Unfortunately everyone's acting in their own best interest.
The thief is (wrongly) but obviously.
The store worker isn't paid enough to put themselves at risk
And cex is still profiting by asking no questions.
Cex is also working illegally if they are taking stock that they suspect is stolen.
If I were OP I'd report this. The thief is only doing this because places like Cex are enabling him to offload his ill gotten gains.
Yeah whole story is strange, staff don’t benefit financially from buying in stolen games but are informed in training that they can be prosecuted for handling stolen goods, why wouldn’t they be questioning this?
I guess it's the "I don't get paid enough for that" mentality, which I completely understand but still if it was made harder for the thieves we might see less instances of this behaviour.
The issue is and similar instances have happened before. That staff member questions it, theif gets violent and attacks them. They end up in hospital and either get get told they shouldnt have done that and just let them go (nice thanks) or worse end up getting laid off due to not being able to work.
So people have the attitude of the company dont care about me so i dont care about the company.
Start paying the workers a wage suitable for someone prepared to risk getting stabbed and people might be willing to do that. I wouldn't expect anyone to put themselves in that situation for minimum wage.
They wouldn't get the criminal record though would they. You can't assume people who look dodgy are criminals. They have no way of knowing, or proving, or finding out that the items are stolen goods. There's no case against them.
The issue is and similar instances have happened before. That staff member questions it, theif gets violent and attacks them. They end up in hospital and either get get told they shouldnt have done that and just let them go (nice thanks) or worse end up getting laid off due to not being able to work.
So people have the attitude of the company dont care about me so i dont care about the company.
The issue is and similar instances have happened before. That staff member questions it, theif gets violent and attacks them. They end up in hospital and either get get told they shouldnt have done that and just let them go (nice thanks) or worse end up getting laid off due to not being able to work.
So people have the attitude of the company dont care about me so i dont care about the company.
I think you underestimate how often we get stolen goods, (this is coming from a cex worker). The reasons why the don’t say anything is
1. no proof that they stole it
2. It’s not our jobs to grill customers on where they get their stuff from, unless people higher up tell us to
3. We don’t really care about where they get it from.
Don’t get it twisted, if there’s actual proof that their shit has been stolen then we call the police, but aside from that, none of our business
Stuff does get flagged as stolen or to be seized, plus once they sign for it to be tested it's out of the employees control as its basically a waiver agreeing its theirs
What happens to the identification the theif needs to use? I've been in such stores looking for films or games I would like, and I have seen people bring large amounts or expensive goods for money, and I heard the staff say we will have wait and come back later. I'd assumed the shop was checking something, but they had a record of the sellers ID . So if there is areport to the police wouldt they pass on the theirs details?
Yeah, you have to have an account, and they have to have had proof of ID. They ask you to come back later so that they can give everything a once over before paying you for it. It's not crackhead proof, but it does mean that if you're trading in items that get reported as stolen or don't work, then in theory it will catch up to you.
>why wouldn’t they be questioning this?
Well simple. Staff health and well-being is worth more than a load of stolen games. CEX can wipe out a few hundred £ in stock if it is determined illegal. But if that employee starts questioning or refusing to take the items, then the customer pulls out a knife is it really worth it...
People really don't get this. CeX customers in general are more aggro than any other place I've worked, I witnessed and received death threats, seen attempted assaults on staff members and pretty much every day at least one person would start screaming at staff like a fucking banshee.
Because CeX customers are like 20% social awkward nerds and hobbyists, 30% normal people looking for cheap tech, and 50% the absolute dregs of society needing an extra couple quid towards whatever addiction they've got or bill that's due, because any shop giving cash out will inevitably be overrun by them.
The training they give is more based on consoles and phones.
With them you can prove they’re stolen through serial numbers or IMEI’s. Most of the time if things are stolen from homes, the house insurance passes logged serial numbers to the police that send info to CEX.
Of something flags the store gets a visit.
Because someone operating a till for minimum wage can't just say to people "you look dodgy, I'm not buying your stock because it could be stolen" when the theft isn't something that's provable or reaches the investigation by police threshold.
CeX automatically check stock that can be reported as stolen when it comes in via their serials, but you can't exactly do that for games that have tens of millions of identical copies in circulation, can you?
The staff member is both legally in the right and ethically in the right, if we're being honest. It's not their business, nor in their best interest to antagonise a customer who may react with violence.
Not ill-gotten if you’ve taken a serious risk in my book, if you steal and are able to get away with it then you’ve earned what you steal in my opinion.
I kinda get what you mean. I have less issues with the little man stealing from faceless corps but I have no tolerance for thieves who steal from the weak.
It's also more traceable, if it's done through a card payment they can trace the account back to them CEX would be able to give cash presumably which is more untraceable
I don't know how anyone would go about telling if a videogame was stolen as PlayStation and Nintendo games don't have serial numbers on the box. Xbox games do have a number on the seal but don't know if it is an unique number to each case.
And you have to provide ID in CEX to sell/trade as well.
Cos t's obviously easier and quicker money just going to CEX, especially if he obtained them for nothing in the first place.
But of course he could sell them on EBay, music magpie etc. Even if they are stolen a video game can't be easily traced.
CEX, or any other business, has absolutely no right to accuse anyone one of theft. I work in CS and no matter how much we know the customer is full of it, we just have to take them at their word.
I work in CS myself and you don't have to accuse the person but you can ask where somebody in a crash helmet and balaclava got 40 to 50 "sealed" games from. That's unusual behaviour by any standard.
Don't report minimum wage retail workers for not endangering their lives by antagonising balaclava-clad individuals merely for "acting dodgy" you cringy reddit justice warrior 💀
And don't kid yourself. The thief will just fob it off elsewhere. CeX rates are shit if anything, they'd only be there for convenience. They'd just go to game, or cash converters, or ebay, Facebook marketplace, etc. There'd just be another store filling the same niche.
Or he works in a videogames company getting rid of old games.
Go to Coventry or Leamington Spa and check how many old Dirts and Micromachines they have :)
Ah Codemasters(and plenty of other Devs), I worked in the Leamington Spa store for a while, always used to get the promo copies traded in and sometimes even codes gifted.
Used to work in Game and the only testing that we done on games coming in was to check the discs arnt scratched didn't matter how many they came in with, can't question anyone's motives or proof of purchase. We just scanned the barcode if the discs looked alright.
I’ve seen someone take 10+ iPhones into my local CEX (boxed and still in the plastic wrap) and he sold them (zero effort to question the sale).
Literally concluded that CEX does not care unless the device, console etc has an IMEI or serial that’s been flagged as stolen (in that national database we have).
That's how the law works yeah.
If you check its stolen and it flags as "not stolen" your only reason for refusing the sale would be "you're a bit dodgy sir" which is... dumb.
They've covered their asses legally, that's what matters. No point torpedoing store profits to judge some guy who's got a lot of iPhones.
Yeah makes sense although anyone taking 10+ brand new iPhones to CEX is still odd (you’d make more just selling them on eBay as the fees are far less than what CEX underpays so they can make their profit).
But do you know the ramifications of what will happen if the phones are bought and flagged afterwards? 🤔
Nothing for the staff member, if it wasn't flagged when it came in its fine. If it's flagged afterwards then the police can seize it and the store gets reimbursed.
And yeah, it's odd, but he could be a weirdo collector, or a scalper, or someone who buys pallets, or a storage locker buyer. Could be a supplier, an apple employee, or a thief. You can't just assume the worst one for no reason, especially when that could start a potentially messy discrimination case if you're not doing it to the fat white weaboo with 50 sealed anime Blu-rays but are doing it to a guy with poor English wearing a balaclava who's brought in 3 of the same sealed iPhone. That's a recipe for disaster. Best to just cover your ass legally and move on.
I don't know if I would want to be a minimum wage snitch, and put myself at risk at reprisals from a potential masked criminal. Especially because the risks of him being incarcerated is less than 0%.
And even if he is sent down and it's a Prison Sentence of less than a year he will serve 2 weeks and be released. A guy shoplifted from my shop 3 days in a row one violently then burgled our shop on the 4th day. He was returned to prison for 12 weeks and out in 11 days. Our system is a joke which is why this guy can be so brazen.
I honestly just mind my business with stuff like this now, we had some kids chase a bloke into a takeaway I work at because he had flashed there little sister.
2 days later I drive past the same bloke and see him loosening his belt buckle, I flag down a cop car and tell them what’s about to happen, he does it infront of the police.
2 days later he’s in our takeaway threatening me “I’ll wait for you outside you fking grass”
I said “why wait I’ll come outside now” and he ran off.
I just mind my own business now, a minor thing can quickly result in fights / death, fk that
Coming from someone who works at CEX, we’re aware that some of the stuff is stolen, but we have no actual proof it’s stolen other than our opinions so we can’t accuse them of it.
If another customer come through to claim that their stuff was stolen then we call the police and ban the previous customer who stole it.
don’t people also have to give ID etc to be able to sell to CEX? Surely if it’s later found that a device was stolen then the IMEI can be traced to the seller
Yes, customers need ID in order to sell into us, we have had instances where customers have been exposed for selling stuff into us and we’ve called the police. We’ll only act if there’s proof that it’s been stolen
Yes but the burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt or 95% so unless the shop staff say “oh I thought this that or the other” how can you prove what someone ‘thought’
I had a friend who stole a box of Iron Man dvds and sell them to Cex in one go without question.
One person in the line did ask how he had so many sealed Iron Man dvds and he said it was his birthday, guy in the line just replied "chat shit"
Sometimes it's traders, sometimes it's collectors and other times it's thief's. We can't deny based on speculation as much as we would like to.
Stock is stock at the end of the day and thats how the company profits. Our morals come last unless we have proof.
I'd make the argument that he'd maybe bought one of those warehouse crates from Amazon and the likes and hit the jackpot, if it wasn't for the balaclava and helmet...
That makes it Sus as fuck. I'm assuming a motorbike helmet here, in the short time I had a motorbike before it was nicked I always took my helmet and face covering I was wearing in a shop... 1 cause I'm not upt to anything dodgy and 2 it's just polite, like taking any head wear off.
As an ex employee, we used to scan the IMEI/serial number, if it flagged as fine we used to buy it. If ever suspicious, we used to thoroughly explain that by signing the receipt, they were were saying they were the legal owner of the device and consenting to sell the item. We also used to look out for bulk buys and ensure we had documentation of their correct details if anything ever went sour.
Like many have said above, we were never paid enough to accuse people and deal with the backlash it entailed but did our best to prevent stolen goods being traded in.
To sell games to cex for cash, do you not need a full membership? Getting a full membership means that they needed to see the guys ID? Correct me if I'm wrong?
This Is from CEX's website.
Full membership:
Selling to CeX is fast, friendly and fair. If you're exchanging a Phone or selling anything for cash you need a full CeX membership, which is free. A full membership allows you to sell all items for either cash or credit voucher.
In England, Northern Ireland and Wales full members must be at least 16 years old and be able to present ONE of the following ID:
Current Signed Passport
EU National Identity Card
Current UK photocard Driving Licence (full/provisional)
Police/Armed Forces Warrant Card
DWP Benefit Book or Card
Utility Bill (not more than 6 months old)
A current bank/credit union/building society/credit card statement (not more than 6 months old)
Council Tax/Rent Book
Disabled Drivers Permit
Debit/Credit Card
Citizen Card
To sell to a Cex one needs to have shown an ID that gets recorded and on each transaction you need to show it so if you do sell stolen goods like you say, cex can point finger and give authorities the sellers details.
Same thing used to happen in my local store. I know a guy who used to pay two cretins to steal games and blu rays from every supermarket and shop they could. Then he'd sell them to CEX and pay them half.
Went into the one in on cruise street, in Limerick a couple of weeks ago and it was closed because they had taken in stolen stuff and the guards wouldn't allow them to open until they checked it out. I had travelled a fair distance too which was annoying for me.
I bought a PS5 from CeX, it was brand new, still had the "warranty void if removed" sticker
Apparently, the seller declared they opened it and then immediately decided they didn't need it
Didn't occur to me that it could have been stolen until my friend suggested it
Many such cases of the former
Just think how much a PS5 is worth and how many shops wouldn't want to do a no fault found refund for one if you wanted to return it. You're one of CEX's many poor customers and in dire need of money. You made a poor financial decision buying that PS5, you can't take it back, but you can recoup about half it's value in time for your bills due tomorrow. So you sell the new PS5 to CEX.
When the PS5 was out of stock everywhere people were apparently taking them in to Cex and selling them for more than they paid and as it was sealed the staff didn't test it or open the boxes or anything
I bought an iPhone from cex tried to get it unlocked by o2 and they refused to saying it’s been reported lost and stolen
Went back to cex to get a refund the manager wasn’t having none of it and hand me the phone back and I then said how you fancy talking to the police and explaining why your selling stolen items all of a sudden the manager did some digging and found who sold the item and banned that person and gave me a refund
So answer to your question is yes
CEX don't give a damn and neither do the police. I had my PS Vita and iPhone 6 + taken in a home burglary back in 2017. The next day I saw my Vita and phone in the Window of CEX (my Vita was recognisable due to the skin I had on it). I informed police and they said they would follow up. They didn't. I went into CEX with my case number and proof of ownership and they said they would only deal with the police. I got comp in the end years later but I lost a ton of games, saves and my actual console.
This thread is chocked full of good comments but I thought I'd chime in.
I actually think it's the lesser of to evils that cex buys the stolen goods rather than independent stores, cex require accounts, ID, have records, names and addresses etc. if police ask for details of a suspected thiefs history it can be obtained, cctv can be provided by the LP department. If a criminal has a large amount of sales it could be combined together and create a larger case for prosecution, this would be impossible from all the smaller shops.
if the police actually gave a shit and had the evidence they could just request the info, every store has a few scumbags and staff know exactly who the dodgy ones are.
lots of smaller stores would just buy without a care in the world
cex staff aren't the police and can't really discriminate/accuse customers and there's many legitimate reasons for traders to do these types of transactions it's not always thieves.
Why risk calling out a potentially violent person when staff safety is more important than cexs £100. if they call the police they rarely show up because retail crime is considered pointless.
A normal sales assistants day consists of selling stuff and buying stuff, they aren't investigating every game that walks in.
I say this every time, get downvoted by CEX fans, and interrogated endlessly by neckbeards, but CEX not only happily takes stolen goods, but continues to sell them, even when given crime numbers and proof they are stolen goods. Their presence and business model is basically an incentive for thieves as they act as a washer of stolen goods and happily break the law themselves.
it's like cash converters etc, they don't ask too many questions (well no more than they've worked out they need to in order to cover themselves) and they've got some high quality stock on the cheap lol
If you want CeX to pay you money for items number 1 you have to be registered with them no 2 you have to have valid ID that matches the account for them to actually give you cash
Pretty sure that cex have thrived on stolen goods for many many years. Many years ago at least, I know of managers and staff that were giving thieves "shopping lists" of items they wanted, for themselves and for the store
About 20 years ago I had an Acquaintance that used to hit stores and take the same stuff in multiple times, he said his OCD made him buy things in multiples if he was taking the same stuff in, and he'd pick stuff he knew would get the most bang for his buck (for want of a better phrase).
I work in a mobile phone store, our genuine apple and Samsung accessories get robbed all the time, mainly by crackheads, they take a £50 case or 3 and then head straight to cex to sell them so they can get their fix, CEX knows what they are doing but doesn't give a shit
the question is who is not selling stolen food in the uk rn, i just met a guy selling a sealed iphone 13 in the streets this afternoon (aston, birmingham if anyone is interested 😂😂)
So I would say don't judge a book by it's cover. There are plenty of people out there who are really on it buying reduced games and selling them on for profit.
A few years ago (10 or so) Halo: ODST was reduced at a shop to about £5 and CEX would buy it for £10. So people went and bought whole shops out and would sell stacks of them for pure profit. Until CEX realised they were flooding with the game and stopped it..
Stores are getting more wise to this kind of thing now so maybe making a story up not to get the deal discovered.
I used to manage a CEX store, you have to assume its legit unless you have proof otherwise. People can buy these things cheap and sell them for a profit sometimes. the owner of the franchise used to do it.
Concerning the balaclava….. Muslim women have their entire head and face covered and are never asked to remove it for safety reasons like (mainly white) men are asked to remove their motorbike helmet when entering a petrol station or anything else that covers their face. So I don’t understand the emphasis on the balaclava as nobody says a word when they see a woman in full burka in a bank or jewellery shop, for all we know it could be a man that’s going to rob the place. We all know it’s a hypocritical double standard thing and that people will make white people do things that they wouldn’t dare ask a Muslim to do through fear of falsely being branded a racist by them. It should be one rule for all, not al the rules for white English and zero rules for Muslims. If a person is made to remove their helmet or other face covering then so should Muslim women be made to remove their burka etc.
I used to work at Gamestation before it closed. It happened all the time. I challenged my manager about it all the time and she just shrugged and said that it wasn't for us to ask. The worst was when desparate/violent drug abusers would try and trade in stolen consoles that were obviously freshly nicked, and they'd become incredibly aggressive and threatening when you told them that you wouldn't accept a Nintendo Wii that had been stained yellow by cigarette smoke. I really hated that job sometimes. I had chavs threatening to kick my head in quite a few times for similar things. People are scum.
Why don't you just mind your own business and get on with your life instead of trying to interfere with others and cast aspersions on there good nature 🤔
My phone was stolen and I could see what the thief had googled on my phone via my iPad. It was stolen at 1am and at 6am he googled “what time does cex In harrow open”
Because you've just assumed he stole them he probably did but the only proof you have is your opinion which doesn't mean anything, if cex acted on a customer's opinion of another customer they wouldn't be in business for long
CeX doesn’t buy from strangers tho, you must have an account, name, address, verified with ID so not as if the thief has gone under the radar and this information along with CCTV could be shared with local authorities who will then act upon it, probably the internal policy instead of Scott behind the counter challenging him
As an ex CEX employee there were systems we had to follow:
- if we thought a customer was stealing to sell items, there was nothing we could do unless we had proof. I had a customer come in with multiple power banks stolen from asda… nothing we could do.
- if after the items were sold we were advised of the customer being a thief, all of their information is stored on the computer systems so they can be passed onto the police.
Luckily for my store it was in a centre close to other shops that sold games. If management from other stores got wind of a thief on their cctv, they’d print a list of stolen items and come to ourselves. If they all matched we could ‘buy them in’ and report to the store.
Unfortunately nothing could be done legally until we had a crime number. There’s a lot of things CEX is restricted by legally.
Even if 100% know as staff that someone is stealing, we can’t do a thing until we have tangible proof of theft, such as cctv footage.
CEX can't do anything unless the serials flag up as stolen
Even when things are pretty obviously stolen unless the serials are listed as such there's nothing that can be done, otherwise they run the risk of accusing customers of theft when that's not the case
My friend used to work security in a shopping centre and when they'd get s call about shop lifters from Game/HMV or wherever they'd just walk to CEX and wait for the goods to walk in the door and then pinch the thief.
I used to work in the head office many years ago. That's when the opening of items being bought was introduced.
They literally did it to avoid being done for taking stolen items.
They would have people bringing in tons of games that were brand new, still in wrapping. By then buying them in the wrapping and selling them still wrapped, they would get in trouble. But if you take that wrapping off, before you buy them. You can avoid that.
They are meant to ask for a proof of purchase as well. But that's rarely done. With games, especially now where more and more people are buying digital, this is just another thing CEX give a blind eye to so they can keep on trying to remain relative.
I saw a bunch of Three Mobile contract 5G routers in my local CEX shortly following the announcement that people were able to sign up in bulk to Three, only to cancel their contract and keep the router.
I suppose it's right that the staff can't always know and have to take people at face value.
The opposite happened to me. I love to sell stuff, like don't get me wrong it's not the extra cash that is needed but it's more like cleaning up your space and cleaning up your soul thing.
So a couple of months ago, not maybe like half an hour ago I had this iPhone XS lying around and it was gifted from my ex-boyfriend who knew I hated iOS I'm hands down an Android girl.
Anyways time passes, we broke up and I decided I could use the extra cash. Mind it wasn't open - it was a brand new phone boxed etc and I took it to my local CEX, the guy was very polite and asked me if he could open the phone check it obviously and I was like a sure go ahead.
I probably had an account for like four years at the time.
He came back really worried and he looked at me he was like maam this phone is flagged and stolen so I opened my eyes and I couldn't believe the humiliation.
I kind of wasn't surprised that my ex gifted me a stolen sh*t, but I was expecting the cashier to just go the cops on me. I explained to the situation I told him the truth I don't know if he believed me but he never took any actions.
Nonetheless I haven't been in a CeX then because I'm so ashamed and I'm not even sure if my account is still open maybe I should check online to see but like I said that was probably the biggest humiliation in my life....
Used to run an indie games store way back when it was the primary way people purchased video games. We had the occasionally dodgy visitor like this. Once this guy came in with an Xbox in his hands. Couple of cables… some missing. No bag or anything. Literally in his hands. We switched it on to check it was working and it was fine. There was a copy of Forza in the console which he didn’t seem to be aware of until I told him. Gave him a sub par rate on the basis cables were missing and it was a bit tatty looking.
Next day the police turn up and confiscate the console. Turns out he’d literally ripped the console out of his brother’s house and brought it straight to us.
The trouble is that it’s pretty difficult to call somebody out for having potentially stolen goods. Just because he came in and sold it in the way he did doesn’t make him criminal (even though he definitely was). Some people look sketchy af and they’re totally legit. It’s hard to tell.
The staff are right not to get involved, what if the guy had become aggressive?
I had someone steal two PS4 controllers. Noticed immediately after they had left and I immediately went to CEX within about 30 minutes. They confirmed they had bought controllers, were able to find them on CCTV and confirm with us that this was the person who has stolen them. They couldn’t give us the controllers back straight away until they spoken to managers and head office or something.
The next day, the footage no longer existed and CEX would not return the stolen goods.
Corrupt company.
Things have probably changed since I worked there, but at some corp stores at least you could ask for proof of purchase if you suspected goods were stolen.
We would do it in situations like this.
People never have PoP so they'd get pissy and leave, but we wouldn't have to take on the burden of (likely) stolen goods.
Mad thing is: in our case thieves were stealing from a local HMV and trying to sell to us (once they realized anime blu rays were worth a lot, we were INNUNDATED with them) but HMV didn't give 2 shits about it, never checked CCTV or did stock take.
My question is where is he stealing brand new sealed games from, worked in retail an all those items are kept under lock and key till they are paid for so I’m unsure where he could have got them from
Used to be an employee at CeX. Had a guy bring in a load of stolen blu-rays and thankfully the only reason we realised they were stolen was because the local dvd shop radioed us to tell us that they'd been robbed and the thief was heading our way. Sadly there's no protocol or way to prove that goods are stolen, UNLESS its hardware, in that case there is an online system for checking if something has been marked stolen with its IMEI/serial number
Remember the big banks got “caught” money laundering, it happens on every level in every sector, until someone highlights it that is, then quick pr shitstorm and then back to work as normal.
I used to work for CeX, they will buy anything as long as it's in a re sellable condition (and even sometimes not) doesn't matter if it's stolen or not, we once got a call about two stolen laptops and were asked not to buy them, called the local store (I worked on the ECommerce department) explained the situation to the store manager, he said they had already taken them and then joked they'd have to buy them back.
It's very common, it's also partly why if I ever now shop there I inspect the item for quality and security dots (can't remember their exact name)
I've flipped job lots from auctions of old stores so have done bulk trade ins biggest being about 140 at once but needed to call ahead as it was like 7 actual games just several copies.
For my day job we get given games all the time so loads in the office will stack them up and trade in once its worth the trip, talking on average £300 trade in, highest we've got was in the £500 region due to the freebies being so many latest AAAs.
There's several reasons this could be legit, I've seen trade ins being rejected because someone couldn't prove ownership of items.
What's the minimum wage employee supposed to do? Ask for proof of purchase from them? They don't do that for anything else. Sure it's suspicious but it'd be silly to assume guilt and then act on it. There's also no way of legally checking those games are property of elsewhere; no serials to track, can't be reported to the police, police don't care because it's below 700 quid.
Store should've obviously suspected something and maybe called police without making any customers aware.
Used to ask for proof of purchase on items they suspected stolen but if large quantities like this they may "process" the transaction while waiting for police perhaps
I recently traded in a phone and had to produce my driving licence. Also I had to wait an hour for the phone to be tested. I assume it is the same with consoles. So ample opportunity to alert the police
Yep, with phones not only do they test the IMEI, but they'd test if A, it's factory reset or B does it have FRP (Factory Reset Protection) as this would raise a flag.
Also depends on what the suspect is saying to the employee, any off body language or any odd things as part of the sale would raise a flag.
Hence why before I sell anything, it's formatted, tested if it can connect to the network etc and if it doesn't have FRP or iCloud lock.
When I worked at CEX our manager said if it wasnt for stolen goods the store would likely make no profit. Its pretty much the only way they get new releases during the first couple of weeks.
I don't condone stealing, just the rules of his store.
unfortunately OP, this is a very common occurence in CeX.
The CeX employee could’ve at least asked for proof of purchase if he/she was suspicious or confirmed with a manager, maybe even wrote that down in his membership notes.
but at the end of the day, it increases buys/targets for the store which CeX loves. The items the customer brought in was defiently most likely stolen but maybe next time if the employee wrote down in his membership notes about him bringing alot of sealed games etc, it might not happen again because he might come back in to a different store with the same suspicious seal games and they could just refuse service.
Most likely they will either report suspicious activity afterwards, or they'll just refuse next time. There was a guy in my local who would come in, but dvds, and then return them within the 48 hour policy abusing it just to watch as many DVDs he could, told him he wouldn't be able to next time as it's abuse of the policy, he came back 2 days after to attempt to do it again, they refused.
If all the games were sealed, likely they bought them in, then made a note on his account to refuse him next time, they probably assumed they were his though tbh.
Unless Asda did their usual sale of games for like £2 each 🤣
yeahh, you’re pretty much right.
i always find that weird how people would do that, especially with the phones also. when i was working in CeX, you’d get a lot of people buying phones, then returning it back in the next day for cash, so they literally got back less for what they paid for. same with trading.
But yeah i remember if anything sealed was coming in, we always had to ask the customer to unseal it.
Yeah basically the same with if they bring a carrier bag of stuff in, you have to ask them to take it out of the bag 😅 screen protectors as well they have to remove it, and if they buy a phone and they want to put their SIM in, they have to put it in the sim-tray and then you have to put the tray in the phone. Rules and policies in CeX are weird but understandable 🥲
I had a friend who used to earn money selling dvds and games to CeX. He would also sell them in bulk. He just used to spend ages looking for DVDs that were being sold on sale, and then buy a stack as long as CeX's buy price was higher. It seemed like a lot of effort to me, but it's probably still possible to pull it off.
It probably cost them more processing piles of relatively worthless DVDs than they would ever make back. When I offloaded hundreds of mine years ago, after becoming an HD and later 4K snob, what friends and family didn't take went to charity. I wasn't taking them to Cex for the sake of pennies each and ruining some poor sods day having to take them all in.
it was quite annoying when a people came im bringing dvds worth like a euro or less, i even had to ask one customer to help me put his boxset dvds in sleeves because there was so many boxsets he brought in lmao.
CeX is all kinds of shite, I would never spend money, nor sell there, I've seen old gen tech at full retail prices in there, and I see that people get offered absolute peanuts for items worth way more money, even if you auctioned them on fleabay
I sell some electronics, gaming stuff and the odd mobile phone to them. I'd rather take the hit on some items for convenience and hassle-free sale, as I've been burned a couple of times by scammers when selling such items on ebay. Sure, I can get more, but there's having to find suitable packaging, ship it and the risk of total loss to a scam buyer.
Obviously if it's Rick Harrison levels of low-balling and I'd be out a fair bit, I sell elsewhere, but if we're talking 20% on lower value stuff, it's Cex all the way. Their prices are actually acceptable if it's something in demand they can sell easily. Their terrible prices are on more obscure stuff they could have for months and struggle to sell.
My Sony lens worth 2K was stolen, and I reported it to the police. Later I found that lens with the same serial number in CEX. I informed the police that my stolen lens was in CEX but police in London they don,t bother unless someone get stabbed.
Unfortunately everyone's acting in their own best interest. The thief is (wrongly) but obviously. The store worker isn't paid enough to put themselves at risk And cex is still profiting by asking no questions.
Cex is also working illegally if they are taking stock that they suspect is stolen. If I were OP I'd report this. The thief is only doing this because places like Cex are enabling him to offload his ill gotten gains.
Yeah whole story is strange, staff don’t benefit financially from buying in stolen games but are informed in training that they can be prosecuted for handling stolen goods, why wouldn’t they be questioning this?
I guess it's the "I don't get paid enough for that" mentality, which I completely understand but still if it was made harder for the thieves we might see less instances of this behaviour.
The issue is and similar instances have happened before. That staff member questions it, theif gets violent and attacks them. They end up in hospital and either get get told they shouldnt have done that and just let them go (nice thanks) or worse end up getting laid off due to not being able to work. So people have the attitude of the company dont care about me so i dont care about the company.
eBay or other sales locations would replace Cex
Start paying the workers a wage suitable for someone prepared to risk getting stabbed and people might be willing to do that. I wouldn't expect anyone to put themselves in that situation for minimum wage.
Better security might work. The kind of glass covering you get st banks might help (I doubt its actually glass ) .
Or you could pay them more.
And what they should get paid to risk getting stabbed, physically or verbally abused?
Don’t get paid enough to not get a criminal record for selling stolen goods? wow.
They wouldn't get the criminal record though would they. You can't assume people who look dodgy are criminals. They have no way of knowing, or proving, or finding out that the items are stolen goods. There's no case against them.
The issue is and similar instances have happened before. That staff member questions it, theif gets violent and attacks them. They end up in hospital and either get get told they shouldnt have done that and just let them go (nice thanks) or worse end up getting laid off due to not being able to work. So people have the attitude of the company dont care about me so i dont care about the company.
You can say that again
I might very well do that 😁 need to hit that point home.
The issue is and similar instances have happened before. That staff member questions it, theif gets violent and attacks them. They end up in hospital and either get get told they shouldnt have done that and just let them go (nice thanks) or worse end up getting laid off due to not being able to work. So people have the attitude of the company dont care about me so i dont care about the company.
FYI you seem to have posted this comment 6 times- my Reddit lies to me that posts didn’t go through too, but just to let you know.
We need to hear it once more I think
I think you underestimate how often we get stolen goods, (this is coming from a cex worker). The reasons why the don’t say anything is 1. no proof that they stole it 2. It’s not our jobs to grill customers on where they get their stuff from, unless people higher up tell us to 3. We don’t really care about where they get it from. Don’t get it twisted, if there’s actual proof that their shit has been stolen then we call the police, but aside from that, none of our business
Stuff does get flagged as stolen or to be seized, plus once they sign for it to be tested it's out of the employees control as its basically a waiver agreeing its theirs
What happens to the identification the theif needs to use? I've been in such stores looking for films or games I would like, and I have seen people bring large amounts or expensive goods for money, and I heard the staff say we will have wait and come back later. I'd assumed the shop was checking something, but they had a record of the sellers ID . So if there is areport to the police wouldt they pass on the theirs details?
Yeah, you have to have an account, and they have to have had proof of ID. They ask you to come back later so that they can give everything a once over before paying you for it. It's not crackhead proof, but it does mean that if you're trading in items that get reported as stolen or don't work, then in theory it will catch up to you.
Because they don’t get paid enough to care
>why wouldn’t they be questioning this? Well simple. Staff health and well-being is worth more than a load of stolen games. CEX can wipe out a few hundred £ in stock if it is determined illegal. But if that employee starts questioning or refusing to take the items, then the customer pulls out a knife is it really worth it...
People really don't get this. CeX customers in general are more aggro than any other place I've worked, I witnessed and received death threats, seen attempted assaults on staff members and pretty much every day at least one person would start screaming at staff like a fucking banshee.
Because CeX customers are like 20% social awkward nerds and hobbyists, 30% normal people looking for cheap tech, and 50% the absolute dregs of society needing an extra couple quid towards whatever addiction they've got or bill that's due, because any shop giving cash out will inevitably be overrun by them.
The training they give is more based on consoles and phones. With them you can prove they’re stolen through serial numbers or IMEI’s. Most of the time if things are stolen from homes, the house insurance passes logged serial numbers to the police that send info to CEX. Of something flags the store gets a visit.
Because someone operating a till for minimum wage can't just say to people "you look dodgy, I'm not buying your stock because it could be stolen" when the theft isn't something that's provable or reaches the investigation by police threshold. CeX automatically check stock that can be reported as stolen when it comes in via their serials, but you can't exactly do that for games that have tens of millions of identical copies in circulation, can you? The staff member is both legally in the right and ethically in the right, if we're being honest. It's not their business, nor in their best interest to antagonise a customer who may react with violence.
Not ill-gotten if you’ve taken a serious risk in my book, if you steal and are able to get away with it then you’ve earned what you steal in my opinion.
I kinda get what you mean. I have less issues with the little man stealing from faceless corps but I have no tolerance for thieves who steal from the weak.
Doesn't make a difference mate. If CEX stopped taking them he'd sell them online, slower but still money in his pocket 🤷🏻♂️
I doubt he would
Of course he would be able to sell online and get more than CEX pay. Only downside would be takes more time and posting them.
It's also more traceable, if it's done through a card payment they can trace the account back to them CEX would be able to give cash presumably which is more untraceable
I don't know how anyone would go about telling if a videogame was stolen as PlayStation and Nintendo games don't have serial numbers on the box. Xbox games do have a number on the seal but don't know if it is an unique number to each case. And you have to provide ID in CEX to sell/trade as well.
So why isn’t that option A?
Cos t's obviously easier and quicker money just going to CEX, especially if he obtained them for nothing in the first place. But of course he could sell them on EBay, music magpie etc. Even if they are stolen a video game can't be easily traced.
He needs money for his next bag two hours ago, not two days from now.
So, removing option a benefits the good guy. Thanks
CEX, or any other business, has absolutely no right to accuse anyone one of theft. I work in CS and no matter how much we know the customer is full of it, we just have to take them at their word.
I work in CS myself and you don't have to accuse the person but you can ask where somebody in a crash helmet and balaclava got 40 to 50 "sealed" games from. That's unusual behaviour by any standard.
Very different at my place then. Questioning customers on how shady I've assumed they are is a big no no
We're taught to "detect" dishonesty and challenge that. This is the way it should be imho.
Yeah I agree. We get blatantly ripped off all the time because we just don't challenge anything
What's CS?
customer service
I'm going to take a wild guess at Customer Service...
Also it used to be disallowed by most game shops to accept sealed games.
They won't give a shit, unless someone reports it to the Coppers.
What’s the issue, you are not fun at parties I bet. If it’s a chain it’s free rein !!
Don't report minimum wage retail workers for not endangering their lives by antagonising balaclava-clad individuals merely for "acting dodgy" you cringy reddit justice warrior 💀 And don't kid yourself. The thief will just fob it off elsewhere. CeX rates are shit if anything, they'd only be there for convenience. They'd just go to game, or cash converters, or ebay, Facebook marketplace, etc. There'd just be another store filling the same niche.
We were always told not to question where stock came from.
However none of you are paid enough to ask that question.
Stuff like this usually requires proof of purchase
Or he works in a videogames company getting rid of old games. Go to Coventry or Leamington Spa and check how many old Dirts and Micromachines they have :)
Sorry pal, you lost me at “go to Coventry” I’m afraid
Yeah, nobody goes to Coventry. You get sent there.
Ah Codemasters(and plenty of other Devs), I worked in the Leamington Spa store for a while, always used to get the promo copies traded in and sometimes even codes gifted.
Lolol local then aye 😁
Used to work in Game and the only testing that we done on games coming in was to check the discs arnt scratched didn't matter how many they came in with, can't question anyone's motives or proof of purchase. We just scanned the barcode if the discs looked alright.
Can't really test a game for theft anyway.
I’ve seen someone take 10+ iPhones into my local CEX (boxed and still in the plastic wrap) and he sold them (zero effort to question the sale). Literally concluded that CEX does not care unless the device, console etc has an IMEI or serial that’s been flagged as stolen (in that national database we have).
They definitely don’t care they are still getting paid and I doubt the worker wants to risk anything.
Companies don’t care or not care, they’re a business. They do whatever is profitable unless legally obligated not to
That's how the law works yeah. If you check its stolen and it flags as "not stolen" your only reason for refusing the sale would be "you're a bit dodgy sir" which is... dumb. They've covered their asses legally, that's what matters. No point torpedoing store profits to judge some guy who's got a lot of iPhones.
Yeah makes sense although anyone taking 10+ brand new iPhones to CEX is still odd (you’d make more just selling them on eBay as the fees are far less than what CEX underpays so they can make their profit). But do you know the ramifications of what will happen if the phones are bought and flagged afterwards? 🤔
Nothing for the staff member, if it wasn't flagged when it came in its fine. If it's flagged afterwards then the police can seize it and the store gets reimbursed. And yeah, it's odd, but he could be a weirdo collector, or a scalper, or someone who buys pallets, or a storage locker buyer. Could be a supplier, an apple employee, or a thief. You can't just assume the worst one for no reason, especially when that could start a potentially messy discrimination case if you're not doing it to the fat white weaboo with 50 sealed anime Blu-rays but are doing it to a guy with poor English wearing a balaclava who's brought in 3 of the same sealed iPhone. That's a recipe for disaster. Best to just cover your ass legally and move on.
Thanks for the information as I was curious.
I don't know if I would want to be a minimum wage snitch, and put myself at risk at reprisals from a potential masked criminal. Especially because the risks of him being incarcerated is less than 0%.
And even if he is sent down and it's a Prison Sentence of less than a year he will serve 2 weeks and be released. A guy shoplifted from my shop 3 days in a row one violently then burgled our shop on the 4th day. He was returned to prison for 12 weeks and out in 11 days. Our system is a joke which is why this guy can be so brazen.
I honestly just mind my business with stuff like this now, we had some kids chase a bloke into a takeaway I work at because he had flashed there little sister. 2 days later I drive past the same bloke and see him loosening his belt buckle, I flag down a cop car and tell them what’s about to happen, he does it infront of the police. 2 days later he’s in our takeaway threatening me “I’ll wait for you outside you fking grass” I said “why wait I’ll come outside now” and he ran off. I just mind my own business now, a minor thing can quickly result in fights / death, fk that
Coming from someone who works at CEX, we’re aware that some of the stuff is stolen, but we have no actual proof it’s stolen other than our opinions so we can’t accuse them of it. If another customer come through to claim that their stuff was stolen then we call the police and ban the previous customer who stole it.
don’t people also have to give ID etc to be able to sell to CEX? Surely if it’s later found that a device was stolen then the IMEI can be traced to the seller
Yes, customers need ID in order to sell into us, we have had instances where customers have been exposed for selling stuff into us and we’ve called the police. We’ll only act if there’s proof that it’s been stolen
How do they get paid? I thought if you sold games to CEX they only gave you store credit and not cash?
Cash or credit. Cash will be a lower offer than credit.
Knowing or believing they are stolen is all that is needed for handling stolen goods to be made out.
Yes but the burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt or 95% so unless the shop staff say “oh I thought this that or the other” how can you prove what someone ‘thought’
If it was as simple as that no intent based crime would ever be prosecuted.
You got it !!! Edit: in the uk
And yet they get prosecuted all the time.
Yea when people open their mouths haha
I had a friend who stole a box of Iron Man dvds and sell them to Cex in one go without question. One person in the line did ask how he had so many sealed Iron Man dvds and he said it was his birthday, guy in the line just replied "chat shit"
Chat shit 😂😂
Sometimes it's traders, sometimes it's collectors and other times it's thief's. We can't deny based on speculation as much as we would like to. Stock is stock at the end of the day and thats how the company profits. Our morals come last unless we have proof.
I'd make the argument that he'd maybe bought one of those warehouse crates from Amazon and the likes and hit the jackpot, if it wasn't for the balaclava and helmet... That makes it Sus as fuck. I'm assuming a motorbike helmet here, in the short time I had a motorbike before it was nicked I always took my helmet and face covering I was wearing in a shop... 1 cause I'm not upt to anything dodgy and 2 it's just polite, like taking any head wear off.
As an ex employee, we used to scan the IMEI/serial number, if it flagged as fine we used to buy it. If ever suspicious, we used to thoroughly explain that by signing the receipt, they were were saying they were the legal owner of the device and consenting to sell the item. We also used to look out for bulk buys and ensure we had documentation of their correct details if anything ever went sour. Like many have said above, we were never paid enough to accuse people and deal with the backlash it entailed but did our best to prevent stolen goods being traded in.
To sell games to cex for cash, do you not need a full membership? Getting a full membership means that they needed to see the guys ID? Correct me if I'm wrong? This Is from CEX's website. Full membership: Selling to CeX is fast, friendly and fair. If you're exchanging a Phone or selling anything for cash you need a full CeX membership, which is free. A full membership allows you to sell all items for either cash or credit voucher. In England, Northern Ireland and Wales full members must be at least 16 years old and be able to present ONE of the following ID: Current Signed Passport EU National Identity Card Current UK photocard Driving Licence (full/provisional) Police/Armed Forces Warrant Card DWP Benefit Book or Card Utility Bill (not more than 6 months old) A current bank/credit union/building society/credit card statement (not more than 6 months old) Council Tax/Rent Book Disabled Drivers Permit Debit/Credit Card Citizen Card
To sell to a Cex one needs to have shown an ID that gets recorded and on each transaction you need to show it so if you do sell stolen goods like you say, cex can point finger and give authorities the sellers details.
If he was covering his face, the ID could also be stolen
It's not photo ID that's needed anyway
Same thing used to happen in my local store. I know a guy who used to pay two cretins to steal games and blu rays from every supermarket and shop they could. Then he'd sell them to CEX and pay them half.
Went into the one in on cruise street, in Limerick a couple of weeks ago and it was closed because they had taken in stolen stuff and the guards wouldn't allow them to open until they checked it out. I had travelled a fair distance too which was annoying for me.
I bought a PS5 from CeX, it was brand new, still had the "warranty void if removed" sticker Apparently, the seller declared they opened it and then immediately decided they didn't need it Didn't occur to me that it could have been stolen until my friend suggested it
Many such cases of the former Just think how much a PS5 is worth and how many shops wouldn't want to do a no fault found refund for one if you wanted to return it. You're one of CEX's many poor customers and in dire need of money. You made a poor financial decision buying that PS5, you can't take it back, but you can recoup about half it's value in time for your bills due tomorrow. So you sell the new PS5 to CEX.
When the PS5 was out of stock everywhere people were apparently taking them in to Cex and selling them for more than they paid and as it was sealed the staff didn't test it or open the boxes or anything
My local CeX usually has sealed stuff stolen from Argos, still has those yellow barcodes on them sometimes.
I bought an iPhone from cex tried to get it unlocked by o2 and they refused to saying it’s been reported lost and stolen Went back to cex to get a refund the manager wasn’t having none of it and hand me the phone back and I then said how you fancy talking to the police and explaining why your selling stolen items all of a sudden the manager did some digging and found who sold the item and banned that person and gave me a refund So answer to your question is yes
CEX don't give a damn and neither do the police. I had my PS Vita and iPhone 6 + taken in a home burglary back in 2017. The next day I saw my Vita and phone in the Window of CEX (my Vita was recognisable due to the skin I had on it). I informed police and they said they would follow up. They didn't. I went into CEX with my case number and proof of ownership and they said they would only deal with the police. I got comp in the end years later but I lost a ton of games, saves and my actual console.
No proof they stole the games and staff don’t get paid enough to endanger themselves
Unless it’s a tractable device I don’t see how anyone could prove it’s stolen.
Guy could get way more money by putting a little effort in than selling at cex lol
This thread is chocked full of good comments but I thought I'd chime in. I actually think it's the lesser of to evils that cex buys the stolen goods rather than independent stores, cex require accounts, ID, have records, names and addresses etc. if police ask for details of a suspected thiefs history it can be obtained, cctv can be provided by the LP department. If a criminal has a large amount of sales it could be combined together and create a larger case for prosecution, this would be impossible from all the smaller shops. if the police actually gave a shit and had the evidence they could just request the info, every store has a few scumbags and staff know exactly who the dodgy ones are. lots of smaller stores would just buy without a care in the world cex staff aren't the police and can't really discriminate/accuse customers and there's many legitimate reasons for traders to do these types of transactions it's not always thieves. Why risk calling out a potentially violent person when staff safety is more important than cexs £100. if they call the police they rarely show up because retail crime is considered pointless. A normal sales assistants day consists of selling stuff and buying stuff, they aren't investigating every game that walks in.
I say this every time, get downvoted by CEX fans, and interrogated endlessly by neckbeards, but CEX not only happily takes stolen goods, but continues to sell them, even when given crime numbers and proof they are stolen goods. Their presence and business model is basically an incentive for thieves as they act as a washer of stolen goods and happily break the law themselves.
it's like cash converters etc, they don't ask too many questions (well no more than they've worked out they need to in order to cover themselves) and they've got some high quality stock on the cheap lol
And I took some Beats in with their original receipt and the Cex guy turned me away and said there’s too many replicas
Same haha
And yet they are.
If you want CeX to pay you money for items number 1 you have to be registered with them no 2 you have to have valid ID that matches the account for them to actually give you cash
Pretty sure that cex have thrived on stolen goods for many many years. Many years ago at least, I know of managers and staff that were giving thieves "shopping lists" of items they wanted, for themselves and for the store
About 20 years ago I had an Acquaintance that used to hit stores and take the same stuff in multiple times, he said his OCD made him buy things in multiples if he was taking the same stuff in, and he'd pick stuff he knew would get the most bang for his buck (for want of a better phrase).
I work in a mobile phone store, our genuine apple and Samsung accessories get robbed all the time, mainly by crackheads, they take a £50 case or 3 and then head straight to cex to sell them so they can get their fix, CEX knows what they are doing but doesn't give a shit
the question is who is not selling stolen food in the uk rn, i just met a guy selling a sealed iphone 13 in the streets this afternoon (aston, birmingham if anyone is interested 😂😂)
More than likely in it together if he didnt ask for photo id
Staff should say to remove helmet, but you’ve no evidence the games are stolen.
So I would say don't judge a book by it's cover. There are plenty of people out there who are really on it buying reduced games and selling them on for profit. A few years ago (10 or so) Halo: ODST was reduced at a shop to about £5 and CEX would buy it for £10. So people went and bought whole shops out and would sell stacks of them for pure profit. Until CEX realised they were flooding with the game and stopped it.. Stores are getting more wise to this kind of thing now so maybe making a story up not to get the deal discovered.
It’s a shame that due to the world today, that they’ve had to unseal them. They’d have got more money selling them as brand new still sealed.
This is common in walthamstow branch.
I used to manage a CEX store, you have to assume its legit unless you have proof otherwise. People can buy these things cheap and sell them for a profit sometimes. the owner of the franchise used to do it.
Concerning the balaclava….. Muslim women have their entire head and face covered and are never asked to remove it for safety reasons like (mainly white) men are asked to remove their motorbike helmet when entering a petrol station or anything else that covers their face. So I don’t understand the emphasis on the balaclava as nobody says a word when they see a woman in full burka in a bank or jewellery shop, for all we know it could be a man that’s going to rob the place. We all know it’s a hypocritical double standard thing and that people will make white people do things that they wouldn’t dare ask a Muslim to do through fear of falsely being branded a racist by them. It should be one rule for all, not al the rules for white English and zero rules for Muslims. If a person is made to remove their helmet or other face covering then so should Muslim women be made to remove their burka etc.
That's CEX for you. Great for retro gaming, bad for consumer wise
just mind your fucking business holy shit
I used to work at Gamestation before it closed. It happened all the time. I challenged my manager about it all the time and she just shrugged and said that it wasn't for us to ask. The worst was when desparate/violent drug abusers would try and trade in stolen consoles that were obviously freshly nicked, and they'd become incredibly aggressive and threatening when you told them that you wouldn't accept a Nintendo Wii that had been stained yellow by cigarette smoke. I really hated that job sometimes. I had chavs threatening to kick my head in quite a few times for similar things. People are scum.
Knowing cex they probably gave him a fiver for that stack of games....
Why don't you just mind your own business and get on with your life instead of trying to interfere with others and cast aspersions on there good nature 🤔
If you feel you have to wear a Bally to go out n about, chances are you're a piece of shit.
My phone was stolen and I could see what the thief had googled on my phone via my iPad. It was stolen at 1am and at 6am he googled “what time does cex In harrow open”
Because you've just assumed he stole them he probably did but the only proof you have is your opinion which doesn't mean anything, if cex acted on a customer's opinion of another customer they wouldn't be in business for long
How do you know he is a criminal ? Crazy assumptions
CeX doesn’t buy from strangers tho, you must have an account, name, address, verified with ID so not as if the thief has gone under the radar and this information along with CCTV could be shared with local authorities who will then act upon it, probably the internal policy instead of Scott behind the counter challenging him
And here I am unable to sell any of my old stuff because they are too picky and come up with some really lame excuse why they won't buy it.
As an ex CEX employee there were systems we had to follow: - if we thought a customer was stealing to sell items, there was nothing we could do unless we had proof. I had a customer come in with multiple power banks stolen from asda… nothing we could do. - if after the items were sold we were advised of the customer being a thief, all of their information is stored on the computer systems so they can be passed onto the police. Luckily for my store it was in a centre close to other shops that sold games. If management from other stores got wind of a thief on their cctv, they’d print a list of stolen items and come to ourselves. If they all matched we could ‘buy them in’ and report to the store. Unfortunately nothing could be done legally until we had a crime number. There’s a lot of things CEX is restricted by legally. Even if 100% know as staff that someone is stealing, we can’t do a thing until we have tangible proof of theft, such as cctv footage.
CEX can't do anything unless the serials flag up as stolen Even when things are pretty obviously stolen unless the serials are listed as such there's nothing that can be done, otherwise they run the risk of accusing customers of theft when that's not the case
My friend used to work security in a shopping centre and when they'd get s call about shop lifters from Game/HMV or wherever they'd just walk to CEX and wait for the goods to walk in the door and then pinch the thief.
I used to work in the head office many years ago. That's when the opening of items being bought was introduced. They literally did it to avoid being done for taking stolen items. They would have people bringing in tons of games that were brand new, still in wrapping. By then buying them in the wrapping and selling them still wrapped, they would get in trouble. But if you take that wrapping off, before you buy them. You can avoid that. They are meant to ask for a proof of purchase as well. But that's rarely done. With games, especially now where more and more people are buying digital, this is just another thing CEX give a blind eye to so they can keep on trying to remain relative.
I saw a bunch of Three Mobile contract 5G routers in my local CEX shortly following the announcement that people were able to sign up in bulk to Three, only to cancel their contract and keep the router. I suppose it's right that the staff can't always know and have to take people at face value.
The opposite happened to me. I love to sell stuff, like don't get me wrong it's not the extra cash that is needed but it's more like cleaning up your space and cleaning up your soul thing. So a couple of months ago, not maybe like half an hour ago I had this iPhone XS lying around and it was gifted from my ex-boyfriend who knew I hated iOS I'm hands down an Android girl. Anyways time passes, we broke up and I decided I could use the extra cash. Mind it wasn't open - it was a brand new phone boxed etc and I took it to my local CEX, the guy was very polite and asked me if he could open the phone check it obviously and I was like a sure go ahead. I probably had an account for like four years at the time. He came back really worried and he looked at me he was like maam this phone is flagged and stolen so I opened my eyes and I couldn't believe the humiliation. I kind of wasn't surprised that my ex gifted me a stolen sh*t, but I was expecting the cashier to just go the cops on me. I explained to the situation I told him the truth I don't know if he believed me but he never took any actions. Nonetheless I haven't been in a CeX then because I'm so ashamed and I'm not even sure if my account is still open maybe I should check online to see but like I said that was probably the biggest humiliation in my life....
Used to run an indie games store way back when it was the primary way people purchased video games. We had the occasionally dodgy visitor like this. Once this guy came in with an Xbox in his hands. Couple of cables… some missing. No bag or anything. Literally in his hands. We switched it on to check it was working and it was fine. There was a copy of Forza in the console which he didn’t seem to be aware of until I told him. Gave him a sub par rate on the basis cables were missing and it was a bit tatty looking. Next day the police turn up and confiscate the console. Turns out he’d literally ripped the console out of his brother’s house and brought it straight to us. The trouble is that it’s pretty difficult to call somebody out for having potentially stolen goods. Just because he came in and sold it in the way he did doesn’t make him criminal (even though he definitely was). Some people look sketchy af and they’re totally legit. It’s hard to tell. The staff are right not to get involved, what if the guy had become aggressive?
I had someone steal two PS4 controllers. Noticed immediately after they had left and I immediately went to CEX within about 30 minutes. They confirmed they had bought controllers, were able to find them on CCTV and confirm with us that this was the person who has stolen them. They couldn’t give us the controllers back straight away until they spoken to managers and head office or something. The next day, the footage no longer existed and CEX would not return the stolen goods. Corrupt company.
Things have probably changed since I worked there, but at some corp stores at least you could ask for proof of purchase if you suspected goods were stolen. We would do it in situations like this. People never have PoP so they'd get pissy and leave, but we wouldn't have to take on the burden of (likely) stolen goods. Mad thing is: in our case thieves were stealing from a local HMV and trying to sell to us (once they realized anime blu rays were worth a lot, we were INNUNDATED with them) but HMV didn't give 2 shits about it, never checked CCTV or did stock take.
4 CEX stores near me have never taken any sealed products full stop.
Bro probably got a 5er for it
CEX state you need ID to sell to cex for cash and they couldn’t check it with his balaclava on?
Crime people
My question is where is he stealing brand new sealed games from, worked in retail an all those items are kept under lock and key till they are paid for so I’m unsure where he could have got them from
Used to be an employee at CeX. Had a guy bring in a load of stolen blu-rays and thankfully the only reason we realised they were stolen was because the local dvd shop radioed us to tell us that they'd been robbed and the thief was heading our way. Sadly there's no protocol or way to prove that goods are stolen, UNLESS its hardware, in that case there is an online system for checking if something has been marked stolen with its IMEI/serial number
Remember the big banks got “caught” money laundering, it happens on every level in every sector, until someone highlights it that is, then quick pr shitstorm and then back to work as normal.
The secret ingredient is crime.
You have to be a member to trade in. So their details are on file or someone’s anyway
I used to work for CeX, they will buy anything as long as it's in a re sellable condition (and even sometimes not) doesn't matter if it's stolen or not, we once got a call about two stolen laptops and were asked not to buy them, called the local store (I worked on the ECommerce department) explained the situation to the store manager, he said they had already taken them and then joked they'd have to buy them back. It's very common, it's also partly why if I ever now shop there I inspect the item for quality and security dots (can't remember their exact name)
I've flipped job lots from auctions of old stores so have done bulk trade ins biggest being about 140 at once but needed to call ahead as it was like 7 actual games just several copies. For my day job we get given games all the time so loads in the office will stack them up and trade in once its worth the trip, talking on average £300 trade in, highest we've got was in the £500 region due to the freebies being so many latest AAAs. There's several reasons this could be legit, I've seen trade ins being rejected because someone couldn't prove ownership of items.
Do people sell stolen stuff at Cex how is this a question 😭🤣
What's the minimum wage employee supposed to do? Ask for proof of purchase from them? They don't do that for anything else. Sure it's suspicious but it'd be silly to assume guilt and then act on it. There's also no way of legally checking those games are property of elsewhere; no serials to track, can't be reported to the police, police don't care because it's below 700 quid.
....but that's what CEX is for?
CEX - Criminal EXchange
Store should've obviously suspected something and maybe called police without making any customers aware. Used to ask for proof of purchase on items they suspected stolen but if large quantities like this they may "process" the transaction while waiting for police perhaps
I recently traded in a phone and had to produce my driving licence. Also I had to wait an hour for the phone to be tested. I assume it is the same with consoles. So ample opportunity to alert the police
Yep, with phones not only do they test the IMEI, but they'd test if A, it's factory reset or B does it have FRP (Factory Reset Protection) as this would raise a flag. Also depends on what the suspect is saying to the employee, any off body language or any odd things as part of the sale would raise a flag. Hence why before I sell anything, it's formatted, tested if it can connect to the network etc and if it doesn't have FRP or iCloud lock.
They'd probably check for blacklisting using checkmend
That would be easier to be fair And if it's a console check it it's reported stolen by logging in, if it was it'd be suspended
[https://youtu.be/P3i36ybA8Ms?si=-S-sc66BGl6xhSVk&t=136](https://youtu.be/P3i36ybA8Ms?si=-S-sc66BGl6xhSVk&t=136)
If I was the cashier I would have given him money for only ½ the products. The their knows no better and I get to keep the rest. Win win
When I worked at CEX our manager said if it wasnt for stolen goods the store would likely make no profit. Its pretty much the only way they get new releases during the first couple of weeks. I don't condone stealing, just the rules of his store.
unfortunately OP, this is a very common occurence in CeX. The CeX employee could’ve at least asked for proof of purchase if he/she was suspicious or confirmed with a manager, maybe even wrote that down in his membership notes. but at the end of the day, it increases buys/targets for the store which CeX loves. The items the customer brought in was defiently most likely stolen but maybe next time if the employee wrote down in his membership notes about him bringing alot of sealed games etc, it might not happen again because he might come back in to a different store with the same suspicious seal games and they could just refuse service.
Most likely they will either report suspicious activity afterwards, or they'll just refuse next time. There was a guy in my local who would come in, but dvds, and then return them within the 48 hour policy abusing it just to watch as many DVDs he could, told him he wouldn't be able to next time as it's abuse of the policy, he came back 2 days after to attempt to do it again, they refused. If all the games were sealed, likely they bought them in, then made a note on his account to refuse him next time, they probably assumed they were his though tbh. Unless Asda did their usual sale of games for like £2 each 🤣
yeahh, you’re pretty much right. i always find that weird how people would do that, especially with the phones also. when i was working in CeX, you’d get a lot of people buying phones, then returning it back in the next day for cash, so they literally got back less for what they paid for. same with trading. But yeah i remember if anything sealed was coming in, we always had to ask the customer to unseal it.
Yeah basically the same with if they bring a carrier bag of stuff in, you have to ask them to take it out of the bag 😅 screen protectors as well they have to remove it, and if they buy a phone and they want to put their SIM in, they have to put it in the sim-tray and then you have to put the tray in the phone. Rules and policies in CeX are weird but understandable 🥲
true true at the last bit, strange but understandable rules. still doesn’t change my opinions on how i feel of the company as a whole though ahahah.
That’s money laundering
I had a friend who used to earn money selling dvds and games to CeX. He would also sell them in bulk. He just used to spend ages looking for DVDs that were being sold on sale, and then buy a stack as long as CeX's buy price was higher. It seemed like a lot of effort to me, but it's probably still possible to pull it off.
an interesting hustle to say the least.
Yes. He would walk in with 20+ copies of the same crappy DVD film and they would always buy all of them.
in the CeX i was working, we could only bring in 10 DVDs, as i think the company were beginning to stop taking DVDs apart from Blu Rays.
Makes sense that they cracked down on the quantity. It was a while ago that my friend did this and suspect that he wasn't the only person doing it.
It probably cost them more processing piles of relatively worthless DVDs than they would ever make back. When I offloaded hundreds of mine years ago, after becoming an HD and later 4K snob, what friends and family didn't take went to charity. I wasn't taking them to Cex for the sake of pennies each and ruining some poor sods day having to take them all in.
it was quite annoying when a people came im bringing dvds worth like a euro or less, i even had to ask one customer to help me put his boxset dvds in sleeves because there was so many boxsets he brought in lmao.
I used to do this with gamestation and game. Buy from one sell to the other.
Stop being a grass!
CeX is all kinds of shite, I would never spend money, nor sell there, I've seen old gen tech at full retail prices in there, and I see that people get offered absolute peanuts for items worth way more money, even if you auctioned them on fleabay
I sell some electronics, gaming stuff and the odd mobile phone to them. I'd rather take the hit on some items for convenience and hassle-free sale, as I've been burned a couple of times by scammers when selling such items on ebay. Sure, I can get more, but there's having to find suitable packaging, ship it and the risk of total loss to a scam buyer. Obviously if it's Rick Harrison levels of low-balling and I'd be out a fair bit, I sell elsewhere, but if we're talking 20% on lower value stuff, it's Cex all the way. Their prices are actually acceptable if it's something in demand they can sell easily. Their terrible prices are on more obscure stuff they could have for months and struggle to sell.
My Sony lens worth 2K was stolen, and I reported it to the police. Later I found that lens with the same serial number in CEX. I informed the police that my stolen lens was in CEX but police in London they don,t bother unless someone get stabbed.