Two gamers have filed a class action lawsuit against Nintendo, alleging that the company will be unjustly enriching itself with any refund it secures from the U.S. government over widespread tariffs last year that, among other things, hiked the prices of Nintendo hardware and accessories.

“Unless restrained by this Court, Nintendo stands to recover the same tariff payments twice—once from consumers through higher prices and again from the federal government through tariff refunds, including interest paid by the government on those funds,” the suit states.

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[–] 268 points 4 months ago (29 children)

What is the logic behind giving a company money for the tariffs? The costs were invariably passed to the consumer, so how does paying the company make any sense?

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  • [–] 239 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The logic was “these companies ate the cost” and when confronted with the fact that prices went up and the costs had been passed on to consumers, the clarification they provided was “nuh uh”.

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  • [–] 49 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    and when confronted with the fact that prices went up and the costs had been passed on to consumers, the clarification they provided was “nuh uh”.

    the argument is, when a price goes up, there will be fewer sales and therefore less revenue/profit

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  • [–] 54 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    Which makes me want to say things that would get me banned for multiple reasons.

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  • [–] 95 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

    This is America. You’re not a person unless you’re a corporation.

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  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Is it expensive to file corporate taxes in the US? It really sounds like if everyone represented themselves as a corporation they would have more rights.

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  • [–] 35 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    If you're looking for a new rabbit hole to explore...theres an entire crowd of people who firmly believe that the government creates a corporate version of you when you're born, and that your name in CAPS on the birth certificate is evidence of this.

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  • [–] 33 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    The companies paid the tarrif, they get the refund.

    The fact that tariffs allowed some companies to demand more money, is related but not causal, some companies will have had to eat shit because the market wouldn't bare the increase.

    I'd love for the lawsuit to succeed and it set the precedent that when governments issue refunds they can force companies to pass it on to the customer, but I think it's unlikely.

    It's also complicated by the way pricing works.

    If the tarrif is for $15 but the uncertainty allowed a company to increase prices by $20, how much should the customer be refunded?

    And what if the tarrif was $15 but the market only allowed a $10 increase and the company ate shit on the other $5?

    Now what if none of these numbers are set in stone and all of the numbers are guesswork? Should the government audit all companies that changed their prices?

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  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago

    There’s no logic. They don’t know how to fix the things they broke.

    Taxpayers paid the tariffs once when prices got hiked, paid the resulting inflation costs, now we are paying those companies back with taxpayer money, which will continue to drive up inflation again.

    We’re paying 4 times.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago

    What is the logic behind giving a company money for the tariffs?

    Well, the logic is the fact that the tariffs were illegal.

    The honourable thing to do would be to pay that money back to the customers, but that would make the shareholders sad and grumpy, so it's never going to happen.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The logic is real "dumb" or simple. The company that paid the tariff gets the refund.

    Tariffs are paid at the port of entry and before you are allowed to physically get the goods out of the port. So the payer is not always the manufacturer. Sometimes it's an importer or middleman. Sometimes a retailer. It could be you if you shipped in a package from overseas.

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    [–] 135 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    Nintendo: you know what? Fuck you. Our prices just went up for you. Games are $120 now. Fuck you, you'll still buy our pokemon slop we spent 0 effort making. Mario? Yep, $120, but now when he jumps he says "fucka youuuu!" You'll still buy it, because Mario.

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  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    I've been ootl on Pokemon since y/x, and even was barely paying attention before someone else bought it for me. But the shit I saw when sword shield(? First switch title) was wild. They really were just phoning it in, and people still bought everything else they dropped! The only reason I got a switch was for prime 4, and likely won't be getting a switch 2. Sucks watching my nostalgia be abused in real time.

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    You can still enjoy the games you are nostalgic for with emulators.

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    [–] 70 points 4 months ago (13 children)

    Friendly reminder that the Boston Tea Party was about tariffs. We know what works.

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    [–] 59 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    We won't see a cent of the money stolen from us by Donald Trump and his gang of pedophiles.

    My company lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in tarrifs. We passed those on to the customer since we couldn't take a 50% hike on costs.

    We have no way to refund money we don't have.

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    How did your company lose hundreds of thousands if they passed them onto the customer? If you made the customer pay, your company has the money and can pass on the money you get from the government to your consumers

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    [–] 54 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Like everything else Trump does this too was a grift by him to funnel money to the rich. He should be a part of this law suit.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    He's criminally protected from any official acts while in office, remember?

    (A Supreme Court decision made during Biden's term, it should be noted - he was also criminally protected from any consequences of his official acts as president, and they specifically gave the example of a president using Seal Team Six to assassinate their political rivals. Biden didn't even try using that power against Trump in any way. Assassination was probably off the table lmao but he could've done extrajudicial surveillance or such. He didn't, because they're all owned by the same oligarchs and Zionazis.)

    And a civil lawsuit would be paid by... the taxpayers.

    You don't get to win when the other side makes the rules. You have to stop playing the game, or get as close as you can.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    He's not protected from things moving towards him at terminal velocity. That's the other solution.

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  • [–] 30 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    We should do a blanket class action lawsuit against all corporations throughout history, demanding all the wages they owe, refunds for the prices they gouged, and the artificially created inflation.

    Or they could settle by paying for worldwide universal healthcare and UBI.

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    [–] 29 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Heh. Yeah right. They passed that tariff cost on to you but no way will they pass the refund on.

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago

    Let’s see more of this.

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  • [–] 24 points 4 months ago

    And the players should win this case. It’s pretty obviously true that Nintendo would be recovering tariff money twice.

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  • [–] 17 points 4 months ago

    I think it's presumptuous to assume that the increase in prices that just happened to be identical to the tarrifs had anything to do with the tarrifs.

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  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Customers should get the refunds as this is business already transacted. Nintendo should get a "loss of potential sales" award due to it being priced out for many consumers, due to the tariffs. How that number would be determined is best left to people smarter than me.

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    [–] 14 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Its even messier. Nintendo is a customer of the companies that produce the discrete parts, and paid tarriffs on them. Then they sell to a retailed at wholesale who sells to the consumer. The retailer may or may not also have paid a tarrif on the finished product. So what waa the final retail proce composed of? How much of it was Nintendo's? How much of it was.... Say.... Walmart? Who is on the hook for it for the consumer?

    What a fucking mess.

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    [–] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (12 children)

    Nintendo stands to recover the same tariff payments twice—once from consumers through higher prices and again from the federal government through tariff refunds

    Uh...those are the same funds? They didn't just pocket the tariff fees, they had to pay them in order to get a refund.

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    [–] 13 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    I wonder why they chose Nintendo. To base this class action off of. They could have chosen any company to go after, like Walmart or Apple.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

    Because Walmart doesn't sue their customers for buying and improving upon their products.

    Nintendo bites the hand that feeds. Treats their biggest fans like piles of subhuman garbage. Short of Nestlé, very few companies deserve a taste of their own medicine more than Nintendo. Fuck them.

    Edit: And they've been this way for as along as I can remember. Back in the early 90s, Nintendo tried to sue to stop Game Genie from becoming a thing. Sega, on the other hand, made it an officially licensed product! Nintendo has never had any chill. I wish they were the ones that lost the console war instead of Sega. They don't deserve to be as popular and beloved as they are.

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