Topic: Why Nintendo and Best Buy are two of the worst companies to deal with.

Because obviously that is exactly the same thing, and not in anyway a strained and tortured comparison you have made.

_{Also HI @Aviator and @AlexSays !! I miss you guys and your rationality.}

The real solution is to relax, make the call, calmly explain that your NFC reader appears to not work and you had the Wii U before amiibo so, there was no way to test this and could they give you a break? If you feel the need, ask to escalate, but always be calm and polite, because really you're asking for a favour on an out if warranty product. You may be surprised!

@the_shpydar: I said that it is unfair that a product is not replaced for such an issue.
then somebody comes in and says it is unfair in the same way life is unfair.
which is not exactly the same thing is it.
and of all the stupid things you could say, it's possibly the most cretinous.
I replied to that.

@LztheQuack: you are right, actually - the guy said the whole GamePad doesn't work and Nintendo says is the faulty NFC, which is strange. I wonder how they came to that conclusion without opening the thing.

How do we know it was faulty all along? It could have just started being faulty, which can happen in any product.

@LztheQuack: you are right, actually - the guy said the whole GamePad doesn't work and Nintendo says is the faulty NFC, which is strange. I wonder how they came to that conclusion without opening the thing.

It makes no sense to me at all. I'm no expert on electronics, but I do have doubts about this whole story.

I still think the OP is overreacting a bit.

@DiscoGentleman:

I actually didn't know about that policy. Probably because my local store does no returns unless you could somehow prove it was defective.

I bought Dishonored Remastered (PS4) at launch from BestBuy (buy all my games there for the 20% GCU discount) and they sent me Madden 16.

Now, I hate sports games (at least, realistic sports games anyways) but Madden was a $60 game while Dishonored was just $40. After a big hassle with customer svc and getting hung up on, I decided to return the game to a retailer without a receipt...

Speaking of which, I was wrong about returning open games at Walmart/Target- I was thinking of sealed games with no receipt.

Anyways, that's when I started researching store policies about returning games. In the end I sold on Craigslist for $55 (I only paid $32). I think that's the best option tbh. EBay sells fast but, there's that 10% fee + 3% to PayPal, and shipping expense.

@JaxonH: Did you not have a copy of the order form?

@LztheQuack:

Of course I did. And I bought online. That wasn't the issue. The issue was emailing, no response for 5 days. Emailing again, finally a response 3 days later stating "sorry you can't return because it's been past 15 days". Even though it hadn't been 15 days since release yet (he musta been counting from date of preorder) and despite fact I'm an Elite Plus member so I get 45 days to return and price match.

So I finally call, 20 minutes on hold, on the exclusive Elite member hotline, and they tell me wrong department even though they're supposed to handle cust svc for Elite (Plus) members. Then another 20 minutes on hold, and 10 minutes trying to spell my email/name so the lady could access my orders, then she can't find my order, then FINALLY she does. Says ok, send the game back and when we receive it we'll send you the correct game.

Hold up. After you receive it? So I waited 3 days past release for the game to arrive, another week getting ahold of customer svc, now you're telling me I gotta mail it back, wait 4-5 days for you to receive and THEN wait another several days for you to ship the game I should have been playing well over a week ago?

I said you made the mistake, you should send the correct item (the one I paid for) immediately. But they wouldn't budge, even though other retailers like Amazon send your items STAT when they make a mistake. Then, as she's initiating the return, I get hung up on.

That was when I said you know what? Screw it. I've bent over backwards to return a game worth more money than I paid. Evidently they don't care. So I'll just do what I gotta do to get the game I paid for. So I re-ordered Dishonored online for $32 (GCU discount) and sold Madden.

Then I called to explain why I was no longer returning the game, and that I was ready to take my business elsewhere over their shoddy customer svc. So they gave me a $30 GC. Mind you I spend thousands of dollars at BB every year. I think I have well over 50 games preordered right now through them. I guess that carries a little weight when you tell them you're thinking of shopping elsewhere.

Sorry for the long post. Got carried away I guess. But ya, that's what happened.

Now that's a good rant

Sorry, I can't add anything to that. Surprisingly, I have had no problems with Best Buy. I even got the Majora's Mask 3DS with no issues.

@DarthNocturnal:

Well normally I'm a BestBuy fan through and through. I've told members here countless times to shop there with GCU and save hundreds of dollars a year on games (20% off with GCU + 5% back in reward points with BB credit card and 6% with credit card as Elite member + 4% back in reward points with GCU + $10 back in reward points for AAA titles..... it's insane how much money you can save) but in this instance they really dropped the ball.

I wasn't really gonna take my business elsewhere- nobody, not Amazon with Prime or Newegg with promo codes and no tax, can compete with BestBuy when it comes to games. $100 collector editions? $79.99. $60 games? $47.99. $40 handheld games? $31.99. And that's before all the double reward point bonuses for GCU and CC reward points and $10 rewards for preordering. There's just no better place to shop. But I did want to scare them, so to speak, and make them reflect upon the possible consequences of such shoddy customer service.

You must be in Canada. I imported some Futureshop steel book cases (NSMBU, Batman Arkham City and Zelda Skyward Sword). They're great! Like Tony the Tiger would say

I am really impatient with customer service reps. I never curse at them but I let it be known how frustrated I am with something. It's hard to stay polite when you have to speak with four or five different people, get put on hold and repeat the same information to verify who you are again and again.

I am talking about my bank. I've never had an experience like that with anything video game related.

LOL

Newsflash: Every company is terrible at returns / repairs / helping people spend less money because they all think that it's in their best interest to be that way. Welcome to capitalism; it's kinda terrible.

Note to mods: While I understand where you're coming from, 'excretorious' is not a word. There may be a reason why many of the intelligentsia throughout time cared little for the light and transient morals of the common folk.

I just got off the phone with Comcast, then saw the title of this thread, and literally laughed out loud.

Nothing in what you said shows that Nintendo had bad customer support. Your console was no longer under warranty so you need to pay to fix stuff that breaks. Whether you are "careful" or not, stuff breaks and you may not realize it but you very well could have done something to enhance the wear and tear. Electronics are fickle things. Merely exposing the controller to specific climate conditions for periods of times can cause significant problems.

As for Best Buy, they have no way of knowing whether you are telling the truth. You may not have actually been able to play it, but they have to cover their butts too. For all they know, you could have played it to completion and are trying to return it.

Neither of them are doing anything remotely wrong. You need to understand that not everyone in the world can cater to you. Sometimes s*** goes wrong and you can't do anything about it. Accept it and move on. Don't act like the world owes you a favor because of some bad luck.

I once made a phone call to them for my parents because my dad refused to talk to them. I know why

Defense squad on scene!

You want more defense? Sony did the same thing with me for my PS2 (and its audio wires)...and it was under warranty.

Nintendo on the other hand replaced my Gamecube for free out of warranty.

What's wrong with you guys? My Nintendo and Sony consoles never break. You know, just 'cause it has a handle doesn't mean it's meant for use as a blunt weapon.

My LAN adapter isn't working, and I have to constantly unplug it, plug it back in, do a connection test and keep trying it until it works. It's from a company called KDM because the official Nintendo ones were out of stock.

This got annoying after a while so I called Nintendo Customer Support and their response was "is it a third party company? We don't support third party products. Go online and order a Nintendo LAN adapter."

Has anyone else experienced issues with LAN adapters and have any idea why it's so inconsistent when working?

No idea what the thread starter is getting out of this thread. I don't recall any store since the 90s returning opened video games. Nintendo along with every company has an RMA policy for broken equipment. Silly thread.

Well...

I can't say that Nintendo's got bad customer service because they've only ever been helpful for me. The one time it was 'bad' was when I got my 3DS back from repair (no warranty. had to pay $85USD) and the bottom half opened like a puppet. I told them about it and was able to send it back and it got fixed for free (and not just fixing that issue, but a complete fix-up of everything--touch screen replacement, top screen replacement, speaker replacement, etc).

@LztheQuack
It is weird...but the only thing I can think of as a reason for not selling GamePads separately is that there are no games that use two GamePads. With the PS4 and One, you have local multiplayer and can buy another controller. Nintendo sells Wii U Pro Controllers and Wiimotes for the same reason...they can be used with local multiplayer. Add that with the fact that there are only ~10 million Wii U owners and that's a lot of extra GamePads. It'd also be around the same cost to send it in for repairs (with the inconvenience of a 2 week wait).

It's stupid, but it's the only reasoning I can think of.