DK Oldies? A scandal, or just another smear campaign?

[burningdoom]

They're getting exactly what they deserve for selling used stuff and calling it refurbished . The people doing unboxing videos and saying they're sketchy are not one gang of evildoers . It's people from all corners of the retro gaming scene confirming it .
   Bottom line is that , regardless of price , DKOldies is advertising that they refurbish all consoles , claiming they open them and clean and repair them all as needed and they're not . Nearly all of the consoles that people have bought for unboxing videos have been dirty inside , some were filthy , a lot of the consoles were broken in some way . They don't replace thermal paste on consoles that it's a potential problem . I'm not sure why people are defending them at this point , this has actually been going on for like 3 months now .
 
Edit - I'm not saying that anybody deserves a death threat . I'm also taking everything that DKOldies claims with a grain of salt .   

From what I've heard they cherry pick customers. old regulars that buy allot get the proper service like shown in the vids those orders are given to higherups, for everyone else it's a wild card.

Those people might defend them since they get a good service

That's pretty much what I've heard . I know that they offer customers freebies to post unboxings and then they use those in their own videos . They only use and reward the positive ones .

But I've also seem them film themselves owning up to mistakes, and replacing orders and even chipping in extras as an apology. Are you contending that they'd typically just stiff any customer who's not satisfied?

They already stiffed the customer in the initial sale. lol

[Warmsignal]

They're getting exactly what they deserve for selling used stuff and calling it refurbished . The people doing unboxing videos and saying they're sketchy are not one gang of evildoers . It's people from all corners of the retro gaming scene confirming it .
   Bottom line is that , regardless of price , DKOldies is advertising that they refurbish all consoles , claiming they open them and clean and repair them all as needed and they're not . Nearly all of the consoles that people have bought for unboxing videos have been dirty inside , some were filthy , a lot of the consoles were broken in some way . They don't replace thermal paste on consoles that it's a potential problem . I'm not sure why people are defending them at this point , this has actually been going on for like 3 months now .
 
Edit - I'm not saying that anybody deserves a death threat . I'm also taking everything that DKOldies claims with a grain of salt .   

From what I've heard they cherry pick customers. old regulars that buy allot get the proper service like shown in the vids those orders are given to higherups, for everyone else it's a wild card.

Those people might defend them since they get a good service

That's pretty much what I've heard . I know that they offer customers freebies to post unboxings and then they use those in their own videos . They only use and reward the positive ones .

But I've also seem them film themselves owning up to mistakes, and replacing orders and even chipping in extras as an apology. Are you contending that they'd typically just stiff any customer who's not satisfied?

They already stiffed the customer in the initial sale. lol

That's isn't how it works, and is why customer service is a thing. If you didn't like the price, then you shouldn't have bought it. It's so simple.

[wolff242]

Victim blaming? I doubt anything more can be added to this discussion.

[trinkenwir]

I have bought stuff from them and it has been fine sometimes they have reasonable prices and they used to be a good place for random manuals, cases etc., but their stock is almost non existent now or outrageously priced. In general they are more/have become more expensive than many other options, so I have not been buying recently. As many have stated no pictures and pricing mostly make eBay a better option (assuming you are buying from listings with pictures). I personally like eStarland over gamestop and DkOldies because you can pick what the game comes with (manual case etc.) assuming different options are in stock. The thing that gets me with DkOldies is they post prices and when you click through it is the "cosmetically flawed" price and the FOMO on their email campaign is outrageous. I hope they learn from all of this and recover, I hate to see any option to buy games go away even when they are almost always my last choice.

[marvelvscapcom2]

Upon going on their website I see Smash Melee for 70 and GTA vice city for 10. DK country around 20. I've always known those prices to be retail industry standard. Most items ship next day with a 1 year warranty. The 1 year warranty alone makes them leagues ahead of every 30 day return policy of my local mom and pop stores.  If they make right the mistakes they make and literally have 1 year warrantys on hardware how on earth is it a scandal? Nobody puts you hostage like Sudam Hussein and demands you to order from dk oldies.


Seems like they gouge prices but who doesn't now a days. I know genuine honest collectors going 15 percent on top of vgpc and it really is sad. I don't think its fair to single out a store. At least stores have overhead

[gummo]

They're getting exactly what they deserve for selling used stuff and calling it refurbished . The people doing unboxing videos and saying they're sketchy are not one gang of evildoers . It's people from all corners of the retro gaming scene confirming it .
   Bottom line is that , regardless of price , DKOldies is advertising that they refurbish all consoles , claiming they open them and clean and repair them all as needed and they're not . Nearly all of the consoles that people have bought for unboxing videos have been dirty inside , some were filthy , a lot of the consoles were broken in some way . They don't replace thermal paste on consoles that it's a potential problem . I'm not sure why people are defending them at this point , this has actually been going on for like 3 months now .
 
Edit - I'm not saying that anybody deserves a death threat . I'm also taking everything that DKOldies claims with a grain of salt .   

From what I've heard they cherry pick customers. old regulars that buy allot get the proper service like shown in the vids those orders are given to higherups, for everyone else it's a wild card.

Those people might defend them since they get a good service

That's pretty much what I've heard . I know that they offer customers freebies to post unboxings and then they use those in their own videos . They only use and reward the positive ones .

But I've also seem them film themselves owning up to mistakes, and replacing orders and even chipping in extras as an apology. Are you contending that they'd typically just stiff any customer who's not satisfied?

They had one video that I saw where they admitted sending a guy a SNES cart with a bad save battery , but he didn't initially do an unboxing video . They just used him for an advertisement and he was sent a game in better condition for his trouble . Were there more ?

[gummo]

They have threatened to stiff customers for breaking their console seals and looking inside which is a whole different part of the scam . They put seals on the consoles so people will be scared to open them which hides the fact that it has most likely not been inspected inside let alone been refurbished . That's shady as hell .

[Warmsignal]

Victim blaming? I doubt anything more can be added to this discussion.

Help, DK Oldies took my card and swiped it. I visited their website and had no choice. They promised me a console I could eat off of, and now I’m a victim. Victim with a console that’s dirty inside. They said they’d replace it, but that ain’t right, it just ain’t right.  I’m a gamer dammit…

How could you Joey, I hate you’re blonde hair! Some one save me from this man!!

[wolff242]

Victim blaming? I doubt anything more can be added to this discussion.

Help, DK Oldies took my card and swiped it. I visited their website and had no choice. They promised me a console I could eat off of, and now I’m a victim. Victim with a console that’s dirty inside. They said they’d replace it, but that ain’t right, it just ain’t right.  I’m a gamer dammit…

How could you Joey, I hate you’re blonde hair! Some one save me from this man!!

Again, you seem to think it's more than just OK for unsuspecting people to be taken advantage of. It's kinda sick. I was wrong, you have added your true colors to the discussion.

[kypherion]

I watched Austin Evans' video on it and it boiled down to the diction DK Oldies was using, specifically the word "refurbished", which indicates a more cleaned out/up product. Dusting, redo-ing the thermal paste (I know my original XBOX could use a repaste!), stuff like this is essential to calling it a "refurbished product".

OP made a comment that "I don't think the DK Oldies customer base gives a damn about dust inside of a console they don't even know how to open up, they're not the hardcore techy type of customer base.". Not to be that guy, but I do.

For those not as involved with computer and console hardware, thermal paste is a necessary goop that fills in the imperfections between the surface of a heatsink and your console's CPU/GPU/onboard whatever. This is vital to cooling and certainly make a difference. Remember, unless it has been changed before your paste is as old as the console!

I understand this may come off as nit-picking, but if you're going to list a device as refurbished you need to actually put in the work that makes it "refurbished". The outside of DK Oldies consoles admittedly look pretty good, but the inside looks like my gaming keyboard.

Out of respect for the VGCollect community, I honestly can't recommend buying from DK Oldies given the price to quality ratio we are seeing. Check ebay, offerup, craigslist, local yard sales etc.

[brothertuc]

Victim blaming? I doubt anything more can be added to this discussion.

Help, DK Oldies took my card and swiped it. I visited their website and had no choice. They promised me a console I could eat off of, and now I’m a victim. Victim with a console that’s dirty inside. They said they’d replace it, but that ain’t right, it just ain’t right.  I’m a gamer dammit…

How could you Joey, I hate you’re blonde hair! Some one save me from this man!!

Again, you seem to think it's more than just OK for unsuspecting people to be taken advantage of. It's kinda sick. I was wrong, you have added your true colors to the discussion.

He probably works for them...

[Warmsignal]

Victim blaming? I doubt anything more can be added to this discussion.

Help, DK Oldies took my card and swiped it. I visited their website and had no choice. They promised me a console I could eat off of, and now I’m a victim. Victim with a console that’s dirty inside. They said they’d replace it, but that ain’t right, it just ain’t right.  I’m a gamer dammit…

How could you Joey, I hate you’re blonde hair! Some one save me from this man!!

Again, you seem to think it's more than just OK for unsuspecting people to be taken advantage of. It's kinda sick. I was wrong, you have added your true colors to the discussion.

He probably works for them...

Nah, you're just expecting too much. Ever worked in customer service? Then you know what it's like to want to strangle the entitled Karen types. Well imagine a whole mob of them parroting the same thing at you 24/7 because some influencer started to make it trendy to do so.

As far as I can see. They call their consoles "refurbished". I don't really know what that entails, and neither do 99% of their customers. Your definition of refurb could differ from my definition. But I have enough common sense to know it's not gonna be a factory refurb. I just can't get hung up on the fact that they didn't scrub the insides clean, esp when you have all these people cracking open consoles to find a smidge of residue somewhere on the board. That doesn't make anyone a "victim". Especially if you've got a year long guarantee on your purchase. Your favorite local retro shop probably isn't gonna do anything near that.

[gummo]

As far as I can see. They call their consoles "refurbished". I don't really know what that entails, and neither do 99% of their customers. Your definition of refurb could differ from my definition. But I have enough common sense to know it's not gonna be a factory refurb. I just can't get hung up on the fact that they didn't scrub the insides clean, esp when you have all these people cracking open consoles to find a smidge of residue somewhere on the board. That doesn't make anyone a "victim". Especially if you've got a year long guarantee on your purchase. Your favorite local retro shop probably isn't gonna do anything near that.

DKOldies made the claim that they open and clean all their consoles . That's obviously not true and people are calling them out on it . If people only found smidges of residue there wouldn't be an issue . People have also found ridiculous amounts of filth , broken parts , liquid damage , swollen capacitors , rock hard thermal paste . I've seen at least one malfunctioning NES , a Gamecube that only reads discs after it warms up , a PS2 with an obviously broken A/V port , 2 N64s with no video out , a PS3 super slim with a broken piece inside interfering with the DVD door operation , an OG Xbox that stutters constantly . And that's off the top of my head .
   This is why they offer a 1 year warranty , because they aren't offering a quality product . It's less work to charge extra and exchange consoles than to actually refurb them .

[gummo]

As to the death threats , they have a video about one 8 months ago so they seem to be normal for them . Can't blame that one on unboxers .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--VQbuy5wWg
 
Edit - I see that's the same threat that Warmsignal posted earlier ... still not sure what that has to do with the recent unboxings .

[gummo]

If anyone doesn't believe me that they claimed to open and clean every console as part of the refurbishment it was in a comment on their "DKOldies Refurbishes Their Consoles" video which was an indirect response to the unboxing disasters going on at the time .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mZug4fT8mM
It's still there in a comment left by Ian Campbell , you can scroll down into the comments and check for yourself .
"Ian Campbell
2 months ago
How much refurbishing is done if it DOES read a disc? Do you open them up at all? At those prices I’d hope folks aren’t getting a Wii full of cat hair because it was only wiped down and called refurbished.
DKOldies.com
2 months ago
Yes all consoles are opened and cleaned."