A ‘Shipping Embargo’ May Delay Some Grand Theft Auto V Pre-Orders

Whilst many Grand Theft Auto V pre-orders were placed in stores, plenty of consumers also made online pre-orders at major retailers. Now online costumers are being warned ahead of time that these pre-orders may not make it in time for launch day and could take up to a week depending on postal services.

EB Games has sent out a number of warning email to any customers that may be affected. If you received an email informing you of a potential delay, you might still be safe, but there is a possibility of a delay.

The reason for the potential delay is a ‘shipping embargo’ put in place by Rockstar to protect against any potential leaks of the game. According to both JB Hi-Fi and EB Games, no copies of Grand Theft Auto V could be shipped until this morning. This situation isn’t completely abnormal — the bigger the game the higher the demands that can be placed, and games don’t get much bigger than Grand Theft Auto V. This is simply an attempt by Rockstar to protect its product.

“Most embargoes prevent online shipping until the day before release so nothing is unusual there,” explained a representative from JB Hi-Fi.

EB Games has warned customers of potential delays, and told Kotaku that it is perfectly comfortable with customers taking advantage of EB’s seven day return policy until they receive the game in the mail. EB has also upgraded the shipping on all packages in an attempt to minimise any potential delays.

“We are as excited as customers are for the release of GTA V, and understand everyone’s eagerness to get their copy as soon as they can,” explained Debra McGrath, National Brand, Events and Engagement manager at EB Games. “Unfortunately a shipping embargo was placed on all online retailers which meant that we could not ship orders until this morning.”

“To help our customers out we’ve upgraded all orders that would not have otherwise made it by tomorrow to express shipping, free of charge. A very small amount of customers will still experience delays in receiving the game due to the physical limitations of regional postal services. All affected customers have been notified via email, and any customer able to get to a store is encouraged to use our 7 day return policy while they’re waiting for their game to arrive. While this situation is completely out of our control, we do acknowledge how frustrating this must be for GTA fans in regional Australia and have done everything we can to try and minimize the effect on customers.”

JB Hi-Fi is confident that all online pre-orders will get to customers within a three day period.

“All online home delivery pre-orders we received before last Thursday have already left our Warehouse in Melbourne this morning via traceable priority freight,” said a JB representative. “We are very confident most customers will receive their deliveries tomorrow as anticipated or within the three day window that we endeavour to achieve.”