Nintendo Switch games are being used for fraud on Japanese CtoC marketplace Mercari [Update]

Written by. Ryuki Ishii based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-04-30 15:44 JST)

Japanese marketplace Mercari has updated its guidelines to state that all sales of Nintendo Switch download cards/codes are now prohibited to prevent fraud.

Mercari is a CtoC online marketplace with over 17.5 million users and a grand total of 2 billion listings. Video games are being sold regularly as well, including download cards and codes. However, Mercari explains that they’ve been receiving inquiries from users who purchased Nintendo Switch games through the marketplace, saying things like “can’t download the game” or “it was okay at first, but the game stopped functioning after a while.” There have been whispers on social media in Japan about these incidents, too.

Mercari stated that they’ve investigated and confirmed the situation, leading to the aforementioned decision to ban the sales of downloadable games for the Nintendo Switch. It’s believed that fake download codes are being used for fraud, and in some cases, download codes bought with stolen or fraudulently used credit cards are being sold.

There are some other fishy listings involving download codes, including the one below that states, “5 download codes of Kirby and the Forgotten Land for 50,000 yen (around $385).” The game is sold on the Nintendo eShop for 6,500 yen per copy, so it’s clearly overpriced.

Overall, we could see a trend of Nintendo Switch games being used for suspicious transactions, and we hope that the prohibition will help curtail fraudulent activities. We reached out to Mercari for comment and have not heard back as of publication time.

[Update 2022/05/06 12:43 JST]
We received a reply from Mercari saying that they can’t disclose any further information regarding the issue at hand. They intend to notify users through their official website and the Mercari app once they find a way to allow users to safely trade the products in question.