Strange Nintendo Experience

Xaquin

So my Wii has started freezing during game play. So I decide to call Nintendo and get a price to fix it.

The guy on the phone says $84 so I decline (heck, that's most of a new Wii). He asks me for a price that I could pay. I have never been asked this so I say I could swing around $50.

He comes back with "ok, that'll be $50"

Is that normal? Had I said $30, would I have paid $30?

Am, I lucky, or was I being scammed in the first place? It seems like Nintendo would have fixed prices, but maybe not?

Anyone else had a weird experience like this?

edit: also, they sent me a link to track my order even though I haven't been sent the box or a repair number yet.

ona-whim

Speaking as someone who works on the customer service side of things (not for Nintendo, but a different company), there are definitely fixed prices, but almost everything is negotiable if you know how to push for it and happen to get the right rep on the phone. It's not surprising that Nintendo gives their reps some room to move around on some of the repair prices since they can likely afford to do it every now and then.

Moral of the story--make reasonable demands and a fair case for yourself in a calm manner and you likely will save yourself some grief and money with customer service reps.

Brainiac 8

Also, Nintendo has some of the absolute best customer service out there. They are almost always willing to work with you if it means you leave a happy customer. My DSi went kaput, and I had several games downloaded on the system from the DSiWare service. I called, they asked if I just wanted a replacement new DSi instead of getting my old one repaired.

So they sent me a new machine out right away, I got it in like two days, and along with it they loaded the system with 4k nintendo points to make up for the fact that they couldn't transfer my games over to the new system.

Nintendo's customer support have never failed me.

UncleSporky

I highly doubt you were being scammed or anything, it was just customer service being nice. $50 sounds like a reasonable price, $30 might've made him go "hmm, how about we make it $50?" But you'll never know now.

Xaquin

ok cool, I had no idea CS could do anything like that.

I should trust Nintendo instead of being paranoid ;-)

Descendant X

Nintendo once sent me two SNES controllers after my buddy fried one of mine with static electricity. We realized that the one controller was fucked, called up Nintendo, and they said they'd send me a new controller.

I got the first controller a week later, and a second the day after that.

Jam Warrior

They don't know that you'd buy a new one. They'd rather see you get it fixed and keep buying games than give up on it entirely or even possibly switch consoles.

Xaquin

Yeah, I'd have bought an Xbox if it would have cost over $50 to fix hehe