Customer We Don't Care Department

Nintendo, Activision and Kurio each suck, but in their own way.  Their products have let me down over the past three weeks and their customer service departments have been so disappointing that I’ve started to think I’m on some version of the Truman show, which can’t possibly be true because you couldn’t find five people who’d want to watch me drink coffee and read the New Yorker all day.  Of course, Real Housewives of Orange County is still on, so what do I know. 

I emailed Activison when I thought my Skylanders disk was malfunctioning.  They told me to mail them the disk, which is stupid.  You can’t use the disk without all the other Skylanders stuff.  I called, and after an hour, convinced a very polite customer care representative that yes, they could and would send me a disk.

While waiting for a new Skylanders disk, I realized that other games jammed in my hours-old Nintendo Wii U.   It gave us maximum playtime of 30 minutes.  Sometimes less.  I called them and they walked me through everything I’d already tried, wasting another hour of my life until the friendly customer care representative said she’d email me a label and I could send the unit back. 

I’m still waiting for the disk and the label.  It’s been more than two weeks. 

In the meantime, our Kurio 7s stopped turning on.  Dead after a fortnight, it can’t be reset, charged, activated in anyway.  I visited their Web site and found no phone number and no mailing address.  They had a live-chat function that never went live for me.  They had an email function that never allowed me to send an email.  It told me, repeatedly, that I’d failed to put in the right code.  I finally complained on their Facebook page and they told me to message them.  I did.

Now it’s a race to see if they will answer my message before me disk arrives from Activsion or my email from Nintendo. 

As it stands, I’m 0 for 3.

I’m wondering if Apple has these issues.  I’ve owned more than 25 Apple products since 1984 and never once had to call customer service.  And for those of you watching at home, stay tuned.   

UPDATE: Activision disk has arrived.  They are off my list.  Actually, they were pretty cool about the whole thing.  Just took a couple days extra to get my disk.  I will no longer make fun of them.