Memo to serial returners: They’re on to you.
Liberal rules that allowed customers to return just about anything just about anytime are no more at many retail chains across the country. It’s a classic case of abuse by a few spoiling the fun for everyone.
Costco Wholesale Corp., for instance, had one of the most generous policies around until it wised up to the occasional scoundrel who would “upgrade” a consumer electronic purchase, said Richard Galanti, chief financial officer for the Issaquah, Wash.-based warehouse chain.
For a chain with hundreds of stores, occasional abuse can add up. Galanti said the no-questions-asked policy was responsible for losses of more than $100 million a year — and noted that besides computers and MP3 players, people have been known to bring back containers of cole slaw pulled from their refrigerators and half-eaten bags of potato chips…
Kmart, Lowe’s Cos. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have installed computer systems that monitor how often individual customers return things and, as Consumer Reports magazine warned, may stop accepting returns from buy-and-bring-back addicts.
I doubt most stores will bust your chops over an item demonstrably defective. Apparently, the tipping point has been reached between accepting returns as service – and weevils abusing the process.
I vote with my feet. I’m much more likely to buy from a place like EMS which allows returns, with receipt, for any reason, even if the item is used and determined to be unsatisfactory to you, than I am to buy from a store that will not accept returns. This is the way capitalism should work. Don’t put up with bad policy. Buy elsewhere whenever possible. There usually is a choice.
Weird coincidence here..I have a mobo to return. Thankfully, (I think) I’ve never been addicted to this buy and return.
I’m waiting to see who these people are..ie; which segment/group they fall into..
In a few dark corners of the HiDef geek boards I’m known to frequent, there are a few of those whose habit is to buy three products in a category they’re interested in – in different stores – and comparison test them at home. Afterwards, returning the two they don’t prefer.
It may be “convenient; but, it ain’t funny. Sooner or later, the cost of doing business has to reflect that expense.
As noted, this is a case of the bad apples ruining it for everyone. Nowadays, stores look at you like a thief when you return just about anything. It didn’t used to be this way. But because there are those with no scruples who abuse the system, those with a legitimate reason to return merchandise are now inconvenienced or turned down outright.
It sucks. Bigtime.
What sucks even more is that the people who abuse the system think that’s their right and their privilege, and that anyone who doesn’t is a sucker. If you really want to vomit, hang around the bargain hunter websites for a while and see what types of primordial scum ooze temporarily from their holes to post about how they ripped off some retailer or other. Using returns as a means to a retail borrowing library is hardly the worst of it, either. Think: Altering/duplicating/counterfeiting coupons; resealing used merchandise and returning as new; printing UPC codes to replace the ones on merchandise (the replacement code scans at a lower price and corresponds to a different item); repeated attempts to do a bogus pricematch (e.g. to a store that doesn’t actually stock the item, or to an item that isn’t the same, or to a bogus scam website that is only setup to allow for pricematches), hoping that eventually you will find a CSR that is clueless enough to allow it.
And that doesn’t even being to consider grey area stuff like stacking coupon codes on websites where the codes were clearly not meant to stack, taking advantage of website coding mistakes, etc.
#3. Moss, I agree. When a retailer has to return an item to the manufacturer, they incur a 25% to 30% restock fee. If you are returning something just because you don’t like it, and once its open its considered used and cannot be resold as new, be prepared to pay the fee, anything else is unreasonable. The free ride is over for the abusers.
i never return some just because i don’t like it. only if there is a defect of some sort. that said i never provide the store with any personnel infomation. i rarely buy things on credit so i just show back up with the receipt and show how the product is broke and either exchange it or get cash back. i never tell them my name or show any id. they didn’t need it to sell it to me. i never take store credit either. it can be tricky. i know the law and my rights but i don’t want to be rude to the people having to deal with me.
#6
“i never tell them my name or show any id”
Not to attack or argue with you, but I’m curious why you don’t want them to know who you are?
I have taken things back that I felt were inferior to the advertising, but I generally only take things back that are broken.
Hmmmm. I seems to remember a news items about the worst example of this abuse, comming from a Bush White House aid.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/11/claude.allen.arrest/index.html
Bet he’ll be getting a pardon too, someday. Nice of some “weevil” making a six figure salary, to screw things up for the rest of us who don’t!
So, in other words, most stores are matching up to Target’s policy? Having worked there for about four years, and having worked at the guest service desk as well, you see a lot. Most people are just trying to get their money back on something they bought and didn’t use, or was already broken.
But then, there were…those guests. The ones who put an old Gamecube in a new GC’s box. Of course, we scanned the serial number of every system when sold. That, and one that “you just decided not to use” wouldn’t have dust caked on the fan ports.
Those who tried to return brands of clothing we don’t sell.
Those who tried to return opened multimedia materials. (We could only exchange them for the same item in the case of a defective product due to copyright liability)
And so on. Sure, the “Wal-Mart” style returns policy can be nice, but is so open to abuse, I just have to quote Rodney Carrington on this:
“These diapers already got shit in them!”
“We’re so sorry about that, run back an getchew another pack.”
“I ain’t bought diapers in three years.”
If I return something, it’s only because it doesn’t work. And usually it’s just an exchange. I’ve seen people try to return all kinds of things in all kinds of conditions. I worked in customer service for a cable company for several years and I know everyone loves to hate the cable company, but when it came to getting it put to them, the branch of the company I worked for really was all about “customer service” and people would routinely order pay per view and come in demanding that they have it credited because they never ordered it. And since this was a small branch in a fairly small town, by the time they got to a manager…they usually got the credit they wanted. I once had a husband and wife in front of me that had all kinds of adult programming that had been ordered and the wife was going on about how no one in her house ordered it. The guy was back behind her kind of looking anywhere but at me getting redder and redder in the face…he had obviously ordered it. The manager eventually credited it to them. Another time I had a woman bring in her remote and wanted to know if having roaches really bad could lead to false pay per view charges if the roaches were crawling on the remote. This is stuff you can’t make up.
Like I said, everyone loves to hate the cable company, me included, but it’s easy to know why they are so hard to deal with when about 40 percent of your day is spent dealing with people that are either 1. lying or 2. too stupid to know what their spouse or children are doing when they’re in bed or out shopping. I’m sure there are more of you guys out there with some real humdingers of a story to tell about people returning things.
#10 Steelcobra describes her experiences at the Target return desk. I’ve returned stuff to Target–maybe 0.1% of my total purchases there (i.e. very infrequently). Sometimes it goes OK. But then there’s the time I returned a Microsoft wireless controller that I had purchased as an open box item on the endcap (discounted). It didn’t work, but, as is usual for me, it took me quite some time to actually test it out and then to get around to returning it. But I had the receipt, and I was within Target’s return policy date (90 days). So the woman at the returns desk asks me why I’m returning it. I say it doesn’t work. She checks the contents (all there), eyes me with suspicion, and then, after first saying it’s not returnable, reverses herself but says she’ll only give me store credit. I ask why and she says that open box items are not returnable. (Nowhere in the store is that policy noted [she’s making it up as she goes along], and I add that the item wasn’t sold as an “open box” item, merely as a red tag clearance item). Now, I don’t really care about getting a credit slip, since I buy enough from Target that’s it not going to be an issue, but the principal here pisses me off royally: Because she thinks that somehow I’m trying to rip off the store, she’s gonna stick it to me. I said I wanted to talk to corporate about this, but of course it’s Saturday night and no one is home at corporate. So, after much aggravation, I took my credit voucher.
I am sure that the reason I had such a hassle is that all the crooks who try to pull a fast one had hardened this CSR to everyone. It still soured me, bigtime, on Target.
#7 – “i never tell them my name or show any id”
Not to attack or argue with you, but I’m curious why you don’t want them to know who you are?
I wonder why you would want them to know who you are. Personally, I find it easier to just lie and use fake names and addresses.
The very moment any amount of money is spent, at all, to send me a catalog… The second my name is sold to a third party who sends me an “exciting offer”… In my mind, an offense has been committed against me.
All of my things like grocery or gas station discount cards (of which I carry only one of each), is issued to Rufus T. Thunderpussy, who lives somewhere I can’t remember and has a phone I don’t recall.
I used to list real phone and address info because I thought it would be a hoot to get telemarketers who had to ask for Mr. Thunderpussy… But the novelty wore off quick.
I don’t believe that anyone is abusing the data those cards provide, that is, beyond the abuse of direct marketing, but I think the potential is there.
We live under the rule of a shadow government made up of Fortune 500 companies. The Federal and State governments are little more than ineffective advocacy agencies who ask permission, on our behalf sometimes, of our corporate masters to enact or repeal laws. So who is to say that the grocery store isn’t going to sell data to your employer’s health care provider about how much red meat or potato chips you buy? Can this data be used by the DEA to try and “guess” who might be running a drug lab? It might be you when you buy 10 pounds of baking soda to make model volcanoes for an 8th grade science class, and a red flag pops up on a DEA database.
These aren’t things that are happening. They are simply things that are possible with the technology we have… but the “authorities” have never given me a reason to trust them, so I will choose to assume the worst.
For those few reasons, and the fact that privacy is my absolute right (rights aren’t granted by governments, they are taken by individuals, and I take privacy as mine), and maybe a dozen other reasons I can’t think of, I don’t want companies to know who I am. Companies are just one in a long list of people and/or institutions who I prefer to remain anonymous with.
#13,
Ya fund my Rufus? Yippee. I bin looken fer that no good scundral for a long time. He done up and screwed the pooch and now she’s a haven puppies. He gotta come back and do hiz man thing and make it all rite.
I cin’t r’turn the pooch all swolled up like thet.
And have a Happy New Year
#14 – Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha 🙂