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Nintendo of Europe refusing to acknowledge Joycon drifting issue. Please contact them.

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ninjabreadman

ninjabreadman

Banned
Dec 17, 2017
260
It's all about the money, they use different distributors for most of Europe, who themselves then outsource repairs. Would be a logistical and economic pain to have free repairs across the whole region. Of course, they should do it, as it's a defective product, but some bean counter somewhere in Kyoto, figures we're worth screwing over.

Thanks for the thread, wish the press stepped up more on this one (Eurogamer etc) to push for the consumer.
 
dorjjj

dorjjj

Member
Oct 31, 2017
971
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I am sorry.
 
OP
OP
Waluigilicious

Waluigilicious

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,497
ika said:
My launch joy-cons are working just fine, but my also launch Pro Controller's D-pad is terrible in games like Tetris 99... I wish Nintendo would acknowledge it.
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They kind of have. There's a setting you can change in the options within Tetris 99 which specifically works around the fact that the Dpad is so unreliable.
 
MondoWray

MondoWray

Member
Oct 27, 2017
100
England
I sent a Joy Con suffering from drift to Nintendo UK a couple of weeks ago, was notified today that it has been repaired and is on the way back to me, free of charge.
 
cowbanana

cowbanana

Member
Feb 2, 2018
13,794
a Socialist Utopia
LordRuyn said:
I think it might be wise to contact the The European Consumer Organisation. There are harsh penalties for companies regarding this kind of thing in the EU. Here's a link for anyone interested: https://www.beuc.eu/consumer-rights-enforcement#contact-card-anchor

I'll be calling them tomorrow to see if there is anything they can do or to provide some sort of advice on what to do in these matters.
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I'll contact them as well and tell them how Nintendo continues to sell a broken product well aware of its defective nature / faulty design. I'll send links to hardware teardowns exposing the issue.
 
Zafir

Zafir

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,070
Good luck with that. Nintendo UK use a third party for repairs, and they're pretty awful in my experience(Ive had to send my switch off a few times for various issues, so I've had a lot of experience). They'll do anything to get out of repairing something under warranty. They don't even seem to be aware Nintendo's own official uk store offers a 2 year warranty so they reject things based off it being out of warranty when it isn't, lol.
Krysuk said:
Under UK consumer law limited warranty means 6 years where a manufacturer has admitted to a design fault / flaw that didn't materialise within the standard warranty period
Just had to use this on a 2015 Apple Watch with a swollen battery to get them to fix/swap for free
As Nintendo have acknowledged this in USA this should apply
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The problem with that rule is you need something official to prove its a manufacturing fault, such as a report from a qualified technician(it's possible their acknowledgement in the US might work but I bet many retailers would ignore it since they could argue the ones there are different or something), and/or you#'d likely need to go to court if they ignore it which isnt worth it for small items.

You can send it to them and they'll do their inspection but I'm pretty sure they purposefully obfuscate the issue in their communication to you. I had a failing fan in my Switch, it was pretty obvious to me as someone who has built computers etc in the past that it was the bearing in the fan that was going. I sent it off to them to be repaired under warranty, and they refuted that it was under warranty and on top of that they tried to argue it was some operating system issue. On looking into it further they often seem to put operating system fault as the cause of physical issues as I've seen mulitple reports of other people in the UK saying they got told the same thing. Considering a operating system fault is under warranty, the only assumption I could come to is they're lying what the fault is to avoid people being able to use their own word against them to get a free repair under the UK law.
 
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Bansai

Bansai

Teyvat Traveler
Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,320
Fabio ain't gonna pass it up nowhere. He probably had 2-3 other chats at the same time and he's gonna forget yours as soon as he closes it.

Flooding support ain't gonna do shit, unless NoE gets heat on social media, nothing will change.
 
Batatina

Batatina

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,271
Edinburgh, UK
They have replaced 2 joycons with drift in two separate instances at no added cost, and granted me extended warranty for 1 year. I was quite happy with how they took care of me.
 
chocnut

chocnut

Member
Oct 27, 2017
142
I bought a launch switch in Dublin at GameStop and Nintendo UK told me I'd have to pay for postage and packaging and €40 to fix my joycon so I did - I also told them that it was a manufacturing fault experienced by many other people but they were like do you want it fixed or not?

Nintendo UK are scummy.

Edit: And they insisted on a copy of the receipt too (it was less than a year after purchase but as I don't live in Dublin it was too awkward for me to bring it back to the shop).

So I also sent the receipt in the packaging I had to buy because the thing they posted out to me was just a sheet basically saying "buy a box".
 
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StallionDan

StallionDan

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,705
Remember in the EU you get depending on country, AT LEAST a 2 year warrenty, despite Nintendo saying you only get 12 months.
 
Zafir

Zafir

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,070
MrCafecito said:
Doesn't Europe get 2 years of warranty? That's why they fixed it for free
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It's a bit more complicated than that in the UK. Technically we have protection up to 6 years due to the consumer rights act. However, past the first 6 months of ownership the onus is on the user to prove that the product was faulty and wasn't caused by the consumer or due to general wear and tear which can be a bit difficult.

Most companies will still offer at least a 1 year proper warranty themselves, some of them even more than that. In the case of the Switch, you're looking at 1 year warranties for most retailers besides the official nintendo store uk.

When those warranties expire its up to the company. Although the law protects consumers, since the onus is on the consumer to prove the fault, it means you'd need proof from some where official that the fault is indeed due to manufacturing or whatever and even then you may often have to threaten legal action for them to take notice.
 
MondoWray

MondoWray

Member
Oct 27, 2017
100
England
It's bizarre. I started reading this thread a couple of days ago and fully expected to have to pay something. But the Joy Con is on the way back and they've asked for nothing.
 
Zafir

Zafir

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,070
MondoWray said:
It's bizarre. I started reading this thread a couple of days ago and fully expected to have to pay something. But the Joy Con is on the way back and they've asked for nothing.
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It really depends.

I think they're more lenient with joycon repairs because they're cheap fixes. I had a joycon repaired for free supposedly out of warranty by the UK repair company. They refused to repair my console which I sent it in with under warranty though.

They argued it was a good will gesture, but, the silly thing is it was useless unless I actually ponied up to fix the console itself...
 
Zafir

Zafir

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,070
MondoWray said:
Why wouldn't they repair a console under warranty?
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They were arguing over wording of a warranty extension, the wording specifically mentioned the console was covered, but they argued it only covered a specific part they just used a generic template. The thing with the UK repair team is you can't speak to them diretly. You go through Nintendo UK support and they pass on your messages. Once the repair team have made a decision thats it, Nintendo UK won't help you or talk to you any more. You either pay or they send it back unrepaired.

If the repair was dearer I'd have either just fixed it myself or gone through legal means since it was only 1 month out of my standard warranty, but at that point I was just sick of the process. To even get to that point where I found out why they were refusing it it took me 5 phone calls across 4 different days because it takes a day for the repair company to respond to the tickets the nintendo uk team put in.
 
Dash Kappei

Dash Kappei

Member
Nov 1, 2017
4,856
Nintendo Spain repaired one of mine, no questions asked, free of charge while the 2 years EU warranty had been expired a month before (I did provide proof of purchase tho, I mean in my experience in EU -I think- it's mandatory to get in-warranty assistance services).

However, that same Joycon had been repaired before so I'm not entirely sure if in-warranty repairs always get a 3-months warranty extension grant on top of what was left before, which would mean my drifting-afflicted Joycon was in fact still within the warranty period at the time of my second request for repair. So take that as you will.
 
Dash Kappei

Dash Kappei

Member
Nov 1, 2017
4,856
The Boat said:
Interesting, this seems to be a UK and Ireland thing, they say 24 months in the Portuguese one.
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EU laws grant 24 months warranty by the maker (not seller), unless it's a business related purchase where it's 12 months (e.g. buying a TV for the office and filing that under your business' purchases for tax/vat relief). So Italy, Spain, France etc. all have 24 months warranty guaranteed. I think it's just 12 months in UK.

However when I was living in the UK (pre-brexit), Samsung UK repaired my laptop purchased in Italy under EU warranty at month 19, free of charge.
So YMMV, better have someone more familiar with UK post-brexit speak out.
 
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