Gamestop bad labor practices

So the Consumerist recently outed Gamestop’s practice of paying their workers with cash cards in lieu of a paper check. If you’re unfamiliar with the controversy, let me fill in some background. Gamestop, one of the largest retailers of used and new video games, provides two methods to pay their employees: direct deposit to a checking account or a cash card. These cash cards, though they are technically a MasterCard come with a huge list of disadvantages:

• The only way to check your balance is to call the 1-800 number and jump through 4-5 prompts.
• ATMs that are supposed to accept the card often reject it (they are Maestro cards), and they -always- charge you a fee for being an out of network user. Comdata tells you to recover your fee from the bank, the bank tells you they don’t know what a Comdata card is, and won’t refund the fee. I even had one bank question me as to wether or not Maestro was a real card company. I got one ATM fee refunded from Comdata, and hit a brick wall from there on out.
• They recommend that you use it for your everyday purchases, with a fee occuring each time. Their own literature conflicts on wether or not this is a one dollar fee or a much lesser, 25 cent fee.
• Many companies will not do cash-back with one (one of Comdata’s recomended methods for getting your money) because, despite being (technically) a Mastercard, and supposedly ‘working just like one’ (lie), it doesn’t actually say Mastercard anywhere on the card.
• Many locations that accept Mastercard will not accept the Comdata card (despite what it says on Comdata’s website).
• The only other way to get money off of your card is to do a funds transfer, often occuring fees at the bank level.
• It also leaves you with absolutely no record of how much, or how often you are paid (until you get your W2, but that is rather limited) except for Comdata’s website, which I found was often either not updated or incorrect. It also took me half a week of playing telephone tag with them to even get signed up for the website benefits.

According to the Consumerist, Gamestop supposedly encourages direct deposit but also defends the practice of using cash cards due to the fact that many of its employees are teenagers who can’t get bank accounts. That’s a crock of bull. While many banks limit new checking accounts to individuals who are 18 years and older, many allow 16 year olds to hold accounts.  Also a parent or guardian can cosponsor a checking account for a teenager.

In any case, paying a young teenager, who probably doesn’t make a lot of money anyway, with a method where a substantial portion of his earnings is eaten away by hidden fees is not only a reprehensible business practice but inexcusable with for a company of the size of Gamestop. Lots of companies far smaller than Gamestop provide both direct deposit and paper checks as payment options. Gamestop should as well.

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