Teen Opens PlayStation 3 Box, Finds Phone Book Inside!

[FantasyGhost]

No kidding... $500 for a phone book at a Thousand Oaks EB Games.

Thousand Oaks -- Imagine tearing into a holiday present to find a PlayStation 3 box... with a phone book sealed inside! That's what happened to 13-year-old Brandon Burns Christmas morning. He says he laughed about it when it happened. His parents... not so much, since they spent $500 for the PS3. They say they plan on taking the phone book, the box, and their receipt back to the Thousand Oaks mall store where they bought it. Good luck, guys!

A Camarillo father says he bought his son a PlayStation 3, but when the teen opened the box Christmas morning, all he found was a phone book inside! The store says the situati...
video: http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=DB36BDF058F237DC99D94EB07435A537 ?contentId=5315425&version=7&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

[Zer0-Sum]

That sucks dead monkey choad. I would be pissed beyond pissed. They owe him a new PS3 with some PS3 games and Blu Ray movies as compensation for the trouble. What a ten ton load of BS.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Oh wow. Someone's gonna pay.

[Zak]

wha tthe hell? who would laugh about that? Is there any store on earth worse than gamestop?

[Zer0-Sum]

If they laughed at me for this I would most likely get arrested for kicking their ass beaten and bloody. But that is just me.....

[LaLiLuLeLo]

I'd become a very violent man if they gave me shit the next day.

[The Dude]

I'm not surprised. Every year we get a few game systems that are returned at our store with with bricks/phonebooks/junk in them. It happens more often then you think. We now check every returned system to make sure its in there. The look on the customers, I mean scam artists, face when we find that stuff is priceless. (and they usually make a run for it.)

[Diresu]

...ho ho hosed?

[Zer0-Sum]

I'd become a very violent man if they gave me shit the next day.

QFT brother, QFT.....

[Zer0-Sum]

I'm not surprised. Every year we get a few game systems that are returned at our store with with bricks/phonebooks/junk in them. It happens more often then you think. We now check every returned system to make sure its in there. The look on the customers, I mean scam artists, face when we find that stuff is priceless. (and they usually make a run for it.)

Yaaahhhhh. Ever consider the fact that might just be the employees stealing the systems and scalping them on EBay?

[julps31]

Wow...thats worst then getting coal in your stocking lol (understatement).

[cliffbo]

at least he'll be able to find the shops phone number!

you neg repped me for this ShadowVoa... WHY?

[Zer0-Sum]

I would use the phone book as my weapon of violence.

[julps31]

at least he'll be able to find the shops phone number!Lol...True.

[r33hash]

I thought that every system returned was checked anyway... Don't you guys usually plug each and every system in to make sure it's functioning properly?

[julps31]

Not if your retarted and attempt to plug in a phone book. Lol...

[CygnusXI]

Me at Eb last week:

Hey.
Does Phantasy star Online (ps2) work ONLINE with ps3?

Um, well.
I know that FFXI doesn't work with PS3 so prolly not.

FFXI does work online with PS3...

Oh.

>.>

Anyway to add my insult to injury.
He can use that phonebook to call someone who cares!

lol.
j/k
:p

[Coded-Dude]

phone books don't leave bruises....I would use it against any store employee who refused to supply me with a replacement. :susp:

[OmniCloud]

Toy r' us did this to me once with the original PS...

Wasn't funny at all, it was a ruined gift...

I think someone that worked there must've stole it and put some magazines in there i guess:shrug:

[Sephiroth_VII]

Take it to the PM system.

Seems the store gave the kid a new PS3. I wouldn't have, maybe they just hid it somewhere?

[Raitei]

hah...
its a phoney ps3



badum pshhh

[Bryan]

Man, that'd piss me off too.

[LiquidEagle]

haha that's pretty funny IMO, it's a minor inconvenience in exchange for a funny story :-p

[digital neXus]

It sure be better if all of the products are additionally packed in plastic wrap, so nobody can open the box from the bottom.

[Jay Gee]

EB GameStop does that annoying shit, though. They open your stuff before you even purchase it. At least, that's what happened to me and my buddy. He bought a copy of Warhawk from them and it had no instruction booklet for the bluetooth headset. After he complained about the douche that gave him a copy that he said wasn't opened, the guy opens ANOTHER copy, takes that instruction manual out of that one, and then gives it to my friend. It's ridiculous.

[Angeljuice]

He should have just accepted that he was fated to have a phonebook, and made the most of it.
He could improve his mind by memorising every page.
Anyway, he has altered destiny now so we can expect the Universe to collapse in on itself at any moment !!! :(

[hidex]

I hate it when they give you a game thats open. Even though it's not in the used section. If they were giving me a game that was already open I don't care if they said it isn't used i'm not buying it.

[jaxmkii]

at least he'll be able to find the shops phone number!

you neg repped me for this ShadowVoa... WHY?

it makes him feel powerfull, and helps coverup the sad feelings inside.

[Jay Gee]

Still butthurt over that reaming he took in the Ass Creed thread, I'm guessing. He neg repped me some time ago. All I can tell you is to get over it, fella.

[kaphwan]

Or he thought it was a shit post.

[=NukeBlaze=]

This is why I open the box before I leave the store, so that I can find out which back room, sales slinging harpy swapped engineered silicon for a box of corn flakes.

Beware slick haired electronic sales reps, I spit venom when family and friends drag me along for electronic purchases. Just an ahead of time warning, I take trips to the Appian Way for crucifixion when service plans are pushed.

[cpiasminc]

Could be worse. He could have gotten a dead rat inside the box. Though that only happens with 360 devkits, FWIW ;).

[Zer0-Sum]

:lol: Had much trouble with 360 dev kits?

[=NukeBlaze=]

I guess rats are attracted to the variety of nosies the 360 produces. Maybe it emits a high-frequency pitch when the DVD drive spins up, or when the fan speed is adjusted to stun. I suppose the rat can hear these higher range noises and might interpret them a mating call...hence getting trapped during packaging.

[drakkar]

Dead rat, are you serious?? Tell us more!

[cpiasminc]

I guess rats are attracted to the variety of nosies the 360 produces. Maybe it emits a high-frequency pitch when the DVD drive spins up, or when the fan speed is adjusted to stun. I suppose the rat can hear these higher range noises and might interpret them a mating call...hence getting trapped during packaging.
Why would a packaged box that's likely never been turned on before it reaches us be a source of noise? About the only high pitched noises you'd get would be from packaging material rubbing against each other. This was back at a previous job and it was still the era of beta hardware before the 360 itself came out, and the beta 360 kits were just many many times louder than the retail ones you guys know of. Still, I'm fairly sure this happened during shipping or while the box was sitting in a warehouse or something.

I'm not sure what might have attracted a rat to that box, but whatever. It came in, and we had no idea why the box stunk until we opened it and found a rat inside. Sent back to MS with a replacement form... replacement didn't happen until well after the retail 360 came out.

[Sephiroth_VII]

[off-topic]Where did you work before?[/off-topic]

[cpiasminc]

TRI, and the game we were working on at the time is right here --
YewmeaUX6Hg

And a correspondingly really bad case of product placement --
p7PGiP7Rr6w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7PGiP7Rr6w&feature=related

This is also the game I'd mentioned a few times before where we were working on a 360 version and they'd only paid to get us a handful of 360 kits (which we had to share), and then the publisher suddenly told us it was supposed to be on PS3 as well (at the time, people still thought that PS3 and 360 would come out at about the same time). As you can probably guess, it wasn't long before it got shelved and Majesco died a thousand deaths.

EDIT : tried adding the second video as a link... for some reason it doesn't show up as unavailable when I do it that way.

[VG Aficionado]

The second video is no longer available. Do you have another source?

[cpiasminc]

Try the direct link. I don't know why, but for some reason, linking as opposed to embedding still seems to work.

[VG Aficionado]

TRI, and the game we were working on at the time is right here --
YewmeaUX6Hg

And a correspondingly really bad case of product placement --
p7PGiP7Rr6w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7PGiP7Rr6w&feature=related

This is also the game I'd mentioned a few times before where we were working on a 360 version and they'd only paid to get us a handful of 360 kits (which we had to share), and then the publisher suddenly told us it was supposed to be on PS3 as well (at the time, people still thought that PS3 and 360 would come out at about the same time). As you can probably guess, it wasn't long before it got shelved and Majesco died a thousand deaths.

EDIT : tried adding the second video as a link... for some reason it doesn't show up as unavailable when I do it that way.

Well, at least they spent a long time talking about the game, but who the hell thought that was a good idea? :shrug:

[=NukeBlaze=]

Why would a packaged box that's likely never been turned on before it reaches us be a source of noise? About the only high pitched noises you'd get would be from packaging material rubbing against each other. This was back at a previous job and it was still the era of beta hardware before the 360 itself came out, and the beta 360 kits were just many many times louder than the retail ones you guys know of. Still, I'm fairly sure this happened during shipping or while the box was sitting in a warehouse or something.

I imagine they have a line which tests the dev units to see if they function properly before they are packaged. It might be a case of repeated association which drives the vermin wild at the fuzzy sight their eyes can produce.

I suppose another alternative theory, is that one of the people on the packaging wing, probably the same one that naps in an off to the side cargo box during break, dropped a few M&Ms into the shipping box by mistake.

This is starting to remind me of the time I found a dead mouse inside of a can of slim fast. It seemed it crawled in, and was a bit too plump to escape. I guess some person missed tossing the can into the bin with the rest of the recyclables.

[cpiasminc]

Well, at least they spent a long time talking about the game, but who the hell thought that was a good idea?
I can only imagine that they were just that desperate for cash and trying to garner attention for the game. The sad part is that while it got some positive attention from the movie, it backfired in the sense that the vast majority of people who actually saw it believed it to be just a montage of clips for the movie and not a real game in the works.

It also didn't help that in the movie, some of the details about how you brought up "powers" and stuff weren't quite right, and that they're playing a 360 game with a regular Xbox controller.

[Garfunkel]

Speaking of opening large, shiny boxes with gaming gear that makes your heart race; I purchased my PS3 yesterday, on the eve of new years, see you all online once I get another ethernet jack ;)

[Leedogg]

^^^just connect via wireless and you can get on now...

[VG Aficionado]

Awesome, Garfunkel :) What games are you getting? Remember to add us to your PSN friends list!

It also didn't help that in the movie, some of the details about how you brought up "powers" and stuff weren't quite right, and that they're playing a 360 game with a regular Xbox controller.

Yeah, I found that very funny. Then again, that was filmed well before the 360 was out, wasn't it?

[Kiosko]

I just switch my PCs cord out to my PS3 when I need to go online.

[cpiasminc]

Yeah, I found that very funny. Then again, that was filmed well before the 360 was out, wasn't it?
That's true. Beta hardware didn't even exist back then, so it was the era when a 360 devkit was nothing more than a dual-processor PowerMac (which is why there's no way in hell the game was running as fast as you saw on a "360" of the time -- those clips were captured on a PC... back then, we weren't even sure whether a Xenon in its final form would outperform the original Xbox).

[Garfunkel]

I am connecting my PS3 up via HDMI to the family 720P. There is no ethernet jack in that room (dad said he would put one in my room soon because my sister was going to need one in her room anyway. Now, i can use the PS3 in my room connected to my tv tuner via composite. Yep, it will look like ass, but then i could use my pc's input.

I am looking for hdtv's now though, when i get one, you will know about it ;)

Another thing is the internet quota's shitty Australian ISP's give us...