Elbo introduced a trade-in policy where old games could be exchanged for in-store credit. The program in its infancy was quite a bit different than its current incarnation. The initial program was limited to Sega Genesis (excluding Sega CD) and Super Nintendo. Boxes and instructions were required to trade-in a game, no exceptions. We had systems in the backroom to test trade-ins, we were initially required to test every game before putting them in the new preowned bin.
All of the aforementioned policies would change over time. The program would be opened-up to every system we carried (and apparently PC games and DVDs now). The box and instructions requirement was eased, good luck buying a preowned game with either today. In the first revision we took a buck or two off the trade-in value, eventually it was dropped outright. The testing systems would be scrapped in lieu of allowing customers to return a defective title. It seemed too good to be true that we could be paid to "test" games.
The interesting part of the program was that we were only given two SKUs for all games, one for "preowned Genesis" and one for "preowned Super Nintendo". We had giant printed lists of what to take and sell games for. However, there was no way to enforce that employees actually followed the pricing guidelines. They'd frequently give deals to friends, regular customers, or themselves. I witnessed it occur countless times (but won't admit to doing it of course). Yeah, it was against "the rules" but no one really cared so long as the abuse didn't get out of control. It wouldn't be long before Elbo would wisen-up and assign distinct SKUs to preowned games.
After months of avoiding the NES, Elbo started a promotion to accept games for the classic system. The deal was $1 for any NES game. We were given signs to advertise the new trade-in deal. On all the signage was a clearly printed disclaimer stating "Offer excludes Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt, duplicate games not accepted". We were also communicated these rules. Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt was available at Funcoland for 25 cents, maybe less. A few other games were also under a buck there but none with the availability of Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt. This policy was obviously there for our protection.
One employee in the Chicago area was confounded by these limitations. He or she accepted 200 copies of Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt on a single trade-in. How do I know this? Because all 200 copies were shipped to our "outlet" store.
Realizing there was no way to sell this many copies of Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt, we started giving them away. See, we couldn't just throw them out because they had to be removed from inventory through the register. We asked customers if they wanted a free Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt with their purchase. If they agreed we knocked a buck off one of their items and tacked on a Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt cart for the same amount. They paid the same price and we got rid of another infernal cartridge.
This strategy didn't get too many carts out the door though, we had to be more aggressive. We dubbed one Saturday "Mandatory Free Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt Day". Every purchase came with a copy regardless of what it was. Buy a copy of GamePro, get Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt. No exceptions. By 5:00 mall security paid us a visit to complain about the quantity of carts littering the parking lot. We were politely asked to end our promotion. By then we were down to 10-20 copies so we switched back to the volunteer program and slowly got rid of them.
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