Dad Tricked Daughter With High Price of Game Console Repair to Teach Her an Important Life Lesson

Growing up, we might have felt frustrated when our parents didn’t allow us to do something, or even concealed some truths from us, like secretly throwing away our chou chou and leaving us wondering where it went.

It probably seemed mean at the time, but in retrospect, sometimes our parents may actually have been doing these things to educate us about life and the real world as a show of tough love.

Because what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, just as this father tried to teach his daughter.

Broken Nintendo Switch

One father with the username Barney took to Facebook on 10 Nov to share the story of how he taught his daughter a valuable lesson after she had scratched his Nintendo Switch, resulting in a small crack on the screen.

Image: Facebook (Barney)

Ouch, as a Switch owner, my heart hurts.

Wanting his daughter to take responsibility for the damage, the father requested her to pay for it, but did not disclose the cost of the repairs that he had already sourced for.

In truth, the repairs only cost $2.99, but he exaggerated and told her that it cost $5,000 when she asked how much it was.

Not believing the outrageous cost and her father’s obvious trick, the daughter proceeded to do her own research and discovered from a website that Nintendo prices screen repairs at $150.

She communicated this to her father, and they then negotiated for how much of the repair costs she would pay for. After she offered an initial $60, which he felt was barely enough, the duo bantered back and forth until arriving at a consensus of $88 and closed the deal with a virtual emoji handshake.

Image: Facebook (Barney)
Image: Facebook (Barney)

True to her word, the daughter paid him the $88 in the following days, which he proudly posed in a selfie having successfully “fooled” her.

Image: Facebook (Barney)

Tricked and Treated

You might be wondering, how could Nintendo Switch screen repairs be that cheap? If so, does that mean I don’t need to be so careful with my device since repairs cost about the price of a cai png?

No, life doesn’t work like that.

Screen repairs usually would cost hundreds of dollars, true to what Nintendo quoted, and could vary according to how bad the damage was. However, the damage that the father’s Nintendo Switch suffered from was but a mere case of the screen protector being scratched.

Thanks to Shopee’s 11.11 deals, he then managed to find a replacement screen protector for only $2.99 there.

Image: Facebook (Barney)

Of course, since he didn’t actually mean to scam his daughter of her money and wanted to teach her a lesson as a loving parent, he eventually revealed the real price of the repairs to her.

Upset by this revelation, she called him mean as she used her birthday money to pay for it.

However, he offered her a chance at redemption and getting the money back if she was able to reflect on what she did wrong and what she should have done to avoid paying more in this situation.

Image: Facebook (Barney)

With $88 at stake, of course nothing would stop her from writing an essay to get it back – but alas, school had other plans for her.

She then requested for an extended deadline while claiming she was busy with 90 pages of readings of home nursing in all caps, which her father agreed to in all caps as well to match her energy.

Image: Facebook (Barney)

Long Reflection Essay

After a few days, the daughter sent in her reflection piece, stating that she had overestimated the price of the repairs.

She wrote in the message that she assumed that the repairs cost $150 after seeing it on the Nintendo website and jumped to the conclusion that it would cost the same everywhere else too.

She also said that she failed to check other websites for credibility, which she should have done as well before estimating the price and coming to a conclusion.

Image: Facebook (Barney)

Referring to her father as “the scammer” jokingly, she explained that since he made a misleading statement that the repairs cost $5,000, she thus thought $150 was a reasonable and realistic price of the actual repair cost as it seemed to be in the hundreds range.

Image: Facebook (Barney)

Her father graded the essay after returning from his game of golf, adding that she should also have checked the damage, in which she would have found out that only the screen protector was affected and that it would not have cost that much.

Thankfully, he found it satisfactory enough to return her the cash.

Lifelong Lesson 

Needless to say, the daughter learnt her lesson, something that cannot be taught in school. After all, remember: the father didn’t break any law so he’s not a scammer. He’s merely showing his daughter how the real world works, when people can bully you without breaking any rules.

Moral of the story?

Learn how to fight back and not be bullied, because it might be a Nintendo Switch here, but life isn’t going to throw a problem that’s as small as a Nintendo Switch repair.

Featured Image: Facebook (Barney)