# Is this Barnes & Noble crazy or am I? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 17, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982 "2010-07-17T01:53:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/81 "2010-07-17T22:44:22Z")
> [@](#): > > hahaha, because this is the Dope, home of many skeptics, and the story is unusual. I’ve worked in the music department of a B&N for six years, and the behavior of the employees you describe (especially the managers) just doesn’t make sense. Forgive my obvious bias, but generally it’s the customer who does crazy inexplicable shit, not the employees. Simply put, they can get away with it; we cannot. > > If you had your receipt and the DVDs weren’t damaged in any way, I just cannot imagine a manager refusing to sell you the DVDs at the lower price after refunding the original purchase. Even though accepting a return from the Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale is against stated policy, managers routinely make the exception in the interest of keeping you as a customer. And the idea that they would then refuse a sale, especially at this time of the year, especially in this economy, is utterly bizarre behavior unless there was some kind of extenuating circumstance. And yet that’s exactly what happened. Maybe the problem is that I didn’t lie. They may have been assuming, like some people here apparently do, that every transaction involves deceit. So when I walked in and told them openly what I was doing, they couldn’t accept it. If you follow the premise that everyone is trying a scam then your reaction to somebody who’s telling the truth will be think they must have a really good scam - one so subtle you can’t figure out where the trick is. So maybe I should have made up some lie. Then they could have spotted the lie and figured out, _“What he’s really trying to do is return these movies so he can buy them back them back at the sale price.”_ Then having satisfied their sense of how the world works, they would have gone ahead and done it. After which they could have hung around the break room saying _“Why do customers act like that? Why don’t they just tell us the truth? It’s like they feel they have to make us work to figure out what they really want.”_ ---
**Author:** ![pmh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@pmh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pmh)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/82 "2010-07-18T00:06:07Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo;12694339… Right now I’m half way tempted to return all of the DVD’s after the current sale ends and keep my money. _“There, you didn’t sell them to me for a third off. You didn’t sell them to me at a half off. You didn’t sell them at all.”_[/QUOTE] This is what should happen. Granted, it’s a small, futile gesture, but you should NOT let them profit from this behaviour. Even if it ends up costing you a bit more in the end. You should return the DVDs, and make sure the manager knows _exactly_ why they lost the sale. (And bonus points if you can tell him you’re spending your money with their nemesis Amazon instead.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/83 "2010-07-18T00:32:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Granted, it’s a small, futile gesture, but you should NOT let them profit from this behaviour. Even if it ends up costing you a bit more in the end. Maybe. But I’d rather avoid this outcome if possible. I’d prefer that all of us learned to act rationally rather than demonstrating that I can act more irrationally than they can. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/84 "2010-07-18T02:11:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Maybe the problem is that I didn’t lie. They may have been assuming, like some people here apparently do, that every transaction involves deceit. Speaking from experience, a sizable number of transactions involving returns or exchanges DO involve deceit. But I don’t recommend lying. First, because it’s generally not necessary. Managers will usually give you what you want whether you are lying, telling the truth, or so batshit crazy that you can’t tell the difference. It’s not your story that they are basing their managerial decision on, it’s what you are asking them to do and whether or not they are allowed to do it. Your lies are unlikely to help you, and they may hurt you. And we can tell when people are lying. Not because we’re all gifted mentalists, but because A. most people are not very good liars B. everybody tells the same lies to us, making them even easier to spot and C. we have a lot of data at our disposal that the customer doesn’t to verify the details of their story. That said, I don’t know why they refused your request. My managers would have done it, and I would have supported their decision. It’s a reasonable request, one that we see frequently, and you had your receipt. Again, I suspect there is some aspect of the story you left out. I’m not accusing you of lying, merely omitting a detail that would be significant to the employees and not to you. But I honestly can’t think of anything. I’d offer to call up the store and ask them what happened, but they probably wouldn’t tell me and I’d almost certainly get in trouble if things went bad. Even posting here about this is enough to get me fired, to be honest. My advice is for you to go back to the store, ask to speak with the store manager, and be honest about what you want. If you are polite yet firm, they’ll probably help you. If they still refuse, well… 33% off Criterion DVDs is still a pretty good deal. It’s not worth stressing out over it. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/85 "2010-07-18T02:56:38Z")
Here’s my take on it and the only possible valid explanation I can think of. B&N gets a bunch of criterion dvds to sell. Dozens of titles. At first they sell them at full price. The popular and high demand ones sell first at full price. Once those are gone B&N now has some “second tier” (for lack of a better term) criterion titles that aren’t moving. To move these they run a buy-two-get-one sale on them. They sell a bunch of them and what’s left over are the “third tier” titles that nobody really wants. In a last ditch effort to move these they run a 50% off sale on them. So now they have someone who bought some “second tier” titles during the previous sale wanting to get the new sale price of what the hard-to-move titles are going for. Now the only way I can think if this was really what happened is if these titles were unavailable when you returned to the store. You’d have to supply that info. It’d be similar to a farmer selling apples on day one for $1 an apple. People come and buy the nicest most perfect select ones first. On day two he has to drop the price to 50 cents since they’ve been pretty well picked over. By day three the price goes down to 25 cents cause all that’s left are the bruised ones nobody wants and he has to price them to move. A customer returns who bought yesterdays apples and wants to rebuy them for 25 cents a pop. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/86 "2010-07-18T04:33:43Z")
I don’t think we have B&N in Canada (at least I’ve never been in one) and I’m sort of glad because if this is their policy, it’s absurd. Probably every store I shop at does a price difference refund within the return period. If a store has no return period (i.e. some small clothing shops will only allow exchanges) then not so much. I can’t really imagine a CSR arguing the point, actually. Totally nuts! And, uh, yah, **EP** , you’re a gem. Don’t you go changing. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/87 "2010-07-18T05:09:18Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Here’s my take on it and the only possible valid explanation I can think of. > B&N gets a bunch of criterion dvds to sell. Dozens of titles. > At first they sell them at full price. The popular and high demand ones sell first at full price. Once those are gone B&N now has some “second tier” (for lack of a better term) criterion titles that aren’t moving. To move these they run a buy-two-get-one sale on them. They sell a bunch of them and what’s left over are the “third tier” titles that nobody really wants. In a last ditch effort to move these they run a 50% off sale on them. > So now they have someone who bought some “second tier” titles during the previous sale wanting to get the new sale price of what the hard-to-move titles are going for. > Now the only way I can think if this was really what happened is if these titles were unavailable when you returned to the store. You’d have to supply that info. There’s another option. Their DVD dealer for these movies is selling them to B&N at a discounted price of 1/3rd off (or whatever it works out to so they can sell them for 1/3rd off). These movies are B2G1. Later, said dealer sells more movies to B&N for half off and they run the new sale. So you wanting to get the refund is costing them money if they wind up selling them below cost. However, with the small amount of people that will ask for a refund compared to how many they sell, I’d be surprised if they would have a problem with it. There could also be a similar issue if their dealer works on a consignment basis and their inventory system can’t handle it easily. Again, I would assume the manager would have a way of making it happen. > [@](#): > > It’d be similar to a farmer selling apples on day one for $1 an apple. People come and buy the nicest most perfect select ones first. On day two he has to drop the price to 50 cents since they’ve been pretty well picked over. By day three the price goes down to 25 cents cause all that’s left are the bruised ones nobody wants and he has to price them to move. A customer returns who bought yesterdays apples and wants to rebuy them for 25 cents a pop. At my store, from time to time (once a month or so) we’ll have a pallet of bananas ripen waaay to fast so we’ll sell them very cheap (10 pound bag for $1) just to get rid of them. We constantly have people asking if we have any over ripe bananas that they can buy at that price. I’ll always remember the person who asked that question and upon hearing that we didn’t have any asked us, in all seriousness, if we could put 10 pounds in a bag for him and then he could come back in a few days when they’re over ripe and buy them for $1. Ummm, no. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/88 "2010-07-18T05:16:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Here’s my take on it and the only possible valid explanation I can think of. > B&N gets a bunch of criterion dvds to sell. Dozens of titles. > At first they sell them at full price. The popular and high demand ones sell first at full price. Once those are gone B&N now has some “second tier” (for lack of a better term) criterion titles that aren’t moving. To move these they run a buy-two-get-one sale on them. They sell a bunch of them and what’s left over are the “third tier” titles that nobody really wants. In a last ditch effort to move these they run a 50% off sale on them. > So now they have someone who bought some “second tier” titles during the previous sale wanting to get the new sale price of what the hard-to-move titles are going for. > Now the only way I can think if this was really what happened is if these titles were unavailable when you returned to the store. You’d have to supply that info. No, I don’t think it was anything unusual about the supply of DVD’s. It’s not like it’s a local sale - every Barnes and Noble in the country is having the same sales, including their online site. I think it’s just part of their regular cycle of sales. They’ve had other buy 2, get 1 free sales and other half-off Criterion sales. I think it’s just something they do to move stock. And obviously it works - when they have these good sales I buy items I’ve been looking over. If it wasn’t for the sale, I’d have held off. And I’m sure this is true for lots of other people. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/89 "2010-07-18T05:22:54Z")
> [@](#): > > There’s another option. Their DVD dealer for these movies is selling them to B&N at a discounted price of 1/3rd off (or whatever it works out to so they can sell them for 1/3rd off). These movies are B2G1. Later, said dealer sells more movies to B&N for half off and they run the new sale. So you wanting to get the refund is costing them money if they wind up selling them below cost. However, with the small amount of people that will ask for a refund compared to how many they sell, I’d be surprised if they would have a problem with it. > There could also be a similar issue if their dealer works on a consignment basis and their inventory system can’t handle it easily. Again, I would assume the manager would have a way of making it happen. I may be wrong on this (hazel-rah could probably help on this one) but as I recall Barnes and Noble owns their distributor. A few years back they bought the world’s biggest book distributor, a formerly independent company that sold books, movies, and other products to bookstores like Barnes and Noble, Borders, and other bookstores. So when Barnes and Noble buys movies from its distributor, it’s buying them from itself (or at least it’s buying them from another division of the same corporation). ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/90 "2010-07-18T05:25:09Z")
If it was my decision I wouldn’t have done the transaction for you. You were happy with the price at purchase, you were happy with the product, you don’t get to return it just because we are selling later at a lower price. Naturally, if we have a “no questions asked” return policy, I will return the things, and refund your money. You will then be welcome to repurchase them AFTER I put them back on the shelf to give other people “fair chance” to take advantage of the sale. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/91 "2010-07-18T06:23:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I may be wrong on this (hazel-rah could probably help on this one) but as I recall Barnes and Noble owns their distributor. B&N uses multiple distributors, some of whom they own, some of whom they do not. DVDs come from both kinds of distributors. As for the speculation about pricing agreements with distributors having some bearing on the actions of managers regarding sale returns… no. If such agreements exist, management at the store level is unaware of them and thus it is not a factor in their decisions. We get the terms of the promotion, not the reasoning behind the terms. **Little Nemo** is, broadly speaking, correct. These sales happen during periods when sales are traditionally low. Their purpose is not to clear stock, it’s just to generate sales at a time when sales are low. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/92 "2010-07-18T11:17:31Z")
> [@El\_Presidente](#): > > With the clerk thinking he/she did you a favor, since they presumed you were a fan of Criterion DVDs. Barnes and Noble has no obligation whatsoever to let you know before you make their purchase that they are having a sale. > > That’s because they realized you were scamming them. > > Then why didn’t you? > > They would probably have been better off if you did, since obviously you sound like a bit of a pain in the ass. > > I work in customer service, and have to put up with people like this all the time. You made a conscious, educated decision when you bought the DVDs and got the third one for free, or whatever. The clerk went out of his/her way to let you know about an upcoming sale. > > No good deed goes unpunished, as a week later, there you are, wasting valuable time with three levels of management to try and screw Barnes and Noble out of 10 bucks. This was probably going on while there were ten people in line behind you, probably had about 1000 things to do that day, but your petty complaint torpedoed their day. > > If they said yes, then, what is to stop you 6 months later from showing up with your unused DVDs to try and con them into another sale? > > I bet if the clerk DIDNT tell you, and you found about the sale after it was over, you’d probably call the store to complain, as well. > > My advice is this: put your DVDs in your DVD player. Watch them. Get over it. > > Stop being a freeloader. This is why so many people in customer service are nasty to customers—they just cant take people like you anymore. Well, aren’t _you_ just a ray of sunshine! ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/93 "2010-07-18T11:25:51Z")
> [@El\_Presidente](#): > > I also raised my eyebrows over the “three levels of management” deal but let it go, Now I’m curious: > > So, you really didn’t talk to “three levels” of management. If I have this story straight, you spoke to: > > 1. The clerk (probably with several people in line behind you patiently waiting to make their legitimate purchases) > > 2. The “guy who showed up” after the clerk made a call > > 3. The “guy who showed up” after the clerk (or the first “manager”) made a second call > > 4. The “guy who showed up” after the clerk (or Manager 1 or 2) made a call (there’s no female managers at Barnes & Noble, apparently) > > So, in other words, after the first manager said “no”, you made these poor bastards call for three other managers at the same level? Or your just assuming that Manager #2 outranked 1 and 3 outranked 2? > > How many levels of management can there possibly be at one Barnes and Noble? I need more details, this sounds obtuse. > > How long did you hold up the entire store over this? I imagine the now, probably 20 other people in line were getting pissed at you about this. No, really, time for you to get out of the customer service field altogether. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/94 "2010-07-18T11:28:11Z")
> [@El\_Presidente](#): > > No not really, since it is simply someone puffing out their chest and writing their fantasy of how they’d like to teach a retail store some sort of lesson. The only way you’d have free time to do all that would be if you didn’t have a job. > > In your dreams. Tell me, do you masturbate as you’re typing up these gems that you then post? ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/95 "2010-07-18T12:46:51Z")
n00b wars! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![manila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@manila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manila)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/96 "2010-07-18T13:08:26Z")
I don’t fully understand the pile on here of El Presidente. Particularly that last post regarding masturbating, but I guess thats the pit. But also I don’t understand that if you accept one sales deal which is a ‘special’ that is, the buy two get one free, can you then take advantage of another special, that is, the reduced price? And if after that the unsold items in the sale end up in the 99 cent bin can you continue to nickel and dime them to that level. Note I am not commenting on whether its ‘ardent budgeting’ or penny pinching. But where is the line drawn in these cases? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/97 "2010-07-18T14:30:54Z")
> [@El\_Presidente](#): > > I work in customer service, and have to put up with people like this all the time. You made a conscious, educated decision when you bought the DVDs and got the third one for free, or whatever. The clerk went out of his/her way to let you know about an upcoming sale. If you work in customer service and don’t understand why this customer is right, the store is wrong and was stupid to boot, then you must suck at your job. I worked retail for over 20 years. They were crazy and the customer was right. There was no scam. > [@](#): > > If they said yes, then, what is to stop you 6 months later from showing up with your unused DVDs to try and con them into another sale? How about a time limit on return policies and our any possible price matching policy which is pretty dam common. You sure you work in customer service because I’m thinking you’re making that up to jump n here and dump on someone ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/98 "2010-07-18T14:56:22Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I know. Some of you are saying it doesn’t have to be an either/or issue. > > Barnes & Noble was having a sale on DVD’s last month. If you bought two, you got a third one of equal or lesser value for free. Which is essentially a third off if you pick them right. > > I bought six DVD’s last week that happened to all be Criterion DVD’s. After I checked out the clerk told me that they would be having a sale on Criterion DVD’s the following week with all of them being half off. > > I was a little annoyed he waited until after I had checked out to tell me the items that I had just bought were going on sale the following week. But I figured it was no big deal. I just left all of the DVD’s and the receipt in the bag in my car. > > Today I went back to the same Barnes and Noble. I confirmed that I could return them all for the price I had paid for them. So I said I wanted to return them all and then buy them all back at the sales price. > > And they said I couldn’t do that. I went through three levels of managers and they all refused. > > They all agreed I could return the DVD’s and get my money back. And they obviously agreed I could buy DVD’s at the sales price. They even agreed that if I returned the DVD’s I had bought they would just reshelf them and put them back for sale. But they said I couldn’t buy back the same DVD’s I returned. > > Obviously I could have gotten around this. I could return the DVD’s and then sneak back into the store in disguise a few hours later and buy them back. I could return the DVD’s at one store and buy the same movies at another store. I could give somebody else the money and have them buy the DVD’s for me. > > But this was just so stupid. Can anyone come up with any reason why this policy would make any sense? Right now I’m half way tempted to return all of the DVD’s after the current sale ends and keep my money. _“There, you didn’t sell them to me for a third off. You didn’t sell them to me at a half off. You didn’t sell them at all.”_ They were crazy, and stupid, and doing a bad job in terms of customer service and good will. You are correct. I have over 20 years experience in retail with some major retailers and this would be a bad call on thier part by any standard. Couple of things Some companies don’t have a price matching policy and some do and they very in details, but they need to understand that thier return policy becomes a default price matching poicy within the store as in the exact example you are giving. The clerk made a mistake{even though well intentioned} by telling you about the sale. Stores want to make the most profit they can reasonably make today. In general you don’t avoid a sale for more money today by telling a customer it’s on sale next week when you’ll make less profit. If they find out you honor your store return policies with a smile, you thank them for thier patronage and you allow them to save a couple of bucks. I can’t believe anyone with any retail sense or in upper management would encourage alienating a customer over a couple of bucks when they are making a perfectly reasonable request. I can’t imagine they have some official policy about not allowing customers to buy the the same item they just returned for less. Maybe they do, I’ve seen some stupid policies over the years. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/99 "2010-07-18T15:00:13Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > This is really simple. Ir isn’t even crazy, though it’s pretty stupid. They are viewing this as one complicated transaction, and their accounting/cash register software can’t process it. > > The can’t push the right buttons to make it happen. The cashier who would give you credit for the return is probably not the same person who would re-enter the items into inventory to prepare them for resale. I doubt it. Every POP software system I’ve ever used has a simple way to handle this type of transacction. even if you have to do two easy transactions . one a return and one a sale, it’s simple. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982/100 "2010-07-18T15:05:42Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …is this another one of those bizarre American-centric things? Let me get something straight: you bought something on special, found out that it would be cheaper next week, bought it anyway, then went back the week after to get a bigger discount? where are you from? Do they have return policies or price mtching? No doubt the American consumer is spolied rotten but the OP dod nothing wrong by taking advantage of a sale. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-barnes-noble-crazy-or-am-i/546982.md?page=6)