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

Usually when the threats of lawsuits go flying, I will tell them to go F themselves regardless.
 
thingi said:
The Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971
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The Grauniad says it's an offen[ s ]e to ship something unsolicited, although it doesn't say what the penalty is--a fine, or jail time? Still, criminalizing the act seems wrong. (Criminalizing "here, we sent you something unsolicited, now pay us" is a different matter.)
 
Derangel said:
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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You're right about everything except for the fact that, in the US anyway, threatening to "do something" other than file a lawsuit constitutes a criminal offense of extortion even if (or especially if) that "something" is going to the police to file a criminal complaint.
 
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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When the sender indicates to you that there was a shipping mistake and requests that you send it back with their pre-paid shipping label at no expense to you, you don't have a right to keep it. That is evidence to a "reasonable person" that you are not being scammed.

This is a situation where he requested something and got two, which is different from not requesting anything and getting something (unsolicited). Scammers don't request their merchandise back and pay for their mistake, they send you a bill for the item you didn't order. Nintendo is also a huge, multinational corporation and common sense dictates they are not trying to scam you out of...well what exactly is the allegation? Scam you out of your time to repackage the device? It's not lawful to sit back and think to yourself, "well who knows, maybe they are scamming me so I'm just going to keep this." That won't work in the UK nor US courts because, at least in the US, the "reasonable person" doctrine will be applied to the case.

Keep in mind, all those things people thing apply to this situation are talking about not having to *pay* for something. That's a different topic from whether someone is entitled to *keep* something.

Nintendo, for example, can not send him an invoice for the 2nd Switch but that is a different question of whether they can exercise their legal rights to obtain their property back.
 
I ordered a saitek gamepad from saitek directly once a few years back. Two came in the box. After waiting what felt like 20 minutes with support I told them about it. They said "thanks for your honesty, and feel free to keep the second." So I gave it to my brother and now have saitek as a +1 in my book. I would have been happy to send the other back, but they would pay the shipping since it was their error. But never had to worry about it.
 
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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This would be for completely unknown merchandise (and I have experienced this kind of crap tactic before). However he DID order the product, he just received multiples, for which he knew he should not have gotten. This would classify as theft in most cases.

Suppose a cashier doesn't ring up an item, and you know it. You proceed to leave the building and they stop you in the parking lot and ask for you to pay for the item. Do you:
A: Say fuck you bitch, you can't do shit to me! And walk off with your free stuff.
B: Say fuck you bitch, and get charged with theft.
​
When I bought a car, I ordered mats. The parts department called me and told me the mats were ready so I went and picked them up. The next week the salesman said he had a set of mats ready for me, so I went and picked them up. Most likely what happened is the sales man was trying to follow up on the sale, and didn't do his due diligence to see if I had actually received the mats yet. Because I KNEW the dealership wasn't purposefully trying to give me 2 sets, it would be theft.

Now, I don't know if this Nintendo guy would actually be charged with anything. But I don't want people to assume that just because someone else makes a mistake, that you are entitled to benefit from that mistake. The law still protects people who make honest mistakes and those that try to profit off of it.
 
westrock2000 said:
This would be for completely unknown merchandise (and I have experienced this kind of crap tactic before). However he DID order the product, he just received multiples, for which he knew he should not have gotten. This would classify as theft in most cases.

Suppose a cashier doesn't ring up an item, and you know it. You proceed to leave the building and they stop you in the parking lot and ask for you to pay for the item. Do you:
A: Say fuck you bitch, you can't do shit to me! And walk off with your free stuff.
B: Say fuck you bitch, and get charged with theft.​
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Really not a comparable situation IMO - it's more like you purchase an item, they ring you up, and then hours later they call you up and tell you they accidentally didn't ring it up, and they needed you to come back to the store or some shit. At that point it is their problem, I am not inconveniencing myself because of their fuckup.

I am not saying this guy should be a jerk about it, but fuck Nintendo for doing this - write it off as a loss and move on, it's not like that one item is going to kill their business. However, it is wasting this dude's time to the point where it's costing him money to deal with Nintendo's shenanigans.
 
MavericK said:
Really not a comparable situation IMO - it's more like you purchase an item, they ring you up, and then hours later they call you up and tell you they accidentally didn't ring it up, and they needed you to come back to the store or some shit. At that point it is their problem, I am not inconveniencing myself because of their fuckup.
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Stopping you in the parking lot or calling you at home does not change the fact that you received something without paying the expected price for it. If there is a reasonable expectation that you knowingly got something you should not have, it's still theft.

But you are right, that this case is probably fine, since he was the one that contacted them and they told him it was ok. He did his due diligence.
 
I don't fault Nintendo for wanting the duplicate item back. They sure picked a shitty way to go about it though. Wonder if the sales rep is related to EKWB's local PR person? :D

Given the choice, in a normal situation, I'd tell them they are welcome to send someone to pick it up at a time that's convenient for me or, assuming they'd been nice about it, I'd even be willing to drop it off at a FedEx/UPS drop off if there's one nearby or something. In this case though I'd tell Nintendo they can go fuck themselves if I could get away with it.
 
westrock2000 said:
This would be for completely unknown merchandise (and I have experienced this kind of crap tactic before). However he DID order the product, he just received multiples, for which he knew he should not have gotten. This would classify as theft in most cases.

Suppose a cashier doesn't ring up an item, and you know it. You proceed to leave the building and they stop you in the parking lot and ask for you to pay for the item. Do you:
A: Say fuck you bitch, you can't do shit to me! And walk off with your free stuff.
B: Say fuck you bitch, and get charged with theft.
​
When I bought a car, I ordered mats. The parts department called me and told me the mats were ready so I went and picked them up. The next week the salesman said he had a set of mats ready for me, so I went and picked them up. Most likely what happened is the sales man was trying to follow up on the sale, and didn't do his due diligence to see if I had actually received the mats yet. Because I KNEW the dealership wasn't purposefully trying to give me 2 sets, it would be theft.

Now, I don't know if this Nintendo guy would actually be charged with anything. But I don't want people to assume that just because someone else makes a mistake, that you are entitled to benefit from that mistake. The law still protects people who make honest mistakes and those that try to profit off of it.
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Wrong, its not theft. You don't wtf theft is? Its when you steal something. You can't steal something when it is sent to your home w/o your consent. The writer in question called them and they said to keep it, he did his due diligence. If they call back a different time and demand it immediately and make threats, unlike that writer, I'd tell them at that point to F off.
 
thesmokingman said:
Wrong, its not theft. You don't wtf theft is? Its when you steal something. You can't steal something when it is sent to your home w/o your consent. The writer in question called them and they said to keep it, he did his due diligence. If they call back a different time and demand it immediately and make threats, unlike that writer, I'd tell them at that point to F off.
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Legally, it could be a form of theft. Dictionary definitions are not legal definitions.
 
NIVO said:
I ordered a saitek gamepad from saitek directly once a few years back. Two came in the box. After waiting what felt like 20 minutes with support I told them about it. They said "thanks for your honesty, and feel free to keep the second." So I gave it to my brother and now have saitek as a +1 in my book. I would have been happy to send the other back, but they would pay the shipping since it was their error. But never had to worry about it.
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That's cool of them. I had a very similar outcome with another company. With a Switch, it's a much bigger loss margin (shipping vs item value), so it makes sense it would be a bit more encouraging to be extra nice getting it returned. Opening with a threat just has Nintendo all over it.
 
Working in customer service, I have a tendency to believe this was a support agent going off the rails, spouting things he shouldn't have. Happens all the time when 99% of the people stick to the script and do right by the customer, there's always that one who generates headlines!
 
Derangel said:
Chill Mr. Keyboard Badass. No need to get your panties all bunched up by someone explaining something to you.
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How are you so certain that he was wearing panties when he wrote that? Are you his boyfriend?
 
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