jebmo’s posthaven

A tale of three Switches, and a reminder of the importance of good customer service

What a month it has been.

I haven’t updated in a while, and I’m sorry for that. I’ve had quite a bit going on in the run up to the holidays — but I’m getting back up to speed on things.

I wanted to share an experience I had recently (it’s still ongoing actually) that came from buying a Nintendo Switch for myself and my kid in the run up to the Super Mario Odyssey release.

I’m a lifelong Mario fan. I’m a pretty big Nintendo fan anyway, but for me every major Mario release is just a nostalgia bomb of happy memories from my childhood.

By this point, I’ve played Super Mario 3D World with my 4 year old to the point that there’s virtually no collectibles left to find (some, not many). We bought the game pretty early in the Wii U’s life, although he has only really been old enough to become curious about “dad’s video games” in the past six months.

I have fond memories from my younger days of waiting for release day to roll around for major entries, but my son has never had that excitement of unboxing a new system and being blown away by the next new classic to come out of Kyoto. I wanted to share this with him while he’s still at an age where he’s impressed by his father’s nerdy hobbies (and before he realizes how uncool I really am!).

The timing worked out quite well as it happens — my son’s school would be shutting down for half-term break just as the game was releasing and I had already arranged to take a break from work to spend that time with him.

A busted up package and a scratched-up screen

I ordered the Switch on October 16th from Nintendo’s UK online store. I wanted to buy direct primarily to support Nintendo, so I figured it better that more of the margin ends up with them than a reseller.

It didn’t take long to arrive — but when it did, I noticed some damage to the outside of the packaging. Concerned, I opened the box further to realize that the package had been more than a little disturbed — the internal contents had been removed from the bags and stuffed back in place again, and there were scratches on the screen and around the controllers that clearly hadn’t happened in transit. My assumption is that either this was a customer return that was shipped back out as new, or that the courier had intercepted the package (seems unlikely), but I contacted Nintendo to organize a return. These things happen sometimes, and at this point at least, they were gracious in offering to replace the item. I sent it back, but heard nothing more.

I spent much of the next week in an odd cat-and-mouse game with Nintendo’s support line —each day I’d be told that the replacement had already been dispatched (and that I would need to make myself available to sign for it), then be told the following day it wasn’t yet dispatched after the courier failed to show.

Ultimately it seems that they received the Switch back, but for one reason or another (they offered a couple of conflicting ones), hadn’t shipped out a replacement or offered a refund.

In the end I had to reorganize my work hours to make calls over the subsequent days to get the order sorted out. This was pretty disappointing, both because it was now affecting my work, and due to the plans I’d made with my kid around the school break that were now going to have to be scrapped (there’s no fun to be had in explaining to a wide-eyed four year old that the new Mario game has arrived but we don’t have the console to play it on). At this time I still figured this turn of events was not wholly out of the ordinary for customer support.

And then the fun started.

Here’s your Switch, and here’s someone elses, too

We’ve been trying to get ready for Christmas pretty early this year. Having two young kids means that I can’t really take risks with the Santa list, as the must-have toys tend to sell out fast, at least around here. So I’m guilty of having a few unmarked boxes stuffed away waiting to be sorted later (small toys — Hot Wheels, PJ Masks and the like).

Eventually the replacement Switch got delivered (packaging intact this time) and I was able to get it set up.

It’s off-topic for this article, but as an aside — I’m blown away by what they’ve done with this device. It’s almost supernaturally powerful considering it’s size. I thoroughly recommend you get one if you haven’t already — maybe just get it from Amazon, though.

When checking through some boxes ahead of work the next morning I noticed an identically marked package had been delivered. I wasn’t expecting any other orders from Nintendo, so I checked inside and saw that it was another Switch (I didn’t open the packaging all of the way so as not to damage the shipping box — I could see enough of the contents to tell with some measure of confidence what it was).

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.

I reached out to Nintendo to let them know what happened as soon as I’d realized. I figured at the least I’ll get a thank you for letting them know, maybe even a poster or something in the mail for my kid’s bedroom if we’re lucky.

The subsequent exchange did not go the way I imagined it would at all.

At first, it was suggested by one representative that I just keep the extra Switch, which enthusiastically I advised I’d be happy to do if they were offering that as an option.

I was then contacted by a second representative and promptly informed that if the item was not immediately returned they would pursue legal action against me.

This was shocking to say the least (given the context of the dialogue until that point). On asking at what time this collection would occur (so I could plan around it) I was told that it’s impossible to say, and I would need to make myself available to hand over the item.

Being available as described would mean spending an additional day away from work to wait for a courier who (based on past experiences) may or may not turn up. If the courier didn’t turn up, would I be accused of theft? Would they really proceed to legal action? I assumed no, but I’m no legal expert, so I decided to just co-operate until this was sorted and not risk further stress over it.

Where things stand now

This was a relatively straight-forward transaction that had quickly snowballed into being a very costly timesink, and just about the worst experience I’ve had purchasing something online.

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.

It has been an utterly baffling turn of events to say the least. I’ve asked for a comment from Nintendo’s UK support regarding the experience but they’ve not as yet provided one.

They still make some fantastic games, though

I’m still a fan of Nintendo’s products, if not their customer service. Now that I have the Switch, I’m really impressed with it — I just really think Nintendo should look at their standards around their direct sales and their policies when things go wrong. Retailers like Amazon get this so right these days, that it’s hard to imagine the process going this far off the rails.

It shouldn’t need to be said that threatening customers is terrible practice in any context, especially so when it’s unprovoked and un-necessary.

I’ll try to update this article when the matter is finally resolved (hopefully amicably).

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