'Returnaholics'

[Nashida]

I spotted this article on the front page of AOL this morning.

Click Me!

I think the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was the woman who amassed $10k by just taking stuff from the shelves, walking up to the service desk and saying the manager could let her 'return' them without a receipt.

[Magpie]

And once again, a so-called "journalist" who has problems with the language. The term is "thief".

[BookstoreEscapee]

I once rang up a sale of about $100; the customer paid with a really old store credit (the first generation of the electronic store credit cards - I think we were on the third generation by that point; rather beat up, too). Normally when someone paid with a gift card or store credit I would glance at the receipt as I handed the card back and tell them how much was on it. This time, I glanced and did a double-take. After the $100 sale, there was still over $1000 (yes, thousand) left on the card.

Back when we did no-receipt returns, I had two teenage girls bring up a couple big art books to "return"...no bag or anything. I knew they took them off the shelf but I couldn't say anything. I went back after they were gone ... that section was pretty solidly filled, and lo and behold, there were two perfectly-sized holes on the shelf for the books!

I also had a "regular" back in my early days who racked up a stack of (paper) store credits nearly half an inch thick...I know this because we kept a copy (they were those triple-copy forms, so the paper was thinner than regular paper, too) and when we were building our case for banning him from returning I went through our file and pulled all the ones with his name on them. They only went back about a year and a half, I think.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

This is where spineless managers and "100% customer satisfaction guarantees" cause major problems. If businesses would only be less fearful to stand up to customers we wouldn't have these problems.

[Exaspera]

It's about darned time! I'm sick of paying for this crap.

[tropicsgoddess]

The term returnaholic makes it sound like as if that person is addicted to making store returns and gets a "kick" out of it...and it's like trying to polish a turd. A turd is still a turd no matter how you gussy it up.

[Ree]

The term returnaholic makes it sound like as if that person is addicted to making store returns and gets a "kick" out of it...

While the article is talking about fraudulent returns, I seriously think that "returnaholic" is a condition that does exist, though.

We have several customers that we just know, no matter what they buy, it's coming back to us.

There's one woman who is particularly bad, and she will often buy and return the same item several times before either finally buying it, or finally returning it, depending on the item.

For example, she had a set of special order dishes that ended up coming back to me to be returned to our warehouse, but there was this stupid Christmas train that was returned and bought again several times before she finally decided to keep it.

I honestly don't know what perverse thrill it gives them to take shit back after buying it.

On the other hand, if they were cheating us and making a buck on the returns, as the article discusses, I could see the attraction in it.