Return Policies Stink!
May 21, 2007 by Karen Weideman
Filed under shopping
My hubby was nice enough to pick up an ink cartridge for me for work. Fortunately, I found the same ink cartridge for half the price through a local guy. Today I went back to Best Buy to return my other ink cartridge. The lady told me she couldn’t take it back because it had been over 30 days. Huh? I had my receipt.
I asked to speak to a manager and instead I got a department supervisor. Basically, she took the ink cartridge over to the return desk and talked the person at the no-customer service desk. She came back over and told me they couldn’t return the ink cartridge because it had been over 30 days. She offered to give me a store credit and I told her I didn’t want a store credit. I wanted my money back. She informed me that she was doing me a favor by giving me a store credit. A favor???? Really, a favor? I could hardly believe she said that. Apparently, I seemed unbelieving so she told me it was a favor two more times. I informed her that most stores have a 90 day return policy and that I had my receipt. These things didn’t matter to her.
A few months ago I warned you about the dangers of not saving your receipt. Apparently, even if you save your receipt, there are still plenty of hoops to jump through. Each store has their own policy, so you’d better know what that policy is before you leave the store; better yet, before you buy anything.
Have you had any horrible experiences returning things?
My wife and I actually had a worse incident at Best Buy, and we weren’t even technically returning anything.
A couple of years ago, we bought a Pokemon game for one of my little cousins. We got home that night and discovered that they had left the plastic security case on it, and also that the game was on sale in the next week’s ad, which started the next day. So, the next day, we went in to the customer service desk with the receipt and game in hand and asked for our price matching and to have them remove the case.
They stalled a bit on the price matching, despite the fact that we had the receipt in hand. So we stand there for a few minutes, and eventually overhear one of the people behind the desk asking for a “security count” of the game! We ask what’s going on and they very calmly explain to us that they need to do a count to make sure that, in essence, we didn’t steal the game. Naturally, I want to pitch a fit, but I also don’t want to draw attention to myself given that they’ve essentially already accused me of stealing, despite the fact that I have a receipt, and that I walked directly to the CS desk (which the security guard in the front confirms).
They come back after a few minutes and declare that their count was a couple off (!), but that they feel reasonably confident that we didn’t steal the game, so they remove the case for us and let us be on our way.
The kicker: On our way out, the employee who informed us of the results of the count actually asks us why we didn’t just pry the case off ourselves at home!
So yeah, no outrageous customer service encounter at Best Buy surprises me.
That really stinks!
I had another bad experience at Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving, but not that bad. One thing that bothers me is that I hardly ever shop at Best Buy and this is two consecutive bad experiences I’ve had.
Thanks for sharing.
I always hate Target. If you register there for a baby or wedding shower this is something you should know. Even with a receipt they will only allow exchanges within the department. So, if its a bottle you can’t get onesies instead, never mind laundry detergent or a maternity shirt. Not the same departments. They also throw a holy fit if the amounts are not exactly the same. They will not give you $1.50, you MUST buy a soda and candy bar.
It totally pisses me off every time.
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I think every store has their horror stories, particularly large chains (ie. Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc.) because let us be honest, they rarely have the best and brightest working there because of the horrible way they treat their workers. Yes you can at times get a good person working there, but often if they are really good, they will be on to another position at another company soon enough.
As for your particular situation, I guess because I deal with technology purchases so often, the policy did not surprise me. Because of constant pricing pressure and changes in the “gadget” market, it is common for those items to have special (shorter) return policies. 30 Days is actually quite common and is actually down to 14 (and even 7 at CompUSA at one point before they started shutting down their stores). So yes, in this scenario it is really beneficial to know the return policy.
I was actually surprise that she was willing to do you a “favor” with the credit. Some will not even do that.
Tracee, I wrote about my crazy Target experience earlier in another post. The link for it is above in the post.
I’m sure we all have crazy return stories we can share.