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SwapGame Review |
Swapgame are a UK based online video game rental company. Their website is certainly very enticing giving a good professional approach, with snazzy design and navigation. They cater for the following platforms: Playstation 2, Dreamcast, Gameboy Advance, Microsoft X-Box, Nintendo Gamecube and PC-CD Rom.
Their SG2 rental plan costs £14.99 monthly for having 2 games out at at a time.
Games are sent from Coventry and the site provides online reviews plus game instructions.
Click here to Visit SwapGame
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SwapGame Customer Reviews |
sue from W. Midlands on 2008-05-29 Rates them:  
not a review as such, but just a comment for Mike + others. If you want to cancel make sure you delete all the titles in your play list then when you send back your last disc they can't send you another one!! |
Richard from Birmingham on 2008-04-29 Rates them:
Been with SwapGame.com about a month now, they have been 100% reliable, all games ariving here & there prompt & safe. I have been through about 10-12 games already with no hiccups. Highly Recommended. |
Damien from Watford on 2008-01-05 Rates them:
The price seemed good, the free trial sealed the deal, first thing that went wrong was they sent a game I think 4th on my list but acceptable, I received the game 7 days later, played and completed the game within 2 days and returned it but I was charged 2 days before it arrived there so it was impossible to even have a free trial, but according to them the payment wouldn't go through, they then notified me that the game had been returned.
I didn't hear anything for a while but then about 10 days later they attempted to charge my card again without asking me and it didn't go through again, I asked them why but they didn't respond, 20 days later they charged my card and this time it worked, I sent countless messages after this, never ever responsding.
They actually charged me for the whole month where the payment hadn't gone through and were not sending any games, then they sent out another game and charged my right afterwards for the following month, this was all within a day period, this is the worst money making scam I have ever dealt with.
I shall be taking this further with them and try and cancel the payment. |
james from Edinburgh on 2007-07-03 Rates them:
I have been with swap game for over a year and recently things have went bad i iitally rented games one a week but that slowed and i still paid them but i sent back crackdown and low and behold it never got there but i never got proof of postage i rented call of juarez on friday there incidently the same day as the one day post strike but they emailed me sat morning saying had sent it at 11 20 still not here i e mailed and left a message saying i have not recieved so with what i have read i think i will call my credit card company and tell them not to accept and payments from swapgame and then cancel |
Callum from Luton on 2007-06-28 Rates them:
I have been very pleased with SwapGame's service and delivery they promised a 2 day gurranteed and they have never broken their promise. Their prices may be a bit steap but it is excellent. Use them you will not be dissapointed. |
Nigel from Manchester on 2006-09-06 Rates them:
Not really impressed with SwapGame at all. I signed up for their free trial and all went well. At the time, i was going through all the Games rental companies using their free trial to assess each ones performance.
I emailed to cancel my membership but was told I couldnt as they hadnt received the game. Fair enough I thought. i sent it back the same day but it took 3 days before it was logged back onto the system.
Lo and Behold that took me into my first months payment. A bit underhand i thought.
Also I found out the free trial is not free at all if you decide to use them.
Your billing date starts on the day of the end of trial, one two weeks later and then 1 month thereafter.
I hope they have sorted this out by now.
I have read alot of bad reviews of them since. Enough for me not to trust them with my hard earned cash. |
Kirsty from Preston on 2006-03-14 Rates them:
I haved used Swapgame since 2002 when they began, and their service has always been excellent. I have frozen my account a number of times (due to different circumstances) and in January of this year I unfroze my account and began renting DS games from them.
What can I say since then?
Swapgame has been very poor. Their supposed 'excellent' customer service is ridiculously slow, and they were taking 3-4 days to send out new games (should take no more than 2 according to the site). I also consistently received games that were at the bottom of my rental list.
Then, a few months into my membership, they stopped sending games out to me altogether. I asked why this was after 4 days, and they promptly responded (for once), assuring me it would be sorted. A week later, and I'd still heard nothing, so I requested they cancel my account and sent back my last cartridge. Swapgame then informed me that they had received an empty envelope from me, which I certainly did not do. I sent them an e-mailed copy of my proof of postage which they refused to comment on. After another week of waiting, they said that they were going to charge me for the game and cancel my account.
Here's part of Swapgame's terms of use:
Games reported as missing on your account will require you to provide a 'Proof of Postage' receipt to validate your claim. SwapGame reserves the right to debit your credit/debit card the Recommended Retail Price for any missing games to your account which are not accompanied with a valid 'Proof of Postage' receipt.
I showed them my proof of postage, but they went ahead and charged me £44.97 for a single NDS cartridge (without a manual or a box), Fifa 06. RRP for this game on any major site (Game, Tesco etc.) is listed as £29.99 and they all sell it for less.
I will be disputing the transaction with my bank, but be warned. If you are going to rent from any online rental service, seal your envelopes well (be generous with the sellotape) and get proof of postage.
Given the way I was treated by Swapgame, I would not recommend them to anyone, and would warn them against using their services. |
Barry from Ward on 2005-11-23 Rates them:
Tried trial with this company and Gametart with mixed results for both of them. Unfortuantely so far there isn't one ideal company I can find for PSP online game rental.
What this site does wrong is the 'Rent Now' buttons on the website don't change to 'Added' or similar when clicked. Instead, you are taken to your queue page where you can see it has been added, then you have to go back to the game list to add more. Other sites (like Gametart) change the button so you can see it is added, and that's it- you can carry on adding from the list.
The other major thing wrong with this company is the speed of the website. Browsing without logging on is fine, and just as fast as any other website. However, log on and all of a sudden it SLOWS TO A CRAWL. Typically, you have to wait OVER 20 SECONDS just to log on in the first place, then around 9 SECONDS waiting for every page to load after that.
These days that is unacceptable. I am on broadband and shouldn't have to wait that long when I have never had that problem on other sites.
However, in their favour, they have already emailed me (NOT automated either) regarding my email on the matter the day after the evening I sent it- and they are apparently looking into it.
Also in their favour, my first game arrived the same day (which is the day after joining). Each game you rent has a link on it's page to download instructions (which Gametart doesn't do (nor do they email instructions as promised in their FAQ)). The instructions were just the control set-up, but it's better than nothing at all.
Plus I have the option to buy the game for £22 if I want to keep it, and they will post out the box and instructions.
Overall so far then, a bit of a mix. But overall, I think Gametart has worse problems than these guys. So I have decided, for the moment, to go with Swapgame.
View my review of Gametart for the reasons I picked these over them. |
DJ from Manchester on 2005-10-26 Rates them:
Not too happy with Swapgame at the moment. After getting through 1 game a week for the first 3 weeks (incl 10 day trial) they suddenly started getting lost in the post. One that I returned and the next one they sent me went missing. As a result there was a gap of 2 weeks before getting my next game.
Was it because I was getting through too many games? One a week seems reasonable on a one disk package.
My advice is to make sure you return games at a post office and get a proof of postage certificate (free).
I will be staying with them for the moment as another payment has gone through |
dude from notts on 2005-10-20 Rates them:
swapgame is perfect cant fault it anywhere customer sevice brill cancelled as soon as i clicked canceled
been canceled for 2 months now and no bills
games arrived next day
games get back next day
100% reccomend |
Phil from Proctor on 2005-10-12 Rates them:
What a shambles. I have been trying to cancel with this company for 2 months. I have yet to see a game. They insist they have dispatched them. Trying to cancel via email is hopeless. I have filled out Royal Mail lost claims. Still they won't cancel until the games are returned. How can I return games I haven't reecived? AVOID AVOID AVOID. |
Mike from York on 2005-09-28 Rates them:
I signed up for the free trial on the 9th of September, they sent me a game straight away. I played for about five days and sent it back on the Thursday. They sent me a new one late on Friday, which I sent back on the Sunday, deciding to go with GameTart instead.
I told them ahead of the end of my trial I was cancelling, I sent back the game as early as I could, but they even billed me a day early!!!
Swapgame insisted on charging me their fee because I hadn't returned the game in time (and you can't cancel until they get their game back)
Lesson learned then. It's really a seven day free trial if it ends near a weekend because they'll send you a game so that you have no chance of returning it when your ten (or 9 days in my case) are up.
Now this wouldn't be a problem, because I'd use the service I had paid for and make sure they had all their games back before the next billing date, and cancel.
Except they haven't sent me a game since I tried to cancel(today is the 28th), and their customer service department won't respond to my emails.
There are only ten days left in the month I was forced to pay for, and doubtless they'll wait until the last day before sending me a new one, forcing me to pay for another month because I won't be able to get it back to them in time.
Once they get your money, you can forget about the service. The Helpdesk is particularly unhelpful - I've written to them six times now, with no response (even using the webmail on their website)
Steer clear of these cowboys and go with GameTart instead. They're much more professional, and light years ahead of swapgame(or swap'con' and I now know them as). |
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