So, I have a hypothetical question for you folks. Let’s say a guy I know (we’ll call him Pregocommander for the sake of discussion) wishes to back up the hard drives of his computer for a reformat/reinstall, but doesn’t wish to buy a 250gig hard drive just to use it for the occassional backup. He is considering buying such a device from the Wal Mart electronics section, using it for the weekend, then after cleaning all his data off the drive, returning it to the store for a refund.
A number of people, most notably PregoMother and an online friend, warned him that Wal Mart may raise a fuss over the return of a fairly expensive ($130) piece of computer hardware.
Assuming that this is a standard policy, does anyone know what the return policies for other stores, such as Target or Staples, would be? I -er- my friend Prego would be quite interested in knowing.
Since this is a GQ thread, please limit responses to factual answers, and not rants on teh ebilness of Wal Mart.
What reason is he planning to give for returning it? That it doesn’t work?
I don’t know about Wal-Mart, but nowdays most Target stores will not allow such returns, only an exchange for another sample of the exact same item. (But actually, you can usually upgrade to a bigger, more expensive model when exchanging. The electronics department manager may have to approve that, but they will happily do so.)
If you argue a lot, you might be able to convince a manager to give you store credit instead of an exact exchange. But never a cash refund any more!
I know someone who returened a laptop about 1 week after he bought it. I was there when he did it, it was very simple, much more then I would think, along he lines of:
Him - I would like to exchange* this.
Wallmart person - Ok is there anything wrong with it
Him - yes it doesn’t work
W.P. - (openes box and makes appears to see if all parts are there), ok, (scans receipt), your credit card has been credited
He did want to exchange it for a identical one as a key didn’t always work, but what they did was refund it. He later bought the identical laptop but didn’t have too.
That’s basically what would happen. Go in, hand associate receipt, get refund. You don’t even have to lie and say that it didn’t work. You could just say that you don’t need it anymore. You’d still get a refund.
I work as the 3IC in an electronics store (not WalMart), and the Company Policy is that within 14 days, you can return pretty much anything you’ve bought for a full refund, provided the packaging is more or less intact and you have your receipt.
In theory, there’s supposed to be a $50 limit on this- ie, anything under $50 is an auto refund, no questions asked, and above that it’s supposed to be up to the discretion of the Store Manager.
In reality, if the Store Manager tells a customer who’s returning a $300 digital set top box- which is otherwise in perfect functioning order- simply because they don’t like the colour that they’re stuck with it, so tough luck, the customer goes straight to head office and complains about “poor customer service”, at which point we get a phone call from the area manager telling us to refund the item anyway. So, basically, for anything except software (about the only thing we can refuse to refund on), if you change your mind within 14 days, you can get your money back.
The idea behind this is so that people who buy AV cables or plugs/Toys for Billy and Katie, and discover they’ve got the wrong ones/Billy and Katie don’t like the toy, they can bring them back- which is fair enough, and more than reasonable.
What we actually get are people on holiday (and there seem to be a lot of them around, for some reason) “buying” TVs, DVD players, and memory cards or battery chargers for digital cameras, using them for the next week, then returning them the day before they’re due to fly back to Melbourne or Perth or New Zealand because they “don’t work” or “My wife already bought one” or whatever. End result? People getting free use of electronic stuff, which we then can’t re-sell at full price because it’s been opened- and that’s not even getting into the damage it does to our GP and Sales figures, or the wasted time because of all the running around and paperwork we have to do.
All that happens is that some other poor sod ends up with a product that may already have been opened- and probably used- simply because someone earlier felt like being “creative” with the refund policy*.
Wal-Mart is probably big enough not to care, but even so, it’s really not the done thing, you know?
*Where possible, we mark down the price and let a potential purchaser know that the item isn’t new, of course
WalMart is pretty cooperative in re to returns. You’ll need to scope out the store that has the least sharp CS Desk employee. I know that the WalMart in Pleasanton has a really sharp CS Supervisor and if I have an odd item to return, I’ll go to San Leandro. Some are more by-the-book than others. Some just don’t care.
Buy your harddrive, use it, clean it, and go back telling them that it was “used out of the box” - meaning someone else returned it dirty, defective or whatever. They’ll give you a store credit. Or cash if you have your receipt and you bitch enough. Make sure you use your righteous indignation. It’ll prolly work.
ps…my DH thinks this is totally skeevy behavior and chastises me when/if I attempt it.
Teh ebilness of Wal*Mart? How about rants on teh ebilness of PregoCommander?
Small wonder where he gets it from. PregoMother’s concern is that Wal*Mart will raise a fuss. In this scenario, that’s what she’s concerned over.
My wife used to work at Nordstrom. On Friday and Saturday before Easter, a bunch of criminals would come into the store, buy Easter church shoes for their kids, and then return them on Monday. You ought to go upstairs and ask your mom if she used to do that for you.
Since this thread was started with a wink at ethical conduct, and will only continue to draw responses that either pit the unethical conduct or facilitate it, I’m closing this one.
