Nerd Rage Gaming — Local services in Wheeling Township

I've had the displeasure of visiting this store on two separate occasions and have had a poor experience both times.

The first visit, I let them know it was my first time in the store and they were incredibly standoffish and short. I looked past this and asked to take a look at some of the Pokémon singles in their case. The employee pulled the singles out and held them out and when I reached out to take it from him, he hesitated as if I wasn't welcome to hold the card. Keep in mind, this was a $6 card. Checking condition is a part of trading cards. I let him know that I had no intention of stealing his cards and he reluctantly let me pick it up to check the condition (none of their cards had conditions marked).

Despite this experience, I try to advocate for small businesses and I proceeded to purchase $100 in singles from them to show my support.

My experience today was also negative. I walked in and asked about magic the gathering singles. The gentleman at the front directed me to their kiosks and let me know that I can peruse their inventory there and submit it to be pulled. After spending 30 minutes on the kiosk putting my order together and paying for it, I proceed to the counter to let them know it's been submitted. He pulls up the order on his screen, gives it a swift scroll, and let's me know that he will not be able to get to this order until Monday because they are behind on online orders and only have one person working in the back. He offered me the option of coming back Monday, or issuing a refund.

The computer that the order was placed on clearly mentions same day pickup as an option. When I walked in, he communicated that I can simply place my order and let him know when it's done. I understand this was a Saturday and there were folks in the store playing cards. I can empathize with being short staffed. However, this is an expectation that should have been set at the start. When I voiced these concerns, his response was "I didn't know you were going to order 60 cards".

This is a clear case of a very complacent employee who has taken it upon himself to decide that his tenure outweighs the customer experience. If he said he could have it done by the end of the day, that wouldn't have been a big deal. However, after spending 40 minutes driving there, 30 minutes on the kiosk, and another 40 minutes driving home, I've decided that this store is just not worth visiting and they make spending money with them a painful experience.

You guys have a beautiful store with plenty of inventory. I just hope you will hone in and refine your customer experience, for the sake of your customers, both new...

Firstly, had no idea this place existed for a long time. Until I got into Digimon a few months ago and discovered that they regularly hold tournaments and definitely keep up with releases. They draw a pretty nice crowd too and seem very involved in their events. Had an awesome customer experience with them when they had an emergency and weren't open for a prerelease, but they absolutely made up for it. Only sorta negative, is that as someone who's pretty shy it seems a little difficult to approach other players and make friends since it seems a bit clicky, but that might just be my problem lol I will mention that if you have a service dog to possibly be a bit cautious. They often have 2 small dogs running free in the store, that while very nice and well behaved, are quite reactive (bark whenever someone comes to the door). It was a bit nerve wracking at times since my dog was working and laying under the table quietly, but was fighting being destracted by their dogs that kept approaching him. Of course a properly trained service dog with public access training can handle this, but it was a little stressful. I guess I could have asked that they tried to keep them away while my dog was working, but I didn't want to cause any trouble. Overall though, great place and awesome time playing...

Six months. That's how long this company kept my cards after I submitted them for buy-in. They sat on the back counter behind cashwrap, watching as employees took in collection after collection of customer cards. For six months.

When confronted about this, NRG tried to blame a former employee for not informing the rest of staff what the three vintage longboxes full of EDH staples, jank, and power cards were doing behind the counter. Not one person at NRG bothered to ask each other about the boxes.

I gave them just over a week to process my trades and when I came back to make a progress check, an employee silently brought my boxes out from the back and placed them on the counter, affirming that this company would rather give up than correct their own dysfunction. They had no answer as to why they failed to even open a single box.

And this is a company trying to be the premier tournament organizer of the Midwest? What a joke. I won't make the mistake of giving them any more of my business or my playtime.

As a 10 year veteran of this industry, I have NEVER seen so much incompetence packed into a single LCS. Avoid...