, was the last straw. I must apologize again to the collection agent who called, because, thanks to you GAME, I lost my cool. This time around, there IS record of it being handed over (Do any of you actually know how to do your jobs?). No one can answer as to what is going on with the account. So after a rather emotional phone call, I resolved to go into the actual store, and get to the bottom of it.

After waiting a few minutes at customer service (this being in store now) - who actually didn't help me other than to send me to the other end of the store - I finally get to the electronics department. Which also doubles as the credit department. Makes sense right? They in turn again need to call your card department, who again have no answers, who refuse to listen to what I am telling them, who insist I owe more money, who AGAIN don't have my banking details. Eventually, I lost it. I paid MORE money, after being told that my account was paid in full, told them to close my account, and let that be the end of it. I never wanted to hear from you again (Aside from the letter I requested stating that the account had been closed).

Then, hahahahahahaha, I'm actually giggling as I type this, I logged into my email today, and see another email from GAME. Could it be the letter I'd asked for? No, oh no. It's another statement. With another letter. This time from a Mr Jean-Pierre Booysens, letting me know that I am behind in my payments. No reflection of the money I paid to have the account settled. Nothing. Are you kidding me? Are you seriously kidding me. I honestly feel sorry for the good staff you have working in stores - you know, the ones who actually care, who try and make an effort to help - because ultimately they end up bearing the brunt of your failure.

Get ****ed. Get ****ed. Get. ****ed.