I Bought a Switch from Nintendo, and They Threatened Me with Legal Action

Megalith

Megalith

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Nintendo accidentally shipped this writer two Switch consoles and later threatened legal action when they found out he received more than one replacement. It shouldn’t need to be said that threatening customers is terrible practice in any context, especially so when it’s unprovoked and unnecessary.

As I work independently, I’m not paid for time not spent directly working on client projects. Between the time spent chasing Nintendo’s support line, and waiting for their couriers, this has now cost me in lost income more than the original cost of the Switch, and I’m still waiting for Nintendo’s courier to pick up the third Switch now, lest I get taken to court for being mistakenly sent the item in the first place. I expect I’ll incur further costs and lost income until this is sorted out.
 
Unless there was an agreement that had something like this covered... I would just ignore it....no?
 
SticKx911 said:
Unless there was an agreement that had something like this covered... I would just ignore it....no?
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I guess it depends on what's the law in place where he lives. Still, it's kind of nuts for Nintendo to threaten legal action first instead of politely asking for the device back and making arrangements to pick it up.
 
I'd like to be a Nintendo Lawyer. You know they be getting paid for a lot of hours.

Reading the article, when he called about it - the rep said to keep it. Then there was another rep who called him, stating about the legal action.
 
I was under the impression that anything sent to you in the mail automatically becomes your property unless there was a pre-existing agreement. That way a company cant just mail you a sample out of the blue and then expect you to pay for it.

EDIT: On closer examination he appears to live in the UK where you are guilty until proven innocent. My mistake
 
Standard practice that I'm aware of is if you receive something you did not explicitly order/request it's yours if you choose to keep it whether the shipper/supplier/vendor likes it or not. The fact that this person made the attempt to let them know what happened (and can probably provide phone records of the contacts or chat logs if it was done online) and then to be treated in such a manner is indeed some pretty shitty customer service.

While I've never been "lucky" enough to have received multiple numbers of a single item I've ordered/requested, I have had people I've known order one of something and get two of them - recently a friend ordered a Nexus 6p when they first came out with a pre-order, the first one never made it to him so he reported it to Google, they checked with the shipper, the shipper said it had been lost somewhere in transit so Google shipped another and of course the very next day after the 2nd Nexus 6p arrived the original one showed up but the friend couldn't find it in FedEx's system based on the tracking number because FedEx had wiped it completely from their databases.

He contacted Google and their CSR told him "Well, guess you got a bonus, keep it and thanks..." and that was that. He waited a few days, called Google again and was told basically the same thing again by a totally different CSR so he kept it, never opened the box, then sold it on craigslist for $600 cash the following week and to this day he's never heard another peep about it, never been charged for it, got it free and clear because of a shipping error.

I should only be so lucky. :)
 
Target sent me the same 300 buck shelving unit twice because the first one got lost in shipping, I got the 2nd one 2 weeks later. I asked If i should give them back one of them, they said i'd have to pay shipping and I said nope and that was that. So i have two for the price of one, thanks UPS for being a shitty courier and losing the first package for a month.
 
His first mistake was buying directly from Nintendo. A retailer would not have mixed up warranty replacements with new merchandise.
 
PantherBlitz said:
His first mistake was buying directly from Nintendo. A retailer would not have mixed up warranty replacements with new merchandise.
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Depends on their policies. Retailers can, and do, mix shit up all the time...both accidently and intentionally.
 
grtitan said:
Yet the damn fanbois continue kissing nintendo's ass.

Thats one of the many reasons why I haven't bothered in buying anything from them in over 10 years.

Fuck them.
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I am going to have to agree with you on this one. Nintendo seems to be run by a bunch of ass hats. I believe I heard somewhere that Nintendo likes to go Copyright strike happy on a lot of Youtubers as well for showing gameplay from their games....Uh...Hello...You are basically squashing free advertisements and creating bad PR all at the same time.
 
Afaik, they as in Nintendiot cannot do shit. Is this writer or person in question a moron?

What do you do when you receive merchandise that you didn’t order? According to the Federal Trade Commission, you don’t have to pay for it. Federal laws prohibit mailing unordered merchandise to consumers and then demanding payment.
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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.
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https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchandise
 
Tiberian said:
Standard practice that I'm aware of is if you receive something you did not explicitly order/request it's yours if you choose to keep it whether the shipper/supplier/vendor likes it or not. The fact that this person made the attempt to let them know what happened (and can probably provide phone records of the contacts or chat logs if it was done online) and then to be treated in such a manner is indeed some pretty shitty customer service.

While I've never been "lucky" enough to have received multiple numbers of a single item I've ordered/requested, I have had people I've known order one of something and get two of them - recently a friend ordered a Nexus 6p when they first came out with a pre-order, the first one never made it to him so he reported it to Google, they checked with the shipper, the shipper said it had been lost somewhere in transit so Google shipped another and of course the very next day after the 2nd Nexus 6p arrived the original one showed up but the friend couldn't find it in FedEx's system based on the tracking number because FedEx had wiped it completely from their databases.

He contacted Google and their CSR told him "Well, guess you got a bonus, keep it and thanks..." and that was that. He waited a few days, called Google again and was told basically the same thing again by a totally different CSR so he kept it, never opened the box, then sold it on craigslist for $600 cash the following week and to this day he's never heard another peep about it, never been charged for it, got it free and clear because of a shipping error.

I should only be so lucky. :)
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wouldn't google have black-listed that original 6p then? hope the craigslist person didn't get screwed..
 
Sircolby45 said:
I am going to have to agree with you on this one. Nintendo seems to be run by a bunch of ass hats. I believe I heard somewhere that Nintendo likes to go Copyright strike happy on a lot of Youtubers as well for showing gameplay from their games....Uh...Hello...You are basically squashing free advertisements and creating bad PR all at the same time.
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A lot of Nintendo's attitude on Youtube and the like simply stems from them being a Japanese company. Japan does not have a fair use exception to copyright. Nintendo is slowly coming around to Youtube and the like, but they still believe that showing their games without their permission is a breach of copyright. Nintendo HQ is the policy decider for pretty much everything so they're making decisions based on Japanese ideas.

As for this, it should be noted that the UK, where the author is from, has different laws regarding this then the US. If an item is sent to you by mistake, say a company accidentally sends two of something instead of one, then you do not own the mistakenly sent item. The company is well within their rights to demand that you return it. The second CSR that contacted him sounds like they might have just been a dick. Ninteno UK would be able to say he stole the Switch if he didn't agree to return it though, so the threat was completely valid.
 
thesmokingman said:
Afaik, they as in Nintendiot cannot do shit. Is this writer or person in question a moron?





https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchandise
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Most likely if postage has his name on it, he can keep it and Nintendo can go suck a fat one. However since this is an RMA and they sent two, I'm not sure it's the same. I can't see how they can obligate him to be available for the courier though. Either way it seems like an issue on Nintendo side so way to make the good news. They are just a bunch of greedy bastards like any other corporation.
 
Tiberian said:
Standard practice that I'm aware of is if you receive something you did not explicitly order/request it's yours if you choose to keep it whether the shipper/supplier/vendor likes it or not.
While I've never been "lucky" enough to have received multiple numbers of a single item I've ordered/requested,
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As others mentioned, that's the law in the US, as the Cue:Cat people learned to their dismay. Years ago I won a Microsoft contest for $1000 worth of whatever, and ordered 6 or 7 things. When I got the box and opened it, it was badly damaged and one item was missing. I called their sales line up and told them--making sure to say a couple times that I got everything but that one item, and I didn't need the order completely re-sent. A few days later, I got a new box--and they had just reshipped the entire order. Pretty nice because I got a second copy of NT 4 Server and a joystick out of it.

It's interesting that Nintendo said he'd have to wait for a courier to pick it up. Personally if I were going to send the second Switch back, I'd've just Fedexed it myself and not waited, after telling Nintendo that I was going to do it that way ("and I won't even insist on you paying me back for the return shipping costs. But I *will* have a tracking number.")

Might not have worked for this guy as I just skimmed the article and got the impression he was a freelancer or something, but I'd have had all the pickups and deliveries made to my office so I didn't have to pass up paying work.
 
I'd like to think the one Rep that called this guy is just a jerk, or an anti-social individual
who's probably efficient at his job but sucks at life.

Nintendo hasn't made the most stellar decisions lately.

Im a Switch owner and i've been relatively meh'd by the experience.

I got the new Zelda and it's amazing, but the 30fps and occasional fps drops
that the average consumer will ignore, just irk me.

Guess i'm just difficult to please.
 
I've always been rubbed the wrong way when consumers lead out their arguments about how much money a company is costing them that they could have been making working, instead of dealing with said company. If a consumer wants a product, any time spent on said product is their 100% free leisure consumer willingness. It's a trash argument that the company cost you x dollars since you don't work 24/7. If you really cared about the money so much you wouldn't have bought the product in the first place.

In regards to the tone and demeanor of the Nintendo rep, I'd say it was a little over the top. If a company screws up and double ships you, unless they have a way to recoup their money via credit cards or the like, it's really up to the honesty of the consumer to send it back. If the consumer isn't an honest person, then that's on them.
 
grtitan said:
Sorry, but that excuse was valid maybe 30 something years ago, when they were selling the original NES outside japan for the first time.
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I'm not really making excuses for Nintendo. It is just a simple statement of facts as I understand them. Nintendo is an old Japanese company and they are still run like an old Japanese company. Iwata made a lot of positive (and negative) changes during his time and Kimishima seems to have made some already as well, but their mindset is still that of a Japanese company and not a global one. Consumers need to keep on them about things their Youtube policies or how they handle online and other big issues, but change will likely always be slow until the younger generation starts filling more leadership positions within the company.
 
Derangel said:
I'm not really making excuses for Nintendo. It is just a simple statement of facts as I understand them. Nintendo is an old Japanese company and they are still run like an old Japanese company. Iwata made a lot of positive (and negative) changes during his time and Kimishima seems to have made some already as well, but their mindset is still that of a Japanese company and not a global one. Consumers need to keep on them about things their Youtube policies or how they handle online and other big issues, but change will likely always be slow until the younger generation starts filling more leadership positions within the company.
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If they havent adapted and evolved in over 30 years, then there is not hope and they need to die.
 
Nintendo threatened legal action after the buyer notified them of the error? That is a one hell of a dick move. That's 3 independent contracts: The support rep's decision of "just keep it" (3) is just as legally binding as the initial purchase contract (1), and the service and replacement contract (2).

The praise this guy gives the company makes me really uncomfortable. He's being way apologetic after having your days disrupted by bad customer service and then your legal wellbeing threatened.
 
In the UK we have something called The Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971... The law isn't just 'Finders Keepers' in good ol' Blighty.

Nintendo UK has broken the law if this is true. Any company demanding payment, threating legal action or demanding the return of unsolicited goods has committed a criminal offence, not just civil baby, you can go to jail yor it.
 
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thesmokingman said:
UK has some backwards ass laws still.
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It's the same thing here. Notice the FTC regulations are about unsolicited merchandise.

If you order something and the order is incorrect, you can't just keep it as a gift although you aren't responsible for returning it on your dime. But you do have to allow the sender to correct their mistake or they can take you to court for it (not charge you for it, and this seems to be the confusion people are having with the rules).
 
thingi said:
In the UK we something called The Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971... The law isn't just 'Finders Keepers' in good ol' Blighty.

Nintendo UK has broken the law if this is true. Any company demanding payment, threating legal action or demanding the return of unsolicited goods has committed a criminal offence, not just civil baby, you can go to jail yor it.
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I don't think it would fall under unsolicited goods, it would fall under a shipping mistake. He was expecting to receive one Switch, they accidentally sent him two. They didn't send him a Switch unasked.
 
velusip said:
Nintendo threatened legal action after the buyer notified them of the error?
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I doubt his version of the story is accurate. If he was trying to be helpful, he would have simply sent it off with a pre-paid label when they caught the mistake instead of coming up with a string of justifications to keep it.
 
Derangel said:
I don't think it would fall under unsolicited goods, it would fall under a shipping mistake. He was expecting to receive one Switch, they accidentally sent him two. They didn't send him a Switch unasked.
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It makes no odds, doesn't matter if it's a shipping mistake or not. The first package was 'solicited', the 2nd clearly wasn't.
 
Derangel said:
I don't think it would fall under unsolicited goods, it would fall under a shipping mistake. He was expecting to receive one Switch, they accidentally sent him two. They didn't send him a Switch unasked.
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They sent him one Switch that was asked for. The other was not. :p
 
thingi said:
It makes no odds, doesn't matter if it's a shipping mistake or not. The first package was 'solicited', the 2nd clearly wasn't.
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It does matter. That's not what unsolicited means and that's the distinction the law makes.

It's intended to protect people from someone sending you something you didn't request and the sending you a bill for it. It's not intended for people to profit from a shipping mistake.
 
mope54 said:
It does matter. That's not what unsolicited means and that's the distinction the law makes.

It's intended to protect people from someone sending you something you didn't request and the sending you a bill for it. It's not intended for people to profit from a shipping mistake.
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How can you differentiate between a mistake and a scam from the receivers end? Going straight to lawsuit sounds like a scam to me. If it were me I'd tell them to go F themselves. I will laugh my ass off at the cost they will accrue to show up at court.
 
thesmokingman said:
How can you differentiate between a mistake and a scam from the receivers end? Going straight to lawsuit sounds like a scam to me. If it were me I'd tell them to go F themselves. I will laugh my ass off at the cost they will accrue to show up at court.
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The CSR didn't say that Nintendo would sue him, they said the company would take legal action. Legal action is both a criminal and civil term. Filing a police report to charge someone with theft is legal action. And the difference is pretty clear in this case. He asked for one item and mistakenly got two, that is clearly a shipping mistake. If Nintendo had randomly sent him a Switch, entirely without his asking or consent, that would be an unsolicited shipment. The legal definition is pretty clear here, both for the UK and the US. Nintendo also did not require him to pay return shipping. They arranged for a carrier to pick it up and send it back to their warehouse. The second CSR was just an ass, threatening legal trouble instead of saying that the previous CSR gave wrong information and they would need the item back. It's a case of bad customer support, but not a case of illegal actions by any party.
 
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