This happened to me in 2017 in Mario Odyssey purchased from Walmart, just a single piece of plastic inside of a properly shrink-wrapped case. The return counter said he had seen it many times before already. How has Nintendo not cracked down on their manufacturers allowing this for almost 8 years?
Edit: It would take nothing more than a window in the front case paper to show the game chip inside, not exactly rocket surgery.
It’s not necessairly manufacturers, you can shrinkwrap shit really easily. Lots of scammers do it, so they don’t get checked when returning.
Exactly, it’s not on Nintendo to fix, this could be happening anywhere in the chain.
Could be within the stores or their suppliers, or it could be returns from end-customers.
My personal bet would be scammers buying games with cash, taking the games and then shrink-wrapping the box before returning them for a cash refund. And then they flip the cartridges on eBay or whatever.
Another good reason to buy the games w/ the case. I do it so it’s easy to give to a friend/coworker, but I keep the cases in a storage box and use a cartridge case.
It isn’t Nintendo’s responsibility…they could help by putting something noticable on the outside of the case, like the ring you have to remove on the milk jug cap, but that would take whole new packing machines and processes.
It would be simpler to just deny electronic divice returns for any reason. Caviat Emptor!
Or just have the cashier who had to unlock the case and get you the box open it and ensure there is a cart inside before you leave the store.
this is actually protocol at Walmart for exchanges. if you buy a game that is opened and try to return it you can’t return it, you can only exchange it. but since obviously you are getting a new game they open the seal for you to ensure that the person doesn’t just turn around and return it unopened in another store.
I agree with it on exchanges. I don’t think it’s a good idea for actual new sales though, I would be more on board of just opened all video game merchandise by default and selling it full price as open box, but that also causes issues with the return process, as there is no proof the game wasn’t used, it would need to force the return policy to be a no return once purchase policy like how video game CVP’s are.
Honestly the better option is just make it so video game merch is gift card only for returns. Receipt required + can only get it back as a gift card would be a better option, as they would then need to find a seller for the gift card to convert it to money, and at that point they would just use a different defrauding system.
The downside of this is, it momentarily screws over people who accidentally buy the wrong game, or buy a duplicate game someone else got them, but they could just swap that game out for a new game (or anything else in the store) as an alternative. An option which is still far better than merchants who generally have a strict no return once bought policy.
This is also assuming that the issue is at the store level with someone abusing the return system. This could 100% be someone at assembly level defrauding the cases, and there isn’t anything the store level can really do about that without screwing over legitimate customers with the return process.
But then how would I scalp new-in-box games???
