I don’t think anyone’s really up in arms about people making use of generous return policies for legitimate reasons- products with lifetime warranties that wear out are fine.
But there’s a moral/ethical line that a lot of people cross with respect to these policies. It’s not the use of the policies that gets us up in arms, it’s the exploitation.
For example, if someone buys a vacuum sealer, uses it for a month as a normal user, and the thing craps out, then they’re perfectly entitled to take it back to the store- that’s what the return policy is for.
But if the guy buys it with the knowledge that it’s not meant for semi-commercial levels of use, and with the intention of over-using it, wearing it out, and returning it for a full refund, that’s exploitation. The sealer wasn’t defective; it was worn out, and this clown is returning it even though there wasn’t anything wrong with it.
Or, someone who goes and buys a basket full of stuff at Trader Joe’s, eats half of everything, and returns it all because “they didn’t like it”. TJ’s will honor that, but that’s not what the policy’s intended for. It’s really meant probably as a sop to the customer who’s somewhat risk-averse and price-sensitive, so that if they try something and don’t like it, they’ll still continue to try random things, rather than shut down and quit.
To be clear, the stores don’t really suffer, or they’d tighten up their return policies. But nonetheless, it’s beyond shady to try and game stores’ return policies like this.
My dear grandmother, who was the salt of the earth, and not wealthy. If she had a special occasion that involved dressing up, she would by a fancy dress, leave the tags on, and wear it for the evening. Then, she would return it the next day.
IME, most big box retailers charge a restocking fee for returns on major electronics (including PCs.) So they probably actually turned a slight profit off the 10% he didn’t get back.
What places like REI found out was that this didn’t hold true. There were way too many people abusing the system, and for big ticket items, for them to retain it in the original form. LL Bean has stated that they get a huge boost to their reputation and sales that any losses are minor in comparison. But LL Bean is in a slightly different niche than REI, and certainly in a different market than Walmart.
It can work out to the store’s benefit, but it appears that for some markets the abuse of satisfaction guaranteed option has changed the equation.
But the store can’t sell that computer as new once it’s been returned. So it has to be returned to the manufacturer, checked over and sold as a refurbished unit (at a discount). I doubt the ten-percent restocking fee covers those expenses.
For less than the price of one of their pair of knee-highs though, I recently bought 20 pair of cotton knee-highs. The cotton ones will last me about 10 years, if I manage to hold onto them that long. So yes, of course it’s OK to exchange them. That’s what they are selling!
A lot of folks have brought up REI. What you might not know is that they also have an annual attic sale, where they get their money back on that returned equipment. It’s discounted, but not ultra-deeply discounted. I’m sure they are still making a pretty good profit. And did I mention that the attic sale is a mad-house? Folks who normally can’t afford the brands they want come crashing in, and the stock is seriously depleted within a couple of hours. Weep not for REI, my friends!
My multi-complaint experience with Ben and Jerry’s: Last year I bought some ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. It was Coffee Toffee Crunch, and they had recently changed their toffee supplier. It was truly awful! The toffee tasted like it had been made with grassy soy or canola oil instead of with butter. Blech!
I was super disappointed as that has always been my favorite flavor (back when it was Coffee Heath Bar Crunch) so I wrote them an e-mail expressing my disappointment and telling them what seemed to be wrong. Canvassing my fellow addicts, I found they all hated it too, so it wasn’t just me.
Ben and Jerry’s sent me a coupon, and after a few months I spent it on another carton, in the hopes that they had either fixed the problem, or the first one had been from a bad batch.
Wrong, still awful. So I wrote them again. I specifically said I didn’t want anything from them this time, just wanted them to know that I’d given it another try, and it was really quite icky. (I truly cannot fathom how this got through their Q&A or why it’s still for sale.)
In return they sent me a very nice letter of apology. They also sent three or four (? don’t recall) coupons, and had some of their expert tasters recommend similar flavor profiles I might like. It was a very cute letter, and they added in a brochure listing the full flavor line-up, which the household perused at length.
I spent the coupons on a few of the flavors (and bought a few more besides) then had a little evening dessert/tasting for some of the folks who helped me move. Total win-win, and we all walked away still loving Ben and Jerry’s. They ended up with six or seven customers for life.
I offer a satisfaction guaranteed, it is abused a little but more than one person is on a list that corporate provides. It is a do not sell to this person list. It is hard to get on the list and one person complained 60 times in one year to get on it.
It does, as long as customers can’t scam you forever. Those aren’t even really customers. We got a notice about a lady who was taking pizza boxes out of dumpsters and demanding refunds. She’d done this to about ten stores. At some point you have to cut people off. Guarantees are for dissatisfied customers, not very uncreative people who can’t find a better con.
L.L. Bean does what Dewey Finn said: they record your returns. Return too much and they refuse and give you a number for “Loss Prevention.”
My roommate in college was from Columbus, OH, where there’s (was?) an LLBean outlet that sold stuff for like 10% of original retail. The tags were X-ed out with sharpie, which carpet cleaner will apparently remove. He’d buy down parkas for $20 and return them in Ann Arbor for $100-$140 each (lowest price they’d been in real stores).
He eventually was banned from future returns. This was about 1995.
This is the bane of Ebay! They pretty much sanction theft and offer several ways to accomplish theft. :eek: MANY buyers want to buy used/broken/heavily discounted items and then decide to complain and return it rather than be responsible for their actions. Yes, there are bad sellers but there are certain areas I no longer consider listing in because of the quality of buyers you have to deal with.
But really cotton socks are a different category all together. These socks are for conditions where you should not be wearing cotton at all. But yes you could use their socks as your everyday socks as well.
As for their prices, they are pretty much in line with other well known brands such as smart wool and the like.
Back when my ex-husband was a McDonald’s manager, he had a guy come up to the counter and return one bite of a sandwich, saying it hadn’t been cooked properly. My ex went and made up a fresh sandwich, sliced off a bite-size piece, and served the piece to the guy in a new box. Problem solved!
A friend of mine that worked at Mountain Equipment Coop told the story of a lady who brought a toaster back insisting her husband had purchased it there. They gave her a refund, and they do not even sell toasters.
When I worked in electronics retail, the policy was that nothing with a writable drive could be resold at the store level if opened, because we couldn’t be sure of what ghastly things the original customer might have put on there. “You sold me an opened item” can be dealt with by compensating the customer; “you sold me a laptop for my daughter to use at school that had child pornography on it” becomes news.
Open computers were sent to a central depot to have the drive wiped and the OS reinstalled by a dedicated team before they were resold at a discount; open hard drives were returned to the manufacturer.
Way back when I was 21-22, I did a brief stint as a commissioned shoe salesman for Kinney Shoes. Kinney only sold its own brands, and had a return policy that forced us to give refunds or replacements on our brands, regardless of where they were purchased. This sucked because any returns were deducted from our personal commissions (not the full price, just the commission that would have been made had we sold the shoes). We had one “customer” that we eventually had to cut off, because she was in the business of “renting” shoes from us. But we weren’t allowed to just tell her to shop elsewhere. So we got to the point where, with every shoe she wanted to try on, we “just didn’t have it in her size”. Which didn’t require much lying - she was a woman with size 10 feet. When we got in shipments of new shoes, there was never more than one pair of a particular women’s style in size 10. So we were all, “Oh, I’m so sorry …”
My very first job was at the local Arby’s. One day, a woman came in and ordered a French Dip sandwich, “to go”. She took her food to her car, sat in the parking lot, and ate the entire sandwich. Then she came back in and demanded a refund, claiming that she’d been given coffee instead of au jus. That could not have happened, as the coffee came from … coffee pots … while the au jus was dispensed from a dedicated urn that could in no way be confused with the coffee pots. Such a mistake had never happened. My manager, to his credit, told that woman, “No, I don’t think so.” Of course, had she eaten only one bite and then returned with the cup of coffee that should have been au jus as evidence, that would have been one thing. But she ate the whole damned thing and then returned, empty-handed, demanding a refund with her outlandish story. Amateur.
Here’s one of my favorite articles, from the web site of PowerMax, an online Macintosh computer vendor in Oregon. They’re a great company - I’ve purchased two of my four Macs from them (a used PowerMac 7600 in 1998 or so, and my current iMac in 2008), and I’ve been quite satisfied with their service … and with their attitude. The article is about their business philosophies, but I really enjoyed the section about, “Is the Customer Always Right?” (scroll down):
To prove that we’re willing to wade into treacherous waters just to prove both our honesty and uniqueness, we’re going to publicly answer that question. Drum roll please… and yes, the real answer to that is “no.” Someone invented that trite phrase and it’s probably done more damage to retail/consumer relations than any other individual phrase in the English language. What? Heresy you say? Well, here’s why:
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Walmart is known for their generous return policy. If you don’t have a receipt, they will usually issue a gift card to you, which is cool because you’re gonna likely shop there for something again anyway. On the flip side, however, my wife recently bought a router from them which was obviously used when I opened the box. All the parts were there except for the manual and plastic coverings. When I returned it and asked the customer service person about why they sold it as new, she stated that they ask the customer upon returning the item if there is anything wrong with it, and if they say no, they re-stock it. I hope this is a bad policy at my Walmart and not a corporate issue.
I knew some guys who scammed K-Mart back in the day. They’d buy stuff on sale at other stores that K-Mart also sold. They’d remove the other store’s price sticker, then take it to K-Mart where they’d get the full non-sale price for it.
I did get an unexpected bonus from a recall return once. I bought some bologna at a buy-one-get-one-free price. Said food got recalled after I ate all but one slice of the first package. The store gave me back the full, non-sale price for each package.
