
I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action - headmelted
https://headmelted.com/i-bought-a-switch-from-nintendo-and-they-threatened-me-with-legal-action-6ea77b4f1eb9
======
stupidcar
I have never, ever dealt with any above mid-sized company that handles
customer service and delivery well. There seems to be a set of standardised
industry practices that are completely and utterly customer hostile.

The moment regular company employees stop dealing with customer issues,
delivery, etc., and hands it over to "specialists", it's basically a crap
shoot whether you can get any issue resolved at all, because the systems they
put in place make it nearly impossible.

For example: A courier claims they called at your house and got no answer,
even though you were in and they didn't. You call customer services, but they
have no way at all to contact the courier and tell them to go back and try
again. Even if they're only two minutes down the road. The system deliberately
puts a firewall between the reps and the delivery infrastructure, because any
kind of ad-hoc action to resolve customer issues interferes with the logistics
planning for the day's deliveries.

All the rep can do is rearrange delivery for the subsequent day, whereupon the
problem often repeats itself, but this time with a different courier, and a
different rep. I had this process repeat several times, over a period of
weeks, until simply cancelled an order completely (one worth hundreds of
pounds to the vendor).

I do wonder if higher level managers realise that delivery departments are
optimising purely to make things easy for themselves, and what that's
potentially worth in terms of wasted effort, lost orders and customer
hostility. I guess they probably don't care, because it still saves them money
on aggregate.

~~~
petercooper
_I have never, ever dealt with any above mid-sized company that handles
customer service and delivery well._

I have. Amazon. Over 15 years now and flawless every time.

~~~
astura
Amazon support is absolutely _terrible_. Amazon seller support is even worse.

I mean, the worst. Only matched by health insurance companies.

The _huge_ problem with Amazon support is everyone I've ever interacted with
(besides that one time I got forwarded to a supervisor) either have a
fundamental lack an understanding of the English language or lack reading
comprehension (or listening if phone support). They also won't or can't spend
any significant time on any one customer inquiry, they need to move onto the
next.

On the buyers side they understand how to refund an order which they do
readily, ship items, say you can keep items that are errors, maybe some
account stuff, and that's basically it. If you need them to do anything else
that requires them to _understand_ your inquiry it's an uphill battle.

Basically, you get terrible support if your inquiry can't be solved by quickly
pressing the "refund" button or the "ship item" button. I guess most buyers
usually only need those two buttons though.

I actually think that's part of why they have such a big problem with
counterfeits (and other issues). If someone complains about a counterfeit some
low paid employee who doesn't really understand the problem just presses
"refund order," the customer stops complaining, and the systemic issues
remain.

I have a _nightmare_ Amazon seller support story, but I won't go into it for
fear of spiking my blood pressure to dangerous levels. It was only resolved by
me finally getting forwarded to a supervisor, who, finally, understood
English.

~~~
jrockway
Yeah, that's absolutely the problem they have. One time I ordered some road
bike tires. Amazon sent mountain bike tires by the same manufacturer. I told
Amazon. They sent me two more of the wrong tires. I told Amazon. They sent me
two more of the wrong tires. I gave up. They don't read anything you write to
them, they just either send you something or give you your money back.

I guess most people value money over anything else, but if I take the time to
help them correct their inventory problem, it would at least be nice if they
fixed it.

~~~
astura
Very similar thing happened to me about 12 years ago.

I ordered some _glassware_ , very fragile. It was packaged incorrectly,
basically shoved in too big of a box with no padding or anything. Or if there
was padding it was very, very minimal. It arrived broken, of course. It would
have been nothing short of a miracle if glassware survived that packaging.

Told Amazon the item broken due to poor/incorrect packaging. They sent another
packaged identically, broken.

Told Amazon, same thing, they sent another packaged identically, broken.

I tried one more time begging them to package it correctly and got another
packaged identically, broken.

I just gave up and decided I didn't really need it, got a refund, and
continued to drink out of dollar store plastic cups. There was absolutely no
getting through to them what they problem was. I ended up feeling defeated
with 4 sets of broken glasses.

Another "they don't read anything you write to them" story... Several years
ago I sold a memory card via FBA. The buyer returned the card, they said they
were returning it because of a defect, they said "card slows down
significantly after it gets half full." Amazon's wearhouse receives the
return, they _mark it as sellable_ , and then _sell it (as new) again_!!
_Clearly_ its not new, the problem was evident only from using it! The new
buyer didn't complain or ask for a refund, thankfully for me, but the card
might have been commingled (I don't recall) so another seller might have been
dinged if Amazon shipped out the used card to their buyer.

If the return reason is "defective," why would _mark as sellable_ ever be
possible?

~~~
crankylinuxuser
> If the return reason is "defective," why would mark as sellable ever be
> possible?

Hope the next sucker doesn't catch it.

Something something, free market, YOLO.

------
apostacy
_Some will point out (and some have!) that I could have quite easily saved
myself a lot of time, hassle, and lost earnings at this point by just quietly
holding on to the extra Switch and saying nothing to Nintendo about it. It
certainly would have saved me a lot of stress, but it was morally not
something I’d ever consider._

That's his mistake right there. He was under no moral obligation to fix
Nintendo's mistake for them. Nintendo had made a string of mistakes up to this
point, and one of their mistakes was in his favor.

If you truly have a guilty conscience, then just throw the extra package out,
because it is abandoned property.

I've had this happen occasionally. Just know that you are not responsible for
stuff like this. My Dad had a similar experience, where spent weeks trying to
get a company to honor a warranty, and in the end they sent him two
replacement hard drives instead of one. I actually interpret this as a kind of
karma. Sometimes good things land in your lap, don't reject them.

~~~
grecy
> _That 's his mistake right there. He was under no moral obligation to fix
> Nintendo's mistake for them......If you truly have a guilty conscience, then
> just throw the extra package out, because it is abandoned property._

Do you really want to live in a world where everyone does this?

Imagine you are a small start-up where every penny counts and make the odd
mistake here and there and people take advantage of that, destroying you.

Or imagine people are kind and help point out your mistake and give back your
~$500 device.

You get to decide which world you live in, because you are creating it.

~~~
pjc50
I think this kind of thing really does depend on whether you're dealing with a
small startup or even an individual human that you're screwing over, or a
giant implacable machine like a multinational corporation.

There's no obligation to be nice to the machine, it can't recognise it, and it
won't be grateful to you.

~~~
sametmax
+1. The machine analogy is excellent. You have moral obligation to humans. You
may decide to have moral obligation to society if you like the one your in and
want it to grow. But you have zero obligation toward a souless entity. It's a
robot. Optimized for profiting from a service it failed to perform adequatly.

~~~
pjc50
A human may harm a robot; or, through inaction, allow a robot to come to harm.

~~~
sametmax
We should rename the constitution "the laws of biologic" and add this.

------
ChuckMcM
I had a similar situation with a development system. It was fairly expensive
and was popular. When I ordered it from the vendor, in the middle of the order
their server crashed. It came up about an hour later and I found my
transaction sitting there in my shopping cart incomplete, so I went ahead and
paid for it. Then two weeks later it showed up at my door and I was happy.
Then the next day another one showed up with the exact same transaction id.

I called the company and informed them, they offered a refund if I returned
it. But I had only the one charge on my CC. Clearly they didn't have a path
through their ordering systems that understood 'data corruption' as their root
cause. The rep said just to keep it and if the CC got charged we could process
a refund then.

Nothing for 3 months and then a collection notice from a debt collector saying
I hadn't paid for the development system. I sent back all my documentation,
the receipt, the cc statement etc. And explained to _them_ what had happened,
but they said they didn't care. I had proved to them that I had satisfied the
debt and they marked it 'retired'.

I've still got it, in a box unopened. Sad really.

------
jarym
How embarrassing (for Nintendo). As soon as someone threatens legal you just
have to tell them you'll only be engaging via lawyers and you'll be seeking to
recover your legal expenses from them once the situation is resolved.

~~~
Kurtz79
A pity that multinational companies can usually afford much better lawyers
than the average Joe.

It's really not the same as threatening your neighbor with a "We'll see each
other in court", for a parking lot dispute.

~~~
bufferoverflow
It's a bluff. Nintendo wouldn't involve lawyers over a Switch, it makes zero
financial sense. What happened likely is some tech support drone made a
threat, which the corporate never approved.

~~~
sametmax
It make zero financial sense to send 3 switches. But here they are.

------
Klathmon
I'm no lawyer, but at least in the US I was under the impression that once
something has been mailed to you, it's yours. A company cannot send you
something then require payment or for you to return it.

~~~
jbb67
My understanding in the UK is that if someone sends you _unsolicited_ goods
and then tries to bill you, it's yours to keep.

But this doesn't apply to things sent to you by mistake, which certainly seems
to be the case here. You are expected to return the good to the sender at
their expense. Although you are expected to facilitate returning it, I doubt
any court would look favourably on a company taking you to court for failing
to jump through their hoops.

~~~
headmelted
This is my understanding, too.

Obviously I'd have _preferred_ to keep it if they'd let me, but if they hadn't
freaked me out with talk of legal action and been happy to say something to
the effect of get it back to us within (e.g.) 30 days, I could've organised to
post it at a weekend I wasn't working.

I couldn't include everything in the whole exchange in the article, but they
did suggest collecting it from a place of work - but I don't have one, just my
client's site, which isn't an option for that, which was explained.

In any case the courier has now collected the Switch, so at least I should be
able to put it behind me.

~~~
cultvoid
Have you kept a record of the courier delivery? Like a collection receipt?

If not, write them a letter, send by recorded delivery, and state that the
item was collected and that this is the end of the matter.

They're almost certainly incompetent rather than malicious, so if there's
another screw up you can refer them to the letter and then ignore any further
correspondence.

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
I didn't even know you could order from Nintendo directly in the UK, I think
they'd be wise to shut this down entirely and work through their retail
partners. Just imagine how little resources Nintendo puts into the retail
aspect of their operations in the UK. Clearly they can't even train people to
do customer service properly without threatening legal action. I understand
the sentiment to want to support Nintendo but I am not entirely surprised this
happened, it takes hard work to run a well functioning shop/store online or
otherwise.

~~~
headmelted
Having looked into it further it _looks_ like at least part of their operation
is being managed by The Hut Group - from some contact info - and I found this
surprisingly similar link from four years ago.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25330615](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25330615)

Hard to say really to what extent there is overlap here.

Honestly I'm now starting to wonder if I should pull the article - getting it
read is good, but this is more attention than I expected and I'm getting a
little nervous of what'll happen next now. :-S

~~~
cultvoid
Don't be daft. Leave it up. As long as the article is truthful, what's the
problem? Their appalling treatment of an honest customer should be exposed.

I do think you're totally overthinking this. They made the initial mistake,
they need to correct it and at their expense.

They can't do anything to you. Make a "best effort" to return the item and no
more. Keep a log of all your correspondence. Don't waste any more than a
minimal amount of time on this, certainly don't take days off work etc to wait
for couriers.

~~~
headmelted
Thanks!

I already have taken the day off work, and the courier has now collected the
Switch - so the hope at least is that I'm now done with it, albeit out-of-
pocket.

------
jccalhoun
>I ordered the Switch on October 16th from Nintendo’s UK online store. I
wanted to buy direct primarily to support Nintendo

This seems like an odd impulse to me. It isn't like Nintendo is some small mom
and pop business or even that they are struggling.

~~~
gambiting
Yep. And it's a bad decision too, it's just against your best interest as a
customer. With Amazon, I know that if there's absolutely ANY issue with my
order they will issue a full refund and/or send a replacement within 5 minutes
of talking to them over the phone or using the live chat. It will be bumped up
to free allocated time delivery or even delivered with Prime Now if available.
I work at a games studio so we have few people ordering from Nintendo UK
website all the time - and boy, there's loads of horror stories about
deliveries and their customer service, I don't know why you'd order anything
directly from them instead of Amazon or Argos or even(gasp!) Game.

~~~
headmelted
I'm glad to hear that my experience doesn't seem to be unique, and I'll know
for future reference.

I genuinely do think they're a great company, it's just a really unfortunate
turn of events that should probably have been avoidable.

------
rasz
>It didn’t take long to arrive — but when it did, I noticed some damage to the
outside of the packaging

Author signed off on a visibly destroyed package. This is where support stops
in my country(also EU). Standard procedure is to either refuse damaged
package, or open with courier as a witness and make damage protocol,
documented with pictures. The fact Nintendo agreed to replace it on faith
alone is quite good, pestering them with phone calls all week combined with
fact they somehow send two units probably flagged him as a potential fraud.

~~~
burntsushi
The author doesn't say they signed off on it though. Where I live, I never
sign off on anything. UPS just leaves it outside.

~~~
rasz
He did, you cant receive mailed packages without signature in UK. Dropping
valuables on a porch is very alien concept to Europeans.

------
devin
[https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-
merchan...](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchandise)

Q. Am I obligated to return or pay for merchandise I never ordered? A. No. If
you receive merchandise that you didn’t order, you have a legal right to keep
it as a free gift.

~~~
dahart
Interesting! I didn't know this. Unfortunately in this case the buyer is in
the UK, so FTC rules don't apply to him. I hope they have a similar consumer
protection rule.

~~~
zimpenfish
[http://www.thecomplainingcow.co.uk/all-you-need-to-know-
abou...](http://www.thecomplainingcow.co.uk/all-you-need-to-know-about-
unsolicited-goods/)

You don't have to send unsolicited goods back or even notify the sender.

But duplicate orders don't count as "unsolicited" and should be returned -
however "there should be no cost or inconvenience to you" which is where
Nintendo fail badly here.

~~~
craftyguy
> "there should be no cost or inconvenience to you"

Cool, so OP could take Nintendo to court to recover lost wages!

------
noncoml
> Some will point out (and some have!) that I could have quite easily saved
> myself a lot of time, hassle, and lost earnings at this point by just
> quietly holding on to the extra Switch and saying nothing to Nintendo about
> it. It certainly would have saved me a lot of stress, but it was morally not
> something I’d ever consider.

There is no room for morals/ethics when dealing with faceless mega-companies.

You are not dealing with an individual here. Which individual would demand you
to be home all day waiting for the courier for a mistake they made?

What I would do is store the parcel away unopened for a few months to a year.
If in the mean time somebody asks it back, they can have it, otherwise it
would go to the trash.

~~~
lifeformed
> otherwise it would go to the trash.

You wouldn't open it and keep it?

~~~
noncoml
I wouldn’t feel comfortable with opening and keeping it.

Maybe I would try to deliver it myself if the original recipient was
reasonably close.

I know it’s not the most right thing to do, what I suggested, but I really
cannot waste my time with customer support. We are talking about the same
companies that put you through the pain of bot-agents when you call them.

------
harry8
One, as far as we know, isolated logistics problem with some ill-trained phone
operators not solving it gracefully is the claim. What am I missing that makes
this story more interesting than that? Is it just because Nintendo? Or is it
exactly this interesting if it were the same story but the product plumbing
supplies?

~~~
cultvoid
If it is The Hut Group behind this, then they have a track record of this kind
of cock up (re the Zavvi article
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25330615](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25330615)).

------
dis-sys
I am super happy for the courier services available in Shanghai. What I
experienced in the last 12 months is just shockingly good.

1\. I can order whatever I want from any restaurant I like using some apps,
someone is going to show up in front of my door within one hour to have it
delivered. The cost is close to 2 metro tickets.

2\. I don't need to go grocery shopping, courier guys do that for me, e.g.
want to buy 2L of milk from your favourite 24 hours convenience store at 11pm?
it is just a few clicks away, 1-2 hours delivery.

3\. I can send 1kg stuff to Beijing (1000km away) in 12-18 hours for $4-5,
door to door service, everything included.

courier guy may not show up? that is news here. You can track where is your
assigned courier guys in apps, it is GPS based. One bad review is going to
cause big trouble for the guy. Companies like jd.com also has pretty cool
features in their apps to tip the courier guy you like, you can offer
cash/free drinks to those who provide good services to you.

not impressive enough? jd.com requests all their courier guys to dump your
rubbish after delivering your stuff, just be nice and ask (in Chinese of
course) "could you please take those two bags of rubbish to the bins
downstairs for me?"

------
marcoperaza
Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about the legalities involved, with
some people suggesting he should have just kept it and said nothing, I did
some research.

In the UK, you have a legal duty to return it.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/30294748/can-you-
keep-...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/30294748/can-you-keep-stuff-
delivered-by-mistake) The only exception is _completely_ unsolicited goods,
which you can keep. Double shipments must be returned. This doesn’t change the
fact that Nintendo was rather rude if the author’s characterization is
accurate.

> _Items that firms send to you, but you didn 't actually order are called
> "unsolicited goods". You're well within your rights to keep them. You have
> no obligation to send them back to the company or to pay for them. If a
> company demands payment, that's a criminal offence. But this doesn't apply
> to items sent to you by mistake (as happened to Robert); if the order was
> sent to you twice; or if there's extra stuff on top of what you ordered. If
> a firm has left goods with you that weren't unsolicited goods, they still
> belong to the trader and you should try to give them back. Firms can take
> you to court to recover their goods._

The situation is different in the US, you are allowed to keep all "unordered
merchandise" and have no obligation whatsoever to pay or return. No
distinction is made between completely unsolicited and double shipments. A
legal argument could be made that a double shipment is not "unordered
merchandise." I didn't find anything on the legal databases or Google, other
than newspaper columnists opining that double shipments are "unordered".

US statute in question:
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/3009](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/3009)

FTC commentary: [https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-
merchan...](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchandise)

------
ta11092017
Back in 2014, [https://store.nintendo.co.uk/](https://store.nintendo.co.uk/)
was managed by The Hut Group. Not sure whether they also manage shipping,
customer support, etc, or just rent out the web site, could be either way.
Looking at URLs and everything else, that still seems to be the case. So not
sure which company is to be blamed here.

Source: used to work for The Hut Group.

------
cvsh
This is dumb on the part of everyone involved.

No, you are not taking the moral high ground by calling Nintendo customer
service and initiating a back-and-forth on what to do with the mistakenly-
delivered extra product. In fact, you are probably _costing Nintendo more
money than the second Switch is worth_ by doing so.

There is no reason, ever, unless the cost of the item is extremely high, to
initiate a conversation with customer service when you are mistakenly
delivered extra goods. The company _will_ take inventory and notice that that
it was mistakenly sent. If they don't contact you about it, it's because they
_want you to keep it_ because a cost-benefit analysis on their part does not
warrant getting in contact with you over it.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
> This is dumb on the part of everyone involved.

It may be a cultural difference. For some people it's dumb, for others it's a
fundamental question of ethics.

~~~
userbinator
I'm in the "if they want it back, they will contact you and ask" mindset ---
it's entirely their mistake, to correct at their expense, and you shouldn't
have to do anything about it.

------
noonespecial
Don't know how it is in UK but in the USA no one is allowed to send you stuff
unsolicited that pushes some obligation onto you. Even an obligation to return
a shipping error to them.

You probably got a free Switch. And with their subsequent behaviour, a well
deserved one.

~~~
jads
Prefacing this with IANAL.

US seems to just have a more broad term for goods delivered that you didn't
order and refers to it as "unordered merchandise"[1]. You're pretty much free
to keep it, it seems.

The UK is more specific for what is classified as "unsolicited" and what is
considered goods delivered to someone else by mistake[2]. Companies have a
right to get their product back if it's the latter. Since the author did order
a switch, a duplicate delivery would very likely be considered a mistake. If
the author never ordered a Switch (and never paid for it) in the first place,
they'd definitely be able to keep it.

Regardless, if this is the way Nintendo asked for the second Switch back, they
were completely out of line.

[1] [https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-
merchan...](https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchandise)

[2] [https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/money/spending/consumer-
righ...](https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/money/spending/consumer-rights/can-i-
keep-goods-delivered-to-me-by-mistake)

------
ajmurmann
Taleb describes how antifragile systems need to provide enough leeway for
people on the ground to actually make decisions. Otherwise you can't react to
unforeseen events and things go sideways. Delivery companies and support
departments of large companies seem to have built a incredibly fragile system
that can't even deal with frequently occurring anomalies. Reading some of the
comments here those anomalies even seem to include things like red lights and
bad weather. It seems to be a consistent pattern that reaching out via social
media or directly to leadership is what yields the best results for the same
reason the system is so fragile.

------
patcheudor
In the US and if through USPS, if a package is shipped and delivered, the
person receiving the package now owns it and is under no obligation whatsoever
to return it. It's literally 'finders keepers':

"By law, unsolicited merchandise is yours to keep."

You solicited one, they delivered more than one. Not your problem. Note that
this is for USPS. I'm not sure it holds up for private carriers.

[http://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_tech_021....](http://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_tech_021.htm)

------
oh_sigh
I don't know about the UK but in the US it is illegal for a company to sue or
threaten you to return a package that they shipped to you if you didn't
request it.

This is to prevent mail fraud along the lines of - I send you a widget you
never ordered and a bill for $20. You now either have to pay the bill, or
spend time/money shipping the package back.

------
mannykannot
Customer service is an expense, so they want to train us to not even think of
trying it. They will also give you a Hobson's choice over arbitration to
dissuade you from trying small-claims court (though that may not hold up, at
least for now, in some jurisdictions.)

------
pawelkomarnicki
I had a bad experience with Nintendo Germany, when they fucked up my New
Nintendo 3DS Ambassador package address, and it took over 2 weeks to find out
what is happening with the item I paid for... Never again buying directly from
Nintendo again, learned my lesson.

------
_salmon
Looks like the author deleted it.

Google cached version here:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gq60it...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gq60itCI3WMJ:https://headmelted.com/i-bought-
a-switch-from-nintendo-and-they-threatened-me-with-legal-action-6ea77b4f1eb9+)

------
citrusui
Archived version:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171108150109/https://headmelte...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171108150109/https://headmelted.com/i-bought-
a-switch-from-nintendo-and-they-threatened-me-with-legal-
action-6ea77b4f1eb9?gi=b394fb864c3a)

------
WCityMike
Mirror:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171108150109/https://headmelte...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171108150109/https://headmelted.com/i-bought-
a-switch-from-nintendo-and-they-threatened-me-with-legal-
action-6ea77b4f1eb9?gi=b394fb864c3a)

------
throwaway613834
Would any court rule in their favor? Is there any reason to worry in such a
case?

------
danaliv
If the writer has records of his interactions with Nintendo, in particular his
goodwill in returning the extra Switch, there isn't a judge on Earth who would
take Nintendo's lawyers seriously on this.

------
MrDosu
In my personal experience it can be quite futile in general to deal with
customer support.

My goto solution is to contact the public relations people instead with the
same issue and it usually gets resolved very quickly...

------
Cthulhu_
Sounds like they're really not used to people actually ordering from their
site directly. I can imagine the prices are the suggested retail prices, which
no retailer will actually end up charging.

~~~
manarth

      > can imagine the prices are the suggested retail prices,
      > which no retailer will actually end up charging.
    

I bought my Switch directly from Nintendo (well, sounds like it's actually via
the Hut Group), and paid the RRP with free delivery. I didn't see any
mainstream retailer (Amazon, Toys'r'Us, Tesco, etc) charging differently
though.

I can't imagine mainstream retailers either price-gouging or discounting,
unless a product's reaching its end of life or about to be superceded.

------
z3t4
When in a contract like this, where you paid for one unit but was sent two
units, always be honest about it. Look at it the other way around, what if you
paid double by accident ?

~~~
fapjacks
Is this huge corporation going to look you in the eye, tell you that you've
over/double paid, and then return the overpayment with a handshake? Or are
they even going to notice? I'm _not_ saying be dishonest about it, but let's
not pretend this enormous business is going to take the initiative to make
things right. They'll keep your money unless you make the call.

------
StreamBright
This is why I buy these sort of things from Amazon.

------
anotheryou
google cache:
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esistgut
Nintendo customer support in Europe is known to be quite bad. I am a day one
customer for the Switch, the controller has a defective antenna (it is a well
known hardware bug) but sending it back would mean to lose a lot of time with
the italian customer support and in the end have all my system data wiped out.
I'll just wait for them to enable cloud savegames, buy a second Switch and
sell back my current one to a retailer like Gamestop.

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aagha
@headmelted deleted the story form Medium. I wonder what happened? Anyone have
a mirror?

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rrhd
Does the UK not have consumer protections for delivery mistakes like this?

Should have had every right to tell them to get fucked and keep the switch the
second they threatened him. They sent it to him, they can eat the loss. if
they don't want to then they can politely offer to get you a return shipping
label and apologize for the trouble.

This type of thing sounds about right for Nintendo.

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kakarot
Looks like you got yourself a free Switch. Enjoy it, and if your other Switch
is in good condition, offer it to your son or a friend. If Nintendo threatens
further legal action, take your lawyer out to dinner and spend the evening
laughing over it.

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headmelted
I perhaps should have done, instead I took the threat seriously and took the
day off work to await the courier (who collected the Switch).

So I'm down another day's income, and honestly starting to feel like a bit of
a mug given the responses here.

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cultvoid
You're not a mug, you've an honest person treated badly by an incompetent
company.

You would be a mug if you dealt with them again ;-)

Don't be surprised if you haven't heard the end of it. They might well lose
the item and then attack you again. If that happens, do not waste any more
time or money on them.

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rjmunro
As you are a freelancer, you could easily send them an invoice for the lost
time at your normal rate. They will probably pay it without querying.

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richardknop
Lol good luck with that. You would just waste more money and time doing this.
What I recommend if you are a freelancer / contractor is to just let them know
that you cannot take a day off to wait for their courier as you don't have
vacation and are not paid unless you work (so that would incur financial loss
to you).

So inform them to arrange a courier to come pick up the item at a specific
time convenient to you (Saturday from 10am to 5pm or Mon-Thu 7pm-10pm) and
it's their headache now. They have to work around your schedule without
inconveniencing you.

