Through The Decades — Attraction in Louisville

I’ve been attending Through the decades for about 10 years now. I’ve watched them go from a small LGS to a somewhat sizable store but still consider it a small LGS because I know a lot of people to attend there or work there.

I’ve held off on re writing what used to be a great review to now a poor review. But now I’m here.

I’ve had multiple bad experiences this past year from the MTG service. From the awkward/ rude customer service, and just lack of personal feel of an LGS. Let me tell you about just 2 interactions.

Most recently I went to the counter to buy a snack and noticed an employee stocking a product I was looking online for. Out of excitement I was ready to buy. I waited for the employee stocking them to get off the phone and I asked if I could purchase that product. And I was told “we do not hold product for people”. I replied, “that’s understandable, I plan to play games here all night. Could you just let me know when it’s stocked?”. They replied, “we do not hold product for people.” So I said, “well, I want to purchase this and if I cannot get it here I will just buy it online.” The person cashed me out for my snack and as I was talking to them to apologize as maybe I was coming off rude, the merchant just ignored me and turned around and walked away as I was speaking. The immaturity and lack of professionalism was amazing.

• I have spent thousands of dollars at this store yearly on product and singles*

It seems every time I show up to play or buy something half the employees don’t want to take my money. I will stand there awkwardly waiting for attention. I’ve been skipped in line being ignored. I’ve been denied service telling me they were too busy right now and ended up not buying something because I waited until close and never got service. I’ve worked retail for years and I’m not sure what vibe they are going for there these days but it’s driving away business. I talked to many friends who attend the store and they all have the same feed back which brings me here. Multiple friends have started ordering their product online, both sealed and singles due to the decline in service at through the decades.

My second story. I was talking with some one who told me they were giving out promos for those attending MTG standard constructed event on Tuesdays. I checked with the shop employee who told me yes they are giving out these promos for everyone. I was super excited and put together a deck to play in the week and spend my money at through the decades. long story short. I played the whole event and at the end did not get the promo. I asked the shop employee but they denied me. Wouldn’t be that big of a deal if one of my friends who were also playing the event wasn’t given the promo when he dropped out earlier because he had to leave. So they gave him a promo for dropping the tournament and didn’t give anyone else the promo. I was upset because the promo was the only reason I spent money and built the deck to begin with. In the end I was lied to and treated poorly for asking about it.

I get that the store gets busy. I get that you are bigger than the small LGS you once were but at the end of the day you are still an LGS and Louisville is still a small city. People including myself have turned to supporting billion dollar companies over our hundred thousand dollar LGS just to mitigate dealing with horrible/ awkward service. The sad part is that we are spending our money and you are loosing thousands of dollars due to this alone. LGS should treat their locals with respect and priority. I’ve worked retail for many years and I am also a small business owner myself and I would not be in business if I treated my closest clients the way I have been treated by staff at through the decades.

There are more stories I can tell. Such as a friend getting a list pulled and found a card that was clearly a fake/ proxy and took it back and they exchanged it, luckily! But these are just a few things off the top...

The sports cards buyer is shady and rude. He will try to rip you off and if you decide to wait to sell he will pressure you and say you can’t come back to sell them here again if you leave. I will never go to this store again.. ———————————————————————- Well I appreciate the response. However I was told that I CANNOT bring my cards in AT ALL to sell if I leave the store today and turn down his offer, That the store would no longer purchase my cards at another time, not that the current offer was only good for that day, because I would understand that policy. That’s a perfectly reasonable policy… But what he said was only said to pressure me into selling my cards before I could look around and get other offers or research the value of my cards further. Hence: shady , rude, disrespectful pressure tactics… Even though he said that and I did leave without selling them that day I decided to see if the policy he told me was indeed true and that he would no longer purchase my cards. So went there for a second time and sure enough got the same employee and he remembered me instantly, I told him I wanted to see if he was still interested in purchasing my card, and that I would take his original offer of 480 dollars for my lebron James rookie card . And just as I thought would happen he was still very interested in purchasing my card, only now that instead of offering me 480 he would give me 100 dollars less “because I can’t give you the same amount how that you’ve shopped around “ was his response… I laughed at him and informed him I wasn’t actually going to sell it to him I just wanted to see if I was correct about your shady tactics which I clearly was correct, then I left and proceeded to go to LOUISVILLE SPORTS CARDS AND GAMING located at 11519 Shelbyville Rd, C, Louisville, KY 40243… which was a wonderful decision because they were absolutely fantastic people to deal with, I made it there 30 minutes after they had closed and caught the owner and an employee just as they were locking the door ready to leave for the day, I thought I was out of luck but they were nice enough to open up the store and stay at work longer just to assist me and check out my card… after going into their store and having a great talk with them for about ten minutes they decided to make an offer on my card.. they offered me 650$ cash which I happily accepted. So I will not only certainly never return to the store because of your rude and shady employee, but also because of the fantastic service and customer support that I received from Louisville sports cards and gaming. They now have a customer for life that could have been yours had you hired an employee with better ethics and a higher moral compass. Thanks for your response...

The run down..

Multiple visits over 6 months & only 2 workers worth giving praise. Services were less than adequate every visit but wanted to be fair an truly see what offers they'd make on some of my more rare cards (even ones graded & higher/nicer quality than what they had in stock/on display..) - Sadly, honestly & unfortunately TTD was equivalent to a rating overall of 2/10 - 2 points for hiring respectful pokemon reps/ aside the point since I have sports cards ALOT an mostly needed the assistance of the other sports reps. Although those reps are the main reasons for the low grade, along with the general scam of low balling anyone with worthwhile cards looking to discuss potential buy/sell services, which they repeatedly failed to impress or seem interested in this line of work it was shocking to explore. So without naming names or card prices/ online values & in store values/ or specific let down moments of myself and others.. the main issue is other than similar markets, stores, an related services being used for comparison, TTD was sadly unaware of the level of rare collection pieces being brought in (Multiple occasions) they skimmed over a few medium sized card boxes with "high value rated/ top condition cards" so many times where it was becoming obvious they only indulge if you are unknowingly going to take a big loss on a specific card or knowingly take a loss on a few specific cards.. So after many trials of this with different people bringing in the same "spot the rare cards box" which had about 10 sought after cards on purpose placed inside.. it was wild to say the least how fast a few of the "higher ups in charge guys" looked through this box (VERY fast with no interest/ even if it's their job to look at 1000s cards a day) they too missed all the worthy cards 9 out of 10 times with only 1 card being pulled to discuss on the 10th time... showed how TTD compared to other local shops does not deserve this oddly high rating nor worthy of claiming to effectively sell/buy/trade "sport" cards specifically.. Instead they take what you are willing to part with at a lower than fair price which this was tested as well an failed miserably.

From fellow fans of the trade, be warned and be aware of these types of locations.

Thank you, have...