That’s correct, it is a business calculation, and I think the execs who put that in place didn’t anticipate the problem it would become. I remember a manager telling me, “We’ve spent the last 20 years teaching people that certain behaviors are tolerated and they expect it. It will take time to teach them things have changed.”
What I’ve noticed is that bad behavior, and exploitation of certain policies increases over time until it requires a policy change , in which case the honest folks are inconvenienced because of the shits.
Lot’s of major retailers have had to tighten their return policies because of widespread costly abuse.
Rent for free was always a pet peeve of mine. People buy something they only need occasionally, use it and then return it with some complaint. Electronics, lawn and garden, sporting goods. It was pretty predictable.
Business decision or not, it’s still frustrating for the people on the front lines who witness the abuse. So..those fuckers still get a pitting.
I sold computers at Sears many years ago, during the Packard Bell days. Their return policy was actually one year, although you only got a decreasing % back after 90 days {I think} Still, we had a few customers in the know who would keep a computer for 6 months, wait for the next big break through , and return /exchange, for an updated model.
I noticed in Best Buy a while back that several popular “rent for free” items now had a restocking fee.
One good thing about small a independent business, is that you can identify problem customers and just tell them to take their business elsewhere. It works until you have a personnel change and the newbie doesn’t know.
There are places that rent if you decide you don’t need to own a certain something. That’s what irritated me about the rent for free crap.
I love that story. It makes me smile just to imagine the look on the guys face when he first realized his terrible behavior was going to cost him.
I remember a couple at Sears wanting to return a portable camping toilet that they had used. It was back in it’s box and the salesperson assumed they hadn’t used it and stuck her hand in it for a disgusting surprise.
While I get your point, companies that do large volume like WalMart, or Amazon, are part of the problem. They are the ones that have such liberal return policies that it abuse will grow and grow until they have to address it.
Just yesterday we had a customer bring back an item that was obviously dropped or hit and broken in several places, insisting {not yelling , just repeating} that nobody dropped or hit it, it just broke, it was defective and should be replaced. Sorry buddy, you lose this one.
I hate those too but I think I understand why they went there. Cost for one thing, but also to let people see it without losing a fortune on display models. Sadly customers tend to ruin display models which can really add up. I’ve noticed that some of that packaging has little buttons now that will open it without destroying it.
Keeping something you haven’t paid for is theft and you are therefore profiting from their mistake. Granted, it’s a minor thing in the grand scheme of life, but you’re either dishonest or you’re not.
But I have paid money for it. Not to Amazon, sure, but I have paid for it at customs/for shipping. If that makes me dishonest, well I guess then I am dishonest. Mea culpa. You are telling me that if you were in the same situation, you would fork out the equivalent of the value of the item to send it back to the company (meaning you have now paid the equivalent of 3 of the item). Remember I have paid Amazon $10US and then paid the shipping company/customs almost $20US to bring the two cards here. I was not expecting the first card to ever turn up (it arrived more than 3 weeks after I ordered it with 2 day shipping).
You contact Amazon and offer them the opportunity to pay to pick it up. Then if they choose to, which they likely will not, you send the shipping information to customs and they refund your customs charges.
That was a great idea, thank you. I did contact them and they said based on my history and the cost of the item I could consider it a gift from them. My conscience is now clear :).
I’ve been reading notalwaysright.com lately (and slowly erroding my faith in humanity) and I notice that a large chunk of the time, the offending customer “storms out”. Or “goes off in a huff”.
:pAh I needed that, thank you! Please keep in mind this is customs and excise of Trinidad and Tobago we are talking about, you’ll need to spend at least four full business days of your time before someone emerges to give you a firm NO.
When I went to cash in a T&T government bond, they said they would mail me a check…in a little over six months!
To get a copy of a birth certificate one must show up at the time the doors are unlocked which means waiting in the dark in a line in a rough area(good luck getting there without a car) and if you are lucky you get a number. Now at some random point during the day this number will be called at random, hope you have a full day to wait and have good ears. Then you can go to the counter and present your filled out form for a birth certificate…um it says bring T&T government ID but only citizens can get that so…hope your clerk has a brain and will accept your passport or get ready to argue the blindingly obvious.
Customs will refund the money ahahaha.
Oh yea I forgot there is a magic thing that cuts through all this crap, its called “knowing people” so if you do well none of this applies.
My hubby is Trini, we got married here at the registry office. So they tell us to go collect our marriage certificate in 3 weeks (after we got married) - totally different building. Reach, take a number, wait 2 hours, get in line when they call your number to go to one windoew only for them to tell us that we have to pay $25 and come back in 5 working days to collect the certificate. Wait another hour in another line for the cashier and we were out of there. We still haven’t gone back for the certificate. Can’t face it!
Oh and even if Amazon would have picked up the tab to ship the memory card back to them, I wouldn’t have bothered with the customs thing. I know it would have been totally futile LOL>
We were buying a tent at a store once and found that a customer had done a bait-and-switch return. They had bought a small tent and a large tent (difference of about $75), and then returned the small one in the bag of the large one. I guess it would be hard to tell the difference between them without taking everything out. We only noticed something was amiss because we know tents are normally packed very tightly and this one wasn’t.
I wish, normally the opposite happens due to the thoughts I have here.
Glad it cleared your conscience though.