Time Warp Ashland — Local services in Ashland

The old listing for this place was renamed to "hi" and this listing was added. I'm reposting my old review now:

Don't expect your electronics to work if you buy them from here. I used to stop at this place when I went to the hillbilly flea market. They usually have a nice selection, and I'd usually fine what I'm looking for no problem. I didn't buy many things from here, but I'd say half of my items had problems.. I bought a controller from here, plugged it in when I got home, it wasn't working properly. I took it apart and looked at the board, and saw water damage. It was a cheap thing and no big deal to me.

I bought an s-video cable and it didn't work properly because one of the pins was bent. I bent it back into position, it worked fine. Again, no big deal.

Then I bought a game from them. When I got home, I realized the cashier forgot to put the game in, so I called.

I asked that if they could send it to me that I would pay for shipping. It would be cheaper to pay for shipping than for fuel, and I would've gladly paid up. I also mentioned the previous items and that they should really do better about making sure their items work. I'm a blunt person, so at times I appear more rude than I like to be. I didn't cuss them out. I stated my opinion.

After I sent an email of my receipt so they knew that they're sending it to the right person, I called back and apologized, and again offered to pay for shipping. I didn't want the cashier to feel the need to pay me. After all, I probably should have looked in the case. But they insisted.

Then I get a phone call from someone who I can only assume is the owner. He said he'd send the game to me, but would appreciate it if I don't go back. I would understand if I had yelled over the phone, but I didn't. I would understand if I'd cussed the person out over the phone, but I didn't. I would understand if I didn't apologize for my behavior, but I did.

I wouldn't have written this review if it wasn't for that phone call. This would've been water under the bridge, after all, mistakes happen. To the owner, I apologize once again for my behavior, but yours is unacceptable. How can you tell me that you test your items, when you can tell an s-video cable has a bent pin just by looking at it? How can you tell me that the controller with water damage worked for you, but not for me as soon as I got home?

Do a better job testing your items if you want to keep customers, and don't push away the ones that give you an...

Be careful of making any large purchases at this store. They do not want to take returns, even if the item never crossed the counter. This store gives you poor customer service. They mark up prices above suggested retail price, when the item is still in production. The purchase I was going to make was almost $500. Even if a couple of the items were over priced, I was still willing to pay their price. I asked if there was any discounts on large purchases. I was offered a t-shirt and a raffle ticket for a game system they were giving away. I choose not to accept the t-shirt and then asked what the requirement was to get a raffle ticket and was told a $100 purchase. They were only willing to give one ticket on such a large purchase as opposed to four as I had purchased over $400 worth of items. Then was told only one ticket per purchase, I then asked to redo the purchase into four separate purchases, so I would have four raffle tickets. I was then told only 1 ticket per day!!! At this time I asked for a refund. The manager said no cash refunds. I informed the manager, the purchase had been processed with a credit card. The manager then offered me store credit. I refused to accept the store credit. The bags never crossed over the counter into my hands. I told them if they did not reverse the credit transaction I would have no choice, but to contact my credit card company immediately and tell the company to cancel the transaction because I was not leaving the store with the merchandise. Therefore the store would be committing fraud by not cancelling the transaction. The manager in the store started screaming at me and made jokes about my wife. The manager called the owner of the store, he begrudgingly refunded the charge and band me from the store. All because I was asking for 4 raffle tickets due to the size of my purchase. So in the end the store lost a sale of almost $500 over 3 raffle tickets and a repeat customer who regularly makes large purchase with other venders, I was trying to support local a vendor instead of purchasing on the internet. OMG!!!!!!

NOTE: IN REFERENCE TO THE RESPONSE I had approached the owner about regularly making large purchases. if we could come to an arrangement of a some type of discount for the purchases for what would be a loyal customer. The owner was very rude about me even asking for a discount. I should have know better than to return to the store a...

Edit- a couple of years later....

Their retro game prices are now always above Market Value. May get lucky to find some that are just a few bucks more than what has sold on Ebay, which may even out if shipping costs are accounted for. One obviously used CIB item I was interested in was priced a few dollars more than a new and complete sealed equivalent. It was priced more than double its actual market value at the time for same condition. As a serious collector, I know how to properly check market value on retro gaming stuff. I was told they only price stuff based on market and prices are always final. I asked if they could double check, but the employee stated "checking was above his pay grade", and walked away. I walked out very disappointed. This used to be one of my favorite places in Ashland. I've spent hundreds of dollars in there. People there are still nice and will answer any questions.

Original Review. Awesome selection of retro games and prices are fairly reasonable! Customer service seems good and are willing to help and answer questions if they can. Everything I've bought so far has worked. One of my favorite places to go!

ABOUT TRADE-INS: This is by no means a gripe, just to let other's aware about how trade-ins are done here. Be prepared to only get about 50% (more or less) of the value of your trade-ins. Trade-ins are a great way to get instant cash if you're tight on money, but you'll lose money if you cant sell it outright. Price of doing trades unfortunately...

They will not offer a price, but instead ask that customers to provide a price of what they want, then the customer may be immediately asked for their lowest price they would take for it depending of the price you give. This is a bit of a shooting-off-the-hip method, that took my by surprise... I guess I expected the store to do a bit of market value research to take place, but not the case.

If you're not aware of the value of the stuff you have, or do not research market value at that moment, you may be giving it away MUCH less than it's worth, but keep in mind that by trading-in to a business specializing on trades, you will lose money compared to its market value because these businesses have to make money. IF you cannot go less than 60% of it's Fair Market value, then consider eBay or other means, rather than trading in here. AGAIN, this business has to be able to make money, so just keep...