Live data from Hacker News

I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

headmelted.com

171–180 of 381 posts

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#171
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in France and in the working hours of the delivery guys I'm at work in a different city. I ordered a number of things to my personal address, and the story is typically like: "package delivered" with some strange message from the delivery guy where to find it, or no message at all. Out of the last 3 things I ordered, 2 didn't get to me (I made a claim on Amazon and they reimbursed me, no questions asked - at l…

This kinda stuff makes me appreciate being in Japan (for now). Cannot beat Japanese customer service. Gonna miss that the most.

It seems to me that being an expat in Japan is a win win with no downside, as one can enjoy everything that works within their society while avoiding all the social pressures the Japanese suffer.

We are planning a trip soon to investigate our insight.

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you're right. >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. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchan...

I don't think the FTC cover the UK.

The comment I was replying to was talking about the US.

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#173
post #124

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…

> 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, dest…

You are not taking into account that Nintendo is not a small startup, or an individual. I always go out of my way to help people who need it. I've always found people who've lost cell phones, and I have returned incorrectly shipped items that I have gotten on Ebay and Etsy.

There is a world of difference between a startup or a person, and Nintendo. Nintendo can afford this loss, and maybe they will improve their delivery system because of it.

But if an international mega-corporation accidentally screws themselves instead of me for once, no, I am not going to help them. They would never do the same for me, and it doesn't matter because they are not a person they are just a system, and will not appreciate it anyway.

And also, again, they are abandoning property with me. Are you seriously saying that some corporation can send you something, and expect you to keep it in good condition and then send it back to them? Think about this in terms of responsibility.

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#174
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.)

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#175

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, becau…

The best seems to be to hand off the hard parts to smaller organisations and allow you to talk to those organisations (technically, the local delivery driver likely is a contractor, but you don't have a direct line or relationship with them).

E.g. when getting warranty repairs for my Thinkpad, dealing with the central Lenovo organisation wasn't great, but once they accepted "customer device has an issue" they pass it off to local service partner, and those (in my experience) deal with issues quite well. And if you don't have on-site support, some repair places take your device and handle the warranty communication for you (and have an established relationship with Lenovo making that easier). Probably not the cheapest possible setup for them though.

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#176
post #95

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…

The story seems like it’s set in the UK; what you’re saying is true to in the USA, but is it true in the UK?

As far as I'm aware no, there was an issue with some Vitas a few years back where people had to send them back.

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#177
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon lockers are the best thing since sliced bread. They put the ball back in your court to pick it up, when you have time. Removes the stress completely and makes ordering pleasant again. Keep an eye out for them, if you can.

This kinda thing is extremely good and I'm surprised it hasn't caught on in a bigger way. Many (most?) purchases are made online these days, but when you do so you have to make one of a couple of awkward choices: 1. request a delivery at work, let the receptionists at your office sign for the package and very politely thank them each time (and don't do this too often) 2. place the order to be delivered at your home a…

Fully agree. Unfortunately the lockers are not very popular yet in France. But I've seen a few added in the last months in my area, hope it catches the steam, because it's way better.

The problem though is that most of the time I can not choose the delivery company, and I've only seen La Poste having the lockers.

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#178

>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.

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 h…

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.

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kinda stuff makes me appreciate being in Japan (for now). Cannot beat Japanese customer service. Gonna miss that the most.

It seems to me that being an expat in Japan is a win win with no downside, as one can enjoy everything that works within their society while avoiding all the social pressures the Japanese suffer. We are planning a trip soon to investigate our insight.

Haven't been there, but anecdata from my friend who spent 2 years there says yes, but you have to probably work remotely, because Japanese companies are very rigid, hierarchical and conservative - culture clash might be hard and you might be suffocating.

Re: I bought a Switch from Nintendo and they threatened me with legal action

#180
post #148
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, dest…

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.

+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.
Post reply on HN