After reader Ray’s story about receiving and swapping out four messed up Nintendo 3DSes in a row, two of which were lemons, Nintendo reached out to get in touch with him. We played matchmaker and now Ray is happy to report that they gave him a brand spanking new 3Ds. They also let him pick out two new games to make up for the hassle.

Ray writes:

I wanted to email you to let you know how the situation with my 3DS’ ended up. I called and escalated the situation on the phone, and had mailed my two systems off to NOA in Washington. A day or so later I got an email from you forwarding a message from the Manager of Customer Service for Nintendo. I called her and that day we arranged for a brand new system to be sent to me, brand new in the box and everything! As an added bonus, I was able to choose from two games for my troubles, and was assured my systems would be inspected to assure that no customer would ever have the same experience I did.

After 4 messed up 3DS units and several months of frustration and starting to regret my purchase, I am finally able to enjoy my 3DS as I hoped I could when I bought one on launch day. I am very happy with Nintendo’s generosity in the matter, and their very fast response. I now have my working unit and games, and Nintendo has my final 2 lemon units. Hopefully this is the last time I need to worry about contacting them.

Oh, and you’re welcome late adopters. 😉

I’m surprised it took all this effort to get a good device from Nintendo. Guess that’s what happens when your company sends out refurbished devices to people who send in their broken ones, and some of those refurbished ones aren’t up to factory-fresh spec. But once your story got out there and got escalated, Nintendo stepped in with their usual right on the money level of customer satisfaction. It goes to show that you should never be afraid to take your story to the streets, even if it’s supposedly a “nice” company.

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I Just Want A Nintendo 3DS That’s Not Broken

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