Oh, the nostalgia for old video games. You’ve probably gone to a friend’s house when you were little and played on their Playstation 3 that you never were able to get for yourself for one reason or another. But alas, an opportunity rises. A refurbished console with backwards compatibility. It might have one cosmetic flaw but you’re willing to pay the $400 price tag – and hey, it might come with the official controller like it shows on the picture, right? You open up the console because it’s making some noises that you don’t like, and it’s insanely dusty. And that controller you got with it? Third party. But hey, at least you got one game with it, right?

DKOldies is a company that sells old games and “refurbished” consoles. A plethora of people have came out with their experiences recently with the company. Some include marking up the prices for games and consoles, and flat out scamming people who don’t know any better. DKOldies has even begun deleting negative reviews and comments, practically sweeping everything about their shady tactics under the rug.

“With the huge amount of orders that ship out each day, occasionally some mistakes slip through the cracks, we’re only human after all.” That was a now-deleted comment from the DKOldies YouTube channel that was in response to a comment that called them out for their scam. That comment has also been deleted as well. One YouTuber, ReviewTechUSA, stated on their video that “[DKOldies is] promising things they’re not delivering, and not only are they not addressing these issues … they’re ignoring the issues, blocking people that talk about it… and then, they come out with this video, when myself and other YouTubers have completely exposed them for being liars.” The video that ReviewTechUSA references is a video describing the process of refurbishment of consoles, and was posted on the official DKOldies YouTube account.

An example of these types of videos is from YouTuber Jacob R., who’s made 8 videos in total about DKOldies. One video made was him opening a refurbished XBOX 360. On the DKOldies site, it said that the console HDMI compatible, but the one he received wasn’t. Instead, it was only AV compatible, which is prone to become faulty much easier. Oh, and the thermal paste inside was almost fully removed. Another video posted showcased a PlayStation 3 console, which was revealed to have thick dust inside the console itself. An important thing to note is that all of these consoles had warranty stickers, meaning that they supposedly opened the consoles and updated or replaced interior components. However, according to the video posted by DKOldies, they only clean the inside if they have to, completely contradicting the “Refurbished” statement. To them, if the console works, it works, and you pay the price they say to pay.

 With that statement in mind, it should be mentioned that DKOldies marks up prices of not only the consoles, but the games too. If you wanted to buy Jet Set Radio for the Sega Dreamcast, you could either pay upwards of $104.99 on DKOldies or you could buy it on eBay for $74.99. Similarly, a limited edition version of Sonic Adventure, could cost $155.99 for just the game with no case and manual, or $50.00 for the game, manual, and case on eBay. In short, DKOldies has been taking advantage of people who don’t know much about game collecting, making customers pay almost double for stuff that can be found for way cheaper elsewhere.

On top of all of this, DKOldies has been pretending that none of this has ever happened. In a response to someone’s YouTube short, DKOldies says, “Some people just want to spread hate and others are jealous of our success. Won’t let it stop me, I’m just going to keep making fun videos and spreading the love of retro gaming.” A shady business led by a shady owner. DKOldies is a scam.