T'R'U Lies

By Joe Chagin

The scenario: I live in New Jersey, a mere ten minutes from midtown Manhattan (New York, New York as it were), which is the location of the worlds largest toy store “Toys ‘R Us Times Square”. It has many distinguishing features: a Giant animatronic T-rex, a walk-in two storey Barbie House, an actual Cabbage Patch full of the infamous “Kids” and most notably of all, the largest deliveries of Wiis ANYWHERE! On launch when most stores were lucky to have 80-100 Wiis in stock, TRU had almost 9,000. Wiis were on sale there for well over a week after the launch, two per customer no less. I felt like the luckiest little boy in the whole world.

Having told every non-New York area resident I could about how awesome my location was it was inevitable that it would come back to bite me in the rear. As sure as Sony launches are under-stocked, I got a call last week from my parents hoping I could get one for my little brother’s Christmas present. Seeing as he’s always made me proud, loves video games - hates sports, I was glad to take up the task.

After some extensive asking around and phone call making I discovered what most Americans had found out: all stores were holding Wiis until Sunday December 17th as it’s the last big shopping weekend day before Christmas (I personally would have assumed Saturday the 23rd to be that day, but then I’m not a high powered regional manager for a department store). Assuming my local Toys’r’Us would hold true to form, they got at least one other multi-thousand shipment post launch, I made plans to be there bright and early.

I arrived promptly at 7am, a full two hours before the store was supposed to open. Somewhat to my surprise there were already roughly 500 people queued up ahead of me. I decided to stick it out anyway as I figured they would probably have a few thousand of the little white wonders in stock. By the time 9am rolled around the line outside had reached launch day proportions, wrapping almost all the way around the block and back to the front door. Seeing as security had not chased us away yet I felt confident I would be successful. The doors open and slowly we moved forward.

The store was using a slightly dubious method it had been using previously whereby a person in line for Wii was handed a ticket as they entered the store, and only those with tickets were allowed to purchase systems. Unlike launch day, however, numbers were now limited to one per person. This had worked fine for the store previously when it had only sold a few hundred a day in as a trickle tactic, but this time it was different. Multiple news reports the days before had informed all of the greater metropolitan area that this was the place to be if you hoped to get a Wii, and seemingly all of NYC showed up to try.

After a few hours of waiting in line people started to get anxious; many wondered if they would be able to get a system. No one knew “for sure” how many they even had. Then finally around 11am, after I had moved maybe two thirds of the distance from my starting point to the door, someone from the store got the bright idea to do a head count. Me and my surrounding brothers-in-line were told we were fine. It wasn’t until about another 50 feet past my position that people were told they were in the “maybe” section. So, we continued to wait.

It was around this same time that some problems started to occur towards the beginning of the line. Due to the fact that many other businesses exist on the same block as Toys’r’Us some spaces had to be left in the line for their customers to come and go. The opportunistic jerks of the world that didn’t show up ‘til nearly noon decided this would be a good way for them to score a Wii and a good night of sleep. I myself actually witnessed a woman who was 60 (if she was a day) try and sneak into the line a few people in front of me, most likely to pick up the system for a grand child. Tis’ the season I guess.

Once these little altercations began occurring, the integrity of the line began to fall into question. Large groups of people had obviously infiltrated at multiple points; people I was once in speaking distance of were now 30 feet ahead of me. The husband of the woman in line behind me, along with several others throughout I imagine, made sure to bring this to the attention of the rather inattentive security team. This is when things seemed to take a turn for the worse. Rumours started to spread that sales were ending and that only a few people right up by the door were going to be able to purchase. Having already waited for five or more hours we decided to wait to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

Finally, at around 1:30pm, word came around from official looking folks in black clothes and CIA style headpieces insisted that the store was “sold out” but it was getting more, and that we should return in the morning. Now, for those of you who don’t live in America or work in the shipping industry let me explain a little something to you. Deliveries are almost never made on Sundays, especially at night. It doesn’t happen. Sure there are exceptions, but in this case it seemed highly dubious.

Thankfully the store was still open to the public and after much bitching and complaining from myself, and several hundred others, I decided to go investigate further. Upon arriving in “The R-Zone” (Toys’R’Us’ video game department) I found a few employees who were taking down a mountain of Wiis and loading them onto a cart. I very unassumingly asked them what they were doing, to which they wilfully replied, “We’re putting these away. We’re done selling, no more till tomorrow.”. Well shit.

So, there I was, 6.5 hours of foot pain and wind burn and no Wii to show for it. We tried to get them to give us rain checks of some sort so we could return the next day more easily, but they would have none of it. We asked if tomorrow tickets would be handed out early on so people would know if they were getting a Wii or not and people wouldn’t be able to cut in line; “It’ll be just like today” I was assured. “Is there a manager to speak with?” I implored them. “He’s busy,” they replied.

So, this is customer service in the land of Geoffrey the Giraffe. Tell hundreds of people that you will have an item at a particular time, don’t tell them how many, let them wait in the cold for hours without any communication, and then when the going gets tough kick them to the curb. Real freaking nice.

For the sake of sensationalism, and because I could not make this up if I tried, I would like to give you a little perspective of the people I was screwed over with. Directly in front of me were two businessmen who were looking to score the hot holiday item for their children. Two spaces behind me was a group of three who were all picking up Wiis for daughters and nephews and such. Most notable, however, was the woman directly to my rear. For the sake of privacy I won’t reveal her name, but I can tell you that she suffers from a crippling muscular condition that confines her to a wheelchair. Only one of her hands is even close to fully functional as the other is too stiff to use for much.

She was in NYC on vacation and had missed her flight back home the previous night because of problems with her motorised chair. That evening she and her husband saw on the news that the Wii would be available the next morning at the Toys’R’Us in Time Square, conveniently located a block from their hotel. She was excited, not for her children, of which she has none, or for a niece or nephew, but for herself. She explained to me how much she had enjoyed video games when she was younger on the NES. The single D-pad and only two buttons allowed her to play most everything on the system and she actually used the zapper and Duck Hunt daily to help her with coordination.

All the systems released after that were too complicated for her to use, with multiple directional inputs and excessive buttons. She had heard about the Wii online, and in the news, and was thrilled at the prospect of being able to play a game again, especially if it could offer her some kind of exercise as well. Being confined to the chair she was unable to do much. I was stunned by this story and couldn’t help but think that this is just the sort of thing Nintendo had hoped for, a simple input method that would allow as large an audience as possible to enjoy video games.

As you can probably surmise, she was unable to get a Wii that morning. Now I want to ensure that this does not come off as some sort of sob story on her part. She was a very happy person and didn’t seem in the slightest bit bitter about the hand she had been dealt. This is just my perspective and feelings on the situation.

To summarise: T’r’U told people who came into the store and asked that they should come Sunday at 9am if they wanted a Wii. People lined up as early as the night before. People who showed up as early as 6:30 am were denied sales because of T’R’U’s poor crowd control and management. When a manager’s audience was requested by a large group of customers they were categorically denied.

Either T’R’U lied about being sold out in order to disperse the crowd rather than correcting the situation and doing right by the customers. Or it it made a huge and market-illogical screw-up. Either way many people who waited for many hours in the cold, like my gracious lady acquaintance, were unjustly denied service and felt that they had been repeatedly lied to.

SPOnG will be contacting T’R’U in NYC for a comment on the incident and will let you know as soon as we here something. I for one shall not be giving the company any further patronage until this is addressed and the manager responsible for this despicable mess is properly reprimanded.

Compare our reporter's experience with that Stephanie Tolomeo, also from the US