Acknowledges 2 DCs Sold Actually Used
ThinkGeek’s co-founder Willie Vandais issued a public apology yesterday via Destructoid over concerns his company sold used Sega Dreamcasts as new.
Vandais issued the mea culpa after a Destructoid reader wrote in to the news site, complaining that the Dreamcast he received after paying more than $200 looked damaged and worn. ThinkGeek had been advertising the systems as new, for $99. The reader claimed he had applied for and was apparently ignored for a refund. Vandais assured he would get all his money back.
In the statement, Vandais acknowledged there have been two such cases of deceptive DCs being sold to consumers–and he feels horrible about both instances:
First, a little backstory: We came upon an amazing cache of new-in-box Dreamcasts not too long ago. We had a bunch of units shipped to us to inspect them, and indeed, though the boxes were a little worse for the wear on the outside, the consoles had nary a scratch and even the wire twists that bundled the cables had never been undone. It was like magic–magic that had been hiding in a warehouse, unknown, for years.
So we asked our source from whence these beautiful Dreamcasts came, and they didn’t know–could’ve been a liquidator, or a Circuit City that had closed shop. (Hear that? It’s the sound of a plot thickening.)
But we’d seen them with our own eyes and figured it was best to share our discovery with the world. Hundreds were snatched up quickly and squees were heard ’round the internets.
So far we’ve had 2 instances of not-so-new-in-box Dreamcasts. The individual who received the one reported here contacted us via email (which never appeared in our inbox, for some reason) and Twitter (through which we’ve taken care of the situation) has already been issued a return shipping label. We’re more than happy to refund him for the Dreamcast as well as shipping.
We’re very sorry about the whole thing–we never meant to ship used Dreamcasts. We know our customers are smarty pants and could tell if they’d been duped with a stale Dreamcast; we’d never get away with taking advantage of you guys, so why would we try?
And now we have 3 options: 1. Stop sharing the gift of new Dreamcasts; 2. Have them all shipped to us and inspect each one individually and then ship back to the warehouse; and 3. Continue spreading the (mostly) untainted Dreamcast love and working with the very few customers who get lemons.
We hope you’ll understand why we’re continuing to offer them on our site (when we get our grubby little paws on more, of course). And again, we apologize to the 2 customers who ended up with what appears to be returned merchandise.
As noted above, ThinkGeek plans to sell new Dreamcast consoles in the future. An exact date for those consoles to go on sale is unclear.
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