By Dexerto | Created at 2026-08-19 17:24:37 | Updated at 2026-08-20 06:27:24
14 hours ago
A guy in Oregon dragged a mountain of broken consoles into GameStop and walked out with $10,690.06 in credit for his trouble.
GameStop has spent years fielding jokes about paying pennies on the dollar, a reputation that’s followed the company for well over a decade. It’s been chipping away at that image lately with a “Stop beating it” promotion let customers trade in busted controllers for the same credit as a working one, and that offer only wrapped up on August 15.
But we don’t think anybody expected the trade-in counter to shell out gift cards worth over $10,000 in store credit.
Hundreds of broken consoles add up to a near record trade-in
On August 17, GameStop’s official account revealed that a customer named Josh had walked into its Clackamas, Oregon store with crate after crate of dead hardware that spanned nearly every console generation the company sells.
Staff sorted through original Game Boys, an NES, a Sega Game Gear, PSPs, Nintendo Switches, Xbox 360s, Xbox Series Xs, and PS4s, and the receipts piled up until the total reached $10,690.06.
GameStop shared photos of the haul, the stack of receipts, and Josh grinning with a fistful of trade cards, and captioned it simply: “Thanks for your junk, Josh.”
The replies underneath GameStop’s own post split into two camps, with one side going after the company directly.
One commenter wrote that Josh “could’ve sold it all on eBay for 100k” if the company had paid anywhere close to that in return, while another said he “could’ve went to a retro game store for a few more bucks.” A third reply dripped with sarcasm: “Here’s 11k store credit for the $2,343,087 you brought in worth of consoles.”
The other side turned to doubt, with one commenter dismissing the pictured haul outright: “That bin of junk in the pic would get you like $8.” Another asked: “How is this a viable business practice?”
Josh’s total still trails the company’s biggest payout ever, a $30,494.70 windfall from a customer who traded in a rare Pokemon card last December, but between the roasting and the disbelief, it’s proof GameStop’s trade-in counter still knows how to get people talking.
