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

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

#241
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my experience as well. As long as all you want is return faulty/not-needed-after-all articles then Amazon is great. Never ever had a hiccup in 10 years and I order a lot of stuff. However if your request is a little more specific and doesn't fit neatly in whatever scripts they're using then it's a bit of a mess. I mainly use amazon.fr so I've interacted with the french support but like you they had a rather th…

> I've interacted with the french support but like you they had a rather thick accent and seemed to have trouble understanding me at times even though I did my best to speak slowly and clearly. That's the one advantage of living in a tiny country (the Netherlands) that speaks a language hardly anyone else does. It's impossible to outsource customer support to low-wages countries because you simply can't find anyone t…

There are lots of low-wage Afrikaans speakers, and Wikipedia says there "is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between" Dutch and Afrikaans. So there must be some other explanation for why you get native Dutch speakers for customer support?

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

#242
post #230

>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, pes…

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.

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

#243

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…

Weirdly I have found Amazons support good right up until I tried to exchange a Kindle Paperwhite.

I’ve returned a fair amount of things to amazon. I had previously even received actual incorrect products in the packaging of the product I ordered (someone probably returned them to amazon as a scam) and I was able to return them without question. Easy peasy.

When I tried to return a Kindle Paperwhite that froze up every couple hours however that was a different story. I wasn’t allowed to just return it, I had to talk to support.

First call they had me powercycle it and told me to call back if it froze again. It did. I had done this myself to get it unfrozen many times.

Second call they had me factory reset it and call back if it froze again. It did. I had already done this myself.

Third call they ask “is it frozen right now?” It wasn’t. They tell me to call back when it is frozen.

Fourth call, I have it frozen, they ask me what I see and tell me to tap things to which I explain I cannot, it’s frozen! They then have me power cycle it and try to insist that that fixed the issue. I explain no, I have had this happen like 40 times now. I explain the process I’ve been through with support.

Finally they agree to give me a return authorization!

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

#244
post #226

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchan... 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.

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.

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

#245
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never allow them to leave my package at neighbors house and if they do I would write a note to the support. This is my package and I want it delivered to me. I can't understand what is the problem of rescheduling the delivery for the time that suits me the best. Or scheduling the best time in the first place. Why Japan can do this? Even Japanese Post (not only a courier) allows you to define when you'd like t…

I suspect this is a combination of delivery services being simultaneously an oligopoly and heavily unionized. The combination of little competition and high wages makes it difficult to justify going the extra mile. For what it's worth I know at least UPS has a premium service where you can schedule your delivery to a specific time during the day.

The thing is, in Japan it's nothing special. Even post office would do it. More, if you wish they would lleave the package in nearest combini so you can collect on the way back from work. Combini is a convenient store available almost on every corner. It's just their customer service is on a different level. Keeping good reputation is important for them, event if sometimes cost a little bit more.

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

#246

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…

Why are you calling Company customer service for Courier problems? Yes, they'll try to help, but a CS rep at Nintendo (or any employee, for that matter) isn't going to be able to do anything to get FedEx back to your house when they've already left.

And can you imagine the logistics nightmare of multiple delivery attempts to the same address on the same day? For every courier that says they called when they didn't, there are people who will go shopping and come back at 3pm to see the slip, then call and complain.

I've had it happen to me where I'm sitting 4 feet away from my front door and I go out to find a slip on the door when they never knocked or rang the bell, but it's unreasonable to expect them to turn around and bring it back, just as it's unreasonable to think that maybe I just didn't hear it even though I was right there.

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

#247
post #244
post #226

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchan... 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.

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.

http://www.thecomplainingcow.co.uk/all-you-need-to-know-abou...

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.

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

#248
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my experience as well. As long as all you want is return faulty/not-needed-after-all articles then Amazon is great. Never ever had a hiccup in 10 years and I order a lot of stuff. However if your request is a little more specific and doesn't fit neatly in whatever scripts they're using then it's a bit of a mess. I mainly use amazon.fr so I've interacted with the french support but like you they had a rather th…

> I've interacted with the french support but like you they had a rather thick accent and seemed to have trouble understanding me at times even though I did my best to speak slowly and clearly. That's the one advantage of living in a tiny country (the Netherlands) that speaks a language hardly anyone else does. It's impossible to outsource customer support to low-wages countries because you simply can't find anyone t…

Actually there are companies doing that type of outsourcing in Serbia. Wages there are still low and they have enough employees who can speak even the smaller European languages.

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

#249
post #8
post #2

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.

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.

Wouldn't a solution be either to:

Force both parties to pool resources, and hire legal help from that pool and no others. So if a large company sues an individual or small one, it pays a large percentage of the latter's legal costs.

Simply to ban private legal representation and have everyone represent themselves in court?

I'm sure large companies would act a bit more nicely if any court case meant the CEO had to personally leave the office and fight it out in court.

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

#250
post #193
post #2

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.

Would it be a better alternative to threaten to take it to Twitter or to specialized press? I've never done it, but I observed that contacting customer service on Twitter is usually very effective.

Specialised press would probably work well. Send the story to a few gaming news sites, post it on some Nintendo subreddits and the guy's situation may improve at least a bit.
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