Topic: Sending my Switch back for repairs, my story with Nintendo Customer Service

So I am really excited that the Switch is doing so well, I am at about 24-25 physical boxed games in my switch collection at the current moment, however my Switch kinda of pooped out me...

It all started when I was playing XenoBlade Chronicles 2 I get about in hour and an half in and crash, I didn't save yet... So I started again this time saving every 30 minutes or so, I'm an avid old adventure game player so consent saving is an easy habit to go back to; however it crashed again so far I have made it about 3 hours into the game, but the crashing only got worse as time went on and it just kept crashing at random times, tried a different game and crash, even did a hard reset of my Switch, at first I just thought it was just my copy of XenoBlade 2, but nope Breath of the Wild and Puyo Puyo Tetris also crashed, and the screen was giving me a weird flicker at times not often but strange.

So in this Thread I will be giving the updates as they come documenting my Switch customer service experience.
but first some back story with the awful customer service I had from Microsoft back in the day, with the 360 and the red ring of death, who would have ever guessed that would have happened to me... So I spent 3 hours on the phone with Microsoft, and it took 2-3 more months to get my 360 back, which of course red ringed on me again 2-3 months later, lets hope that doesn't happen with Nintendo.

Now back to Nintendo, the customer service call only lasted about 18:00 to get everything settled out they, heck they even emailed me a shipping label and all I had to do was package it, and I will be shipping it off first thing tomorrow morning. Nintendo is already two and a half hours faster then Microsoft and unlike the person I spoke with at Microsoft, I could actually understand the other person on the phone and they actually seemed concerned about getting my Switch back on track, and dare I even say that the Nintendo Customer service rep I was talking with was also gamer who almost started talking about how she also enjoyed XenoBlade 2, when I bought up that it was crashing my console, but then remembered they actually have to get back to work so they could help another customer, it was nice not only to talk with someone concerned about my switch but also had experience playing one. Unlike the guy I had with Microsoft who I would be willing to bet money on the fact that he never played a video game in his life.

One of the reasons I am making this thread is just to see if any of you have had to send their switch back to Nintendo what are the wait times? and what are the issues that you may have encountered with dealing with this already?

I may have done a stupid but it will at least be a good test, I was using a second party glass screen protector and I was a little worried that may void the warranty so I peeled it off before placing it in the box so if my screen comes back scratched I will post that here when I receive my switch back.

Thanks for reading my needless long post.

I will post back here often with updates on how my Switch repair progress is going

Edit I am in NA

Wow, sounds like a rough time with MC. Sorry to hear about your Switch, I am grateful that hasn't happened to me, and hope it doesn't. Aside from my Switch getting fairly warm sometimes, I haven't had any problems. Around 600 hours of play among several games since March and I have only had a couple games crash, never a re-occurring problem. I have to ask, how many hours have you put into your system and what do you think went wrong, software or hardware? Did you ever drop your Switch(or knock it off of a table)? Or did you ever let it get really cold or warm?

@Heavyarms55

well with the play time sadly not very much about 150-250 hours since I bought it in June, I work full time so I am more of a collector then a player right now, I have several games that I have not even had the time to play yet

I have never let it get overly hot nor cold, and as far as physical damage to the switch virtually nothing, I have never dropped it or had it fall off a desk or table, I keep my Switch in a hard case when not in use.

With the screen Flickering I think something inside the switch just wiggled loose over time, so if the game is having a hard time with keeping up with the display it crashes, since most of the time it crashes is right into or after a cut scene or when their is a lot of movement/motion being displayed on the screen.

I have tried to find hard numbers of the percentage of Switchs getting sent back year one, and I haven't found any hard data as of yet, from what I can tell it is a really low percent, I know that every batch of year on consoles have a few dudes, and it seems as of now that I lost the year one Lottery

@Rusted_Gold Demand for the Switch greatly exceeded Nintendo's expectations. Sorry to say but it is quite possible you did just get unlucky. Please post when you get the Switch back, I am curious how long it takes.

This gives me deja-vu

@Heavyarms55

Will do I will make sure to keep this thread updated as the news comes in, it's not something that I'm too worried about, and as a year one owner of a switch it's bound to happen to some owners every company has faulty launches and with the Switch it seems to be more on the rare side, and their customer service at least from what I have already experienced is fantastic

Lets just hope the Switch return rate never looks like the 360 red rings of death. I have read some sources claiming 52%, fail rate while most settle somewhere around 41-49% which is still ridiculously high, needless to say I have three 360's currently and two of them are you guessed it busted, and one barely works, if I wasn't a game collector I would have sold all my 360 games years ago, but maybe I will just pick up an elite 360, they fixed the red rings of death on that one, well by removing the led rings, so when it breaks it just breaks.

And on that note I have zero faith that I will be playing any 360 games 20 years from now, while my NES, SNES, 64, Gameboy, GameCube, GBA, DS, 3DS, Wii, and hopefully the Switch will still be running strong. I fired up my SNES just a few weeks ago and played a few games on it perfectly.

I will never buy a Microsoft console again, also did I mention I'm also on my 3rd original xbox as well, ugh. not trying to make this a anti Xbox thread but...

@Rusted_Gold I've always hated xbox. It's depressing to think we used to have Sega and now we have xbox... and it doesn't matter how bad they do, they'll always have the money to keep doing it.

But that's great to hear how helpful and efficient Nintendo support is. I'm interested to see how many days it will take to receive your new switch.

@Rusted_Gold No way!? The Red Ring of death was THAT common? That seems absurdly high!

Sent mine on a Friday, arrived back the following Friday.

@subpopz wait I was thinking this was the original xbox... you mean to tell me microsofts last console had a 50% failure rate? ... and how long were the lifespans of these consoles? ... and lool

@Inertiacreep I think 50+% was on the high end, 35-40% seemed to be where the more reliable analyses were hovering. Still, people blame XB1's always online status for scaring away consumers, but most people I know who switched to PS4 did so because of the RRoD.

Regarding Nintendo support... I've only had to get one repair through them, my Wii back when I left it on for like... four years straight and the disc drive failed. Whoops. But it was an easy and quick process for me.

"however my Switch kinda of pooped out me..."

That might be the problem

@link3710 Technically all models before the final two revisions had a 100% failure rate depending on usage. Every single one of them was guaranteed to fail after so much use. The problem was a the idiotic decision to use the pinless socket for the SoC to save production costs coupled with insufficient temperatures for melting the then-new RoHS lead-free solder. I forget the codename of the revision that fixed it but everything before that is a guaranteed fail eventually. The solder would actually crack.

@Inertiacreep Search for Xbox 360 oven for a good time. People learned that if they BAKE their XBox (wrapping it in wet towels so it doesn't melt the outer plastic) they can reflow the solder and fix (or at least buy time) for the problem.

That's a REALLY bad product.

" if any of you have had to send their switch back to Nintendo what are the wait times?"

I sincerely hope you have a better experience than I did. Let's see if I can condense my last experience down to a reasonable size....

My launch day Switch wasn't holding its battery charge to anywhere near the times Nintendo were quoting. 20 minutes of play in Mario Kart, not online, would drain the battery by 50%. Reluctantly called Nintendo who sent a label out to me and I posted mine.

Week 1 - Signed for as received by them.

Week 2 - No update. Called to find out, told there had been a delay in registering my system due to high numbers but she'll chase it up.

Week 3 - No contact or updates from them. Called to chase again, apologised and escalated to supervisor.

Week 4 - Still no movement, updates or response. Still hadn't got any kind of callback they'd promised me either. Received a call from them the following day asking me to describe the box I'd sent it in and tell them the parcelforce tracking number. Asked them outright if they'd lost it (all signs pointed to that) but they wouldn't answer the question.

Week 5 - Called to chase again. Told it had been incorrectly registered onto their system (puzzled as to who since they register it by serial number). Reassured everything was fine, its with the repair team and I'll have it back within a week.

Week 6 - No Switch received. Called to chase, told it had been sent back to me but mysteriously there was no tracking numbers attached to it. This agent told me it'd be another week and a half before I'd get it back. Called back the next day to speak to someone else who read out the same statement word for word.

Week 7 - Still not back. Called again and no-one had the faintest idea what was going on. Promised an escalation to management and I'd have a callback, never came. Called again that evening after giving them yet more time and that's where the bombshell was dropped.

They had indeed sent it back, but they'd sent it to a completely different address to somewhere in another part of the country. I found out through interrogation that they'd also known about this and had been trying to get it back from that address for a WEEK. Had to cancel my bank card which was tied to my Switch which also caused me massive inconvenience all round.

Wrote a five page letter of complaint detailing everything that went on over the time which was miraculously lost, or in their words "we never received it".

But they did, I know they did and I also threatened trading standards on them if I didn't have my console sent back to me by a date I gave. They didn't send me mine back, but they did send me a new one complete with a full system transfer of my old Switch's data.

Called to follow up the letter and ask how head office could claim they never received it only for them to pretty much say "I don't know". Offered me one of a selection of games as a "good will gesture". Had to take 1-2 Switch as it was the only one from their list I didn't have.

Also done some digging during that too. Turns out Nintendo don't have a dedicated service centre in England. They lease it out to a third party which if you Google the address leads you to a small generic building on an industrial estate. Classy.

Good luck with yours.

@Rusted_Gold curious, do you play more docked or undocked? I play mine quite a bit, my latest fix has been Skyrim. I play almost completely undocked and I don’t seem to have any issues with the system getting warm. I do recall folks saying their systems getting warm in the dock so I was wondering if yours spends a lot of time docked. Your problems sounds like a failing cpu/gpu.

@subpopz Good god, it's amazing Xbox even still exists after a mess like that!

@Heavyarms55 yea like a 50% failure rate on the first couple designs. I had 2 red ring on me.

@NEStalgia
I remember the Towel Trick I came close to trying it, but after researching out why it worked and saw someone comparing it to putting sawdust in a transmission it will make it run, but for only so long, till it breaks again, I never tried it

@TheFatPlumber
Wow that sounds like an awful experience, I'm glad they tried to make it right by offering you a free game.
I'm in NA so hopefully that makes a difference

@subpopz
I added an edit to my OP saying I was in NA

@th3r3ds0x
I can confidently say that I have spent almost 98% of my time playing in Hand Held mode, and it has never gotten hot in my hands.

And now for today's Update

Took it into UPS to ship it out, and I will be tacking it everyday, or almost everyday and posting an update as to where it's at on it's way to Nintendo. That is if I can find the receipt with the tracking number...

Also so many replies thank you everyone who have posted thus far with your experiences I'm new to posting here and already I like the feel of this community

@subpopz @TheFatPlumber Sony and Xbox use third parties for distribution and repairs here too. This isn't a shock or new thing.

On this note, my friend over in the US had his 3DS die, and after two brief calls to Nintendo got everything sorted, took about an hour.

@th3r3ds0x Guess I was lucky mine lasted as long as it did, over 6 years before it died. If I had had 2 go bad on me in a short time span I think I would have sworn off Microsoft hardware for life! As it is, I am not interested in Xbone, but for unrelated reasons.