I returned an opened software program to Walmart because I played it a little and did not like it. I did not believe I would get my money back, but I took a chance.
Me: Yes, I’d like to retur…
Customer Service Rep (interrupting): Ok sir, here’s your money.
Me: Uhhh, don’t you want me to give you a reason?
CSR: No. Have a nice day. Next.
I’ve had good experiences with Target, but my mother had one that pissed me off.
She bought a copy of “The Sims 2” for her grandchildren to play at her house. By mistake, she picked up the DVD version. Her computer does not have a DVD player. She only realized this after she opened the box and tried to install it.
Target also stocks the CD version. They would not let her exchange the DVD version for the CD version.
Come on… I understand the “no open software returns” rule, but exchanging a DVD version for a CD version? That’s crazy.
I’d like to return this jacket.
May I ask why sir?
No, no reason.
Well, there has to be a reason.
OK, for spite.
I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to accept returns for spite.
/Seinfeld
I purchased a DVD from Target, and when I opened it, there was no disc. I took it back with receipt the next day, and they told me that I needed to purchase the same exact item and I should do it immediately. Except they didn’t have the same item, as it was pretty popular. I said I would be happy to take a gift card, but the woman told me I’d need to get something in that same department (she was implying that I needed to do that that day, but I don’t think she ever actually said that). I told her I didn’t want to purchase anything from that department other than the item they didn’t have.
I worked my way up three managers, and the last one tried to convince me to drive to another Target to purchase the same DVD. I wasn’t ever bitchy, but I did stand my ground on that one. There’s no way they were gonna make me drive across town to get an item that was defective because they were out of stock.
I did get the gift card. That was really the only time I’ve ever had a problem with their return policy. I don’t have a beef with needing the receipt or not getting change back on a gift card. But to require same-department purchases (I don’t know about same prices, I have never seen that happen) is a bit ridiculous.
I’ve heard conflicting things about Target’s return policy.
On one hand, there’s my mom who’s co-worker had problems returning something. I dunno what the circumstances were…maybe a lost reciept. I think now her office is under the impression that Target won’t accept returns on ANY opened item (???) and every time we go to Target she tells me “I have to be careful. Target has such a bad return policy.”
On the other hand, my friends were having a baby (they live in Ohio) and ended up having a huge baby shower in Georgia…and no one thought about how they were going to get all of their crap home (either in their Accord or on an airplane). They had registered at Target so after the shower they took all the stuff they couldn’t carry home - some with reciepts and some not - back to Target in Georgia and got gift cards. When they got back to Ohio they re-purchased everything they’d returned and sent off their thank-you cards. Anything they didn’t want to re-purchase, they didn’t, and bought diapers with the rest of the $$.
Here’s my crappy Target story, since we’re in the Pit:
I have a friend that I’m not very close with, but he got married in March. Him and his fiance had come to my birthday party the year before and gave me a movie gift cert, so I thought it’d be nice to give them a gift. I checked their registry on Target.com and there was nothing left that I wanted to buy, so I opted for $30 in gift certificates ($10 gift certs were an option on their registry). I put in QTY = 3 and then checked out. I was happy to see that I was able to send right to the bride, even though her address was obscured (for safety) since I didn’t know it.
I was NOT happy to see that instead of sending one $30 gift card, Target made me send 3 $10 gift cards. And write a gift message for each. I figured that was better than nothing so I made my purchase.
When I’m done I get a notice in email that my GIFT CARDS were on BACKORDER and will be sent as soon as possible. GIFT CARDS ON BACKORDER. Those fucking plastic things that they have stacks and stacks of at every register in every Target were on backorder.
Whatever. I figure any gift is better than none, and the couple were easy going and would appreciate it no matter when it got there.
But…once a month for three months after my purchase I got an email from Target saying my order was partially shipped. One $10 gift card with a dis-connected gift message (I assumed they’d be sent together) each month for 3 months. 3 months after they got married.
I finally got a chance to talk to the groom and luckilly they thought it was kind of funny. They thought maybe I’d be sending them $10/mo for the rest of their lives. What a stupid fucking way to run your business, though.
Hmmmm…that was a bit long-ish. my bad.
Actually, I’ve heard that when you order a physical gift card online (as opposed to just an access code) it is often backordered because not many people buy gift cards online this way. Most people buy the card at the store (where they do have them in all increments) and slip it in a card envelope. It’s unusual, so they’re stumped when it happens. At least, I’ve heard this about Amazon. Next time I would buy the card in the store or just send them a gift card access code without the physical card. Although the latter is hardly giftlike in its presentation.
As someone who does not appreciate other people harshing my shit before I even get it, I appreciate these return policies. There is nothing more skank-ass than going to Walmart (which I don’t, anymore) and seeing that half the shirts have sweat stains under the pits. Or that there is food in the purses. Or scratches on my “new” DVDs. I’ve never seen anything in Target that looks like it spent a solid week at someone else’s house before I got to it. If that takes a little frustration at the exchange counter, so be it. More reason why people should get gift receipts.
No, I’ve never really been bold enough to do the “let me talk to your manager”, I think my parents embarassed me too much doing this when I went places with them. But I should learn to.
My wife informs me that even though I’m boycotting Target, I will be going with her shortly to get pictures taken of our son…at Target 
So I gotta do what she says. Maybe I’ll bring that up this time about the odd pricing return policy.
Just popping in to add that I’ve never had any problems with Target’s return policy, either. My mother sends Target gift cards to my husband and I every Christmas, and sometimes we’ve returned things. Regarding the onesies; that is indeed very odd, and certainly doesn’t happen everywhere. We’ve returned many things and purchased things of greater value, and just paid the extra. Was it the manager who told you this, or a cashier or other service person? If they were new or didn’t fully understand the policy, maybe they winged it and gave you bad information. Not professional, but it happens.
I work at a small, locally owned consignment shop, and our return policies are similar in many ways, but some are even stricter. It protects us from people who abuse the system. Once you’ve seen the flip side of that particular coin, some policies begin to make much more sense.
The “must be from same department” thing would really cheese me off.
I can think of only two possible explainations:
-Each department is set up as it’s own buisiness within a buisness, and they are all in competition.
-There was, at some point, a problem with theives stealing poorly secured merchandise and exchanging it for “we keep it in a locked cabinet behind a staffed sales counter” items.
In many ways this defeats some of the advantage of shopping at a department store.
The “must exchange each item for exactly one item of exactly the same price” thing would have me throwing a shit fit.
Someone was in a mood.
Either the OP did something to piss off the Target worker or the OP stumbled onto a worker who wanted to use their little bit of power to make someone suffer.
-Joe
They did much of that same crap to me a few weeks ago. I don’t think I will ever be able to understand all that transpired during that 45 minutes. My wife asked me to return some extra baby things as well. I even had the receipt. Things looked well when I walked up to the desk. The carefully looked over my receipt and then asked me for the credit hard the purchases were made on. That was my wife’s and I didn’t have it. They told me no deal. I have no idea why it is a problem just credit ting things back to the original credit card even if it isn’t physically present. They have the number in their system. I would like to see that gambit explained as well.
I asked for their phone and tried to locate my wife. She answered on her cell phone but she didn’t have the card with her. She talked to the returns person and he told her to just call back when she got home (while I stood there). A few more phone calls and they located the card. Swell right?
Things went screwy from there and they proposed some of the same bizarre solutions as they did to the OP. They told me to get baby stuff (although I think it just had to be more in total than the return). We didn’t need anything. After a bizarre back and forth, they convinced me to just go get some stuff anywhere that was more than the return and come run it by them and have them do a special check-out. I wandered the store and settled on some bags of pet food. I went back and got to wait in the returns line again until they could bless my most unorthodox request. They could have never refunded my return and charged me double for what I bought but there was no real way to tell at that point.
I think their strategy is just to have people experience their returns process once and only once and then just decide it is better to keep everything after that.
Target is just Kmart in a jogging suit.
Yeah, but it’s a classy jogging suit.
I was spurned by Target last weekend.
I was trying to return an ill-fitting shirt. I knew the date I had bought it, and I had lost the receipt, but the tags were still on it.
Here’s what happened:
If I had bought it on a credit card, she could run the card on her machine, look up the purchase somehow, and credit the $14.99 back to my card. By George, I had used a card, and I handed it over. She swiped the card, didn’t see the purchase (I told her the date even), and told me I must have paid cash.
Me: No, I didn’t pay in cash. It’s on that card.
Her: No, it’s not. But…well…OK, if you get something from the same department with the same price, you can exchange it.
Me: It is on that card, but OK, I’ll go make an exchange. Fine.
Her: You must have an NY driver’s license to do that.
Me: What the?? I have an out-of-state license.
Her: I could take a US Passport.
So now I have to make another trip to Target (20-minute walk each way!) with my freaking passport and buy another item in Women’s Clothing for $14.99.
Fuck that…I’ve loved Target for a long time, but if I can’t return stuff easily, the relationship is over.
So it seems like the best way to return stuff to Target w/o a reciept is to follow their whacky procedures by going to get shit of the exact same price in the exact same department and purchase it.
Then take the reciept from your new purchase and say “ok I want to return this stuff.”
Actually, I can think of a third explanation: the clerk was lazy and didn’t want to have to run it through the register. You get two items of exactly the same value from the same department, they can just hand the returned items to the restocking person and be done with it.
Still irresponsible with the inventory.
My wife and I registered at Target for our wedding last year. We had no trouble returning things that were either on our registry or we had a receipt. We did have a problem returning things that were not on our registry and we didn’t get a receipt for. But I blame the person who both shopped off of the registry AND didn’t include a receipt. That’s a double bad on their part. I can’t really blame Target.
I have some friends that shop almost exclusivly at wal-mart becuase of the return policy. They buy stuff, and then later, when they need money, they just return it. So, I kinda like Target’s policy.
I can confirm the “same department” part at least. My wife and I have experienced that twice already.
-FrL-
The last time I went to Target to return something, it was a couple of shirts I’d bought for my daughter, from the clearance rack. Turned out I had looked at the hanger instead of the actual garment for the size. :smack:
I’m usually smarter than that.
Anyway, I took the bag to the return counter, the girl there took my receipt, scanned it, scanned the items I was returning, and gave me a receipt to sign. I asked her if she needed my card to credit it back to, and she said no. Approximately two minutes, start to finish.
Of course, that was with a receipt. I did go in a couple of years ago with an outdated receipt and they would only give me store credit for the most recent sale price. It didn’t make me really happy, but it was my own fault for taking so long to get back there.
I have exchanged things where they just said, “Go get the one you want and we’ll trade it.”