A father was furious after he found “a bag of drugs” inside a second-hand video game he bought for his four-year-old son.
Oliver Edwards, 30, took his three sons, ages four, 10 and 12, to shop GAME to spend £20 vouchers they’d been given for Christmas.
But he was horrified when he leafed through the manual for his youngest’s PS4 NBA 2K17 basketball game and found a bag of powder.
The sign manufacturer believes it’s MDMA or mephedrone, and now the police are investigating.
Furious Oliver from Poulton, said: “I was just horrified. My initial thought was it could have been that gel you get in new shoes but then I took it into the kitchen to have a look.
“My son asked what is was and I said I didn’t know. My wife took one look at it and she was gobsmacked.
“It looked a bit like lemon sherbet powder. I like to think my youngest wouldn’t have done anything with it but you never you. It’s very worrying.
“If this had fallen onto the floor and my youngest had mistaken it for sweets this could have been fatal.
“I phoned GAME’s customer service. I told the bloke on the phone and he laughed at me.
“He said come and swap it for a game without the drugs in. I think I put the phone down on him.
“I was really angry with their reaction to it. They didn’t seem that bothered.”
Oliver took his sons to the store in Preston to spend the vouchers they were given by their uncle on December 27.
They chose three games in a ‘three-for-two’ offer and Oliver didn’t spot the ‘drugs’ until the day after.
“We got home and they played it for a while, but my youngest wasn’t enjoying it,” he said.
“The next day, I decided to give it a clean and take it back, and that’s when I found the drugs slipped inside the pages of the instruction booklet.”
Oliver said the white crystals were inside two clear plastic bags, and after some research, he decided it looked like MDMA or mephedrone.
He complained, and was asked to send in photos.
He was later forwarded an email from the general manager which said they had tracked down the transaction on CCTV - but didn’t know where the drugs had come from.
The email added: “If the customer is requiring some kind of compensation, there isn’t much we can do for him as this was an unfortunate event that occurred with a lot of “what ifs”
“[...]If it comes to it, I don’t mind giving him a £10 gift card for the inconvenience caused.
“Following this, I will also be implementing a full check of any games that are traded in going forward from here, but as stated, given the time of year we are in we get a huge amount of trades in along with tills back to the front door, so sometimes it’s a case of ensuring the disc is in the box and checking it to make sure its in a sellable state.”
Oliver said he contacted police, but they just told him to safely dispose of the drugs.
A spokesman for GAME said that they were unable to comment due to an ongoing police investigation.
A spokesman for Lancashire Police said that they were investigating the incident.