Scams on Amazon selling Switch

I haven't seen this delved into anywhere in the news, so i figured I'd bring it to people's attention here : If you go on Amazon to buy a Switch right now, pay attention to who is selling it and make sure that the unit you buy is fulfilled by Amazon itself.

There seems to be a lot of people selling Nintendo Switch's on the site that are basically pure and unadulterated scams. I was just taken in by one yesterday - I found a person selling a new Switch for $350 and thought "That's not that bad of a price - okay, I'll bite". The seller had a 5 star rating and all good reviews. So I bit...

This morning I found out from the seller that her account had been hacked and that she was very definitely not selling a Switch. Amazon has refunded my money already, which is good. But that led me to look at more sellers of this product and quite a few of them have page upon page of buyers reporting them as scams. I am unsure if this is widespread beyond the Switch or if it is mainly in that product, but it is something to keep an eye on and it certainly is widespread in terms of Nintendo products.

@wookietim: Thank goodness you got it fixed. Yeah, people always scamming on these things. I always try and check for recent reviews and make sure they offer refunds. Ive seen ebay hacked too. Not on Switches, but other expensive stuff like energy powders, etc.

@iandizion713: Last night I decided to poke around. I picked out four sellers that were offering Switch consoles at less than $300 and had 5 star ratings and sent them messages asking if that was real. Every single one of them responded by saying that their accounts were hacked and they very definitely were not offering Nintendo Switch consoles.

That is not a scientific study, obviously. The sample size is too small for one thing. But when I am getting a 100% rate of good sellers who have hacked accounts selling this, that indicates to me that there is a scandal brewing under the surface of Amazon...

@wookietim: Yeah, that's a crazy amount. Hopefully Amazon will figure it out.

As a general rule, I try not to buy from third party vendors. The last time I did was for River City Ransom EX for the GBA, and it turned out to be a clear bootleg. It worked at all, but the box and label don't match the quality of my other games.

I was a victim of this scam when I purchased a Switch for less than $400 from a seller that turns out to never keep her promises. Fortunately, she refunded what I paid to her once I got Amazon.com customer service involved. I did not look at the seller's feedback rating before buying from her.

I instead purchased a Switch from an honest buyer at eBay.

It's not just video game systems, sadly. I recommend buying from Amazon, or fulfilled by Amazon.