Topic: eShop card invalid

I bought 3x £25 Nintendo eShop cards from Sainsbury’s. The numbers under the silver foil were only 8 digits rather than the required 16 digits, so they couldn’t be redeemed. I phoned Nintendo Support and they told me to send photos of the cards which I did. Two days later they asked for copies of my receipts which I sent. I phoned them today and they have said it will be 7 to 10 days before I get a response. I understand they have to check that I’m not being fraudulent, but a total of up to 2 weeks is really poor.

Has anyone had a similar problem, and how long did it take to get resolved? I wanted to play Mario tomorrow, grrrr

That never happened to me before, and yes i do agree with you, 2 weeks is so annoying and unbelievable, just stay away of the spoilers and wait till it's fixed man. Cheers

Never happened to me, but three bad card in a row is super bad luck.
However, I've already read something like that somewhere, except it was 13 digits.
Here's the thread: https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/997614-nintendo-3ds/70896814?...

tl;dr -> "I needed to rip off the cardboard part, and scratch the code bar."

I don't know if that helps you, and if you're ready to destroy the cards in order to check if this is the problem.

EDIT: The person on this thread also bought a 3-pack eshop cards. Weird.

Thanks for the replies. Thing is, the supermarket where I got them hasn’t had any for a few months; they now have a massive stock of them and they are a slightly different style to the old ones. If the three I got were all invalid I have a suspicion that the whole stock will be too. At least I am sorting it out for myself - if you were a gift giver / receiver it would be awkward.

Still waiting for my correct codes from Nintendo..... First time since Mario 64 that I haven’t played a new Mario on launch day. Sniff.

Just got a card for myself, and for my nephew. New Yoshi £25 cards. Only 8 digits on both the cards. Have receipts for both and taking them back ASAP.

Good luck. Nintendo did sort it out for me in the end - took about a week

Just an update that after trying to get a refund for my 2 £25 cards from Sainsbury’s on Tuesday and being refused, I returned this morning with an old used 16 digit shop card, a screen shot of Nintendo’s website explaining how to redeem the card, and several printouts of forums (including this one!) where people had problems with the new cards (which were all bought from Sainsbury’s). Got my refund, and they took all the other cards off the shelf.

I do wonder if this is a big problem just waiting to erupt over Christmas? It seems only Sainsbury’s has the new style cards at the moment (GAME and Smyths are still selling the old plastic cards still). Nintendo may have a problem if all these new cards (or a batch of them) all only have 8 digits printed on them.

I’m glad you got your refund, and although it’s a shame you had to show all that evidence to get it, at least Sainsbury’s was proactive and removed the rest of the potentially faulty cards. It doesn’t seem like Nintendo is being as proactive in recalling them.

I bought an eshop card for the EU form offgamers.com, 15 euros is the value. Can't do nothing with it, my region is UK. Anyone interested in buying or trading something for it please contact me

@myke29uk Hi Myke we are running into the same problem. The eShop card I've bought has an invalid 8 digit code — but I've seen this type of cards everywhere (Sainsbury's, Wilko, Tesco, Smyths etc.) so I'm surprised they've issued such a massive amount with this problem.

I've sent an email to Nintendo Customer Support and hope to get a response soon (was impossible to reach them by phone). If you have any advice I could use I'd be grateful. Thanks.

@13Lulu Hi 13Lulu. Nintendo asked me to email copies of the eShop cards and my proof of purchase (shop receipt). It took about 5 days for them to reply with working codes. The email address they asked me to use was [email protected]. It is frustrating, but they do sort it out. I assume they must be inundated with these complaints, especially after Christmas.

@myke29uk Thank you. I've sent them a pdf with the receipt and card copy but they told me they could not open it — so I've saved the info again and re-sent. Hope they'll be able to see it this time. They were quite quick to respond (two-three days) at my first email. I'll post an update here after they investigate and send me a response.

@13Lulu send them plain images, not PDFs. PDF files are not exactly trustworthy.