So glad I don't work the service desk

[Becks]

IPF, I know.

I just make sure that when I buy something, it's exactly what I need/want.

[sirwired]

I have mixed feelings about charging a restocking fee for electronic merchandise returned for refund.

On one hand, yeah, it sucks that the store has to take a hit selling (or returning to the manufacturer) open-box items from "renters". On the other hand, sometimes an item isn't defective, it just doesn't do what I want it to do, or doesn't do it well enough.

Case in point: After an MP3 player I owned died, I went in search of a new one. The first one I tried was defective. Some stores (*cough* NewEgg *cough*) will charge a restocking fee for a refund as opposed to an exchange. I had lost confidence in the player (subsequent net searches showed the problem I ran into was not uncommon), so I would have been pretty annoyed at getting charged a restocking fee. (I understand why NewEgg has the policy they do, given their target market, but it did almost bite me once for a product defective by design.) Best Buy did not charge me a restocking fee, so all was good there...

The 2nd one was not defective, in the broken hardware sense, but it WAS defective in the "stupidly-designed software" sense. As in, it was a pain in the rear to use. The store (BB) again took it back without a problem, even though it was packaged in one of those evil heat-sealed hand-slashing blister packs so it was definately not re-sellable at full price. (I ended up buying an iPod direct from Apple using my supplier discount.)

On the one hand, Best Buy had to take a hit selling the item to somebody else at a discount, which sucks for them, because it wasn't really their fault. On the other hand, they didn't have a display set up, so I couldn't try before buying. There were no online reviews of the thing at the time that mentioned the problems I found. How was I supposed to know that the item sucked prior to buying? I would be a bit annoyed at a restocking fee for that one, even if I understood why it was imposed.

Later, I bought some speakers that worked as promised, but I just couldn't get one pair to mount on my speaker stands without tipping over, and the other one I just couldn't get to sound right with my receiver. No fault of the products, just an error in judgement on my part. However, I'll bet those things were re-sold as open-box items, even though they were just fine. (I do take pains to return my items in as-close to resellable condition as I can.)

One solution would be for the stores to sell non-defective returns as new. Of course, if it is a heat-sealed blister pack, nobody is ever going to pay full price for it. The big problem with that solution is that unscrupulous managers looking to improve their numbers will then re-sell, at full price, items that are indeed defective, but that the employee behind the counter cannot get to break. (I never buy open-box electronics for this reason. I'd be extra annoyed if I bought a "new" item that had been returned and found it was, in fact, busted.)

Another solution, which is common at high-end A/V stores, is to let customers borrow displays overnight for a trial (secured w/ a credit card, and with ID check, of course). However, I can understand why that isn't going to work at a mass-market retailer.

SirWired

[Andara Bledin]

Of course, you could just do your research before you shell out the money for something.

If I'm buying tech, I'm going to make sure the tech I'm buying will do the things I want and with a minimum of fuss long before I ever get near the actual purchase.

I don't really have much sympathy for buyer's remorse. Even if the item in question is a piece of junk.

^-.-^

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We got a sheet of paper outlining the new refunds/return policy with our pay stubs this week. So here are the important parts:

• Merchandise must be returned with receipt or gift receipt, within 90 days of purchase, and must be in new condition, with all original packaging and accessories. Full purchase price will be refunded in a manner consistent with payment. Items returned with a gift receipt are refunded to a gift card
• If you do not have your receipt, your receipt can be looked up if you paid by credit card, debit card, or check.
• Electronics items must be returned within 30 days of purchase, with receipt, in new condition with original packaging and accessories as described above. If the item has been opened, a 15% restocking fee is charged.
• Laptop computers must be returned within 15 days, subject to the same requirements as above. A 15% restocking fee is charged if the item has been opened.

And there are a few other restrictions for things like prescription drugs, cell phones and prepaid cell phone cards, gift cards, etc.

One more thing--the signs we're supposed to put up behind the service desk outlining these changes? We don't have them yet. Or we hadn't put them up yet Saturday. So at most people will have 2 days notice about the policy changes.

There is a tidal wave of suck headed our way.

[Andara Bledin]

The worst part is that any purchases made before the signs go up have to be treated by the old policy, so you've got about 90 days of overlap joy to deal with.

I wish your returns people much luck. They're going to need it.

^-.-^

[sirwired]

Of course, you could just do your research before you shell out the money for something.

If I'm buying tech, I'm going to make sure the tech I'm buying will do the things I want and with a minimum of fuss long before I ever get near the actual purchase.

I don't really have much sympathy for buyer's remorse. Even if the item in question is a piece of junk.

^-.-^

And sometimes, as I indicated above, research beforehand is just not possible. If the item is new and not that popular, proper research just cannot be done without a display model available.

SirWired

[Andara Bledin]

And sometimes, as I indicated above, research beforehand is just not possible. If the item is new and not that popular, proper research just cannot be done without a display model available.

You took a chance on a brand new item. I won't do that, myself. For something with code I wait until at least he first major patch. For something purely hardware-based, I'll wait for the second production run. Nothing is so must-have that I can't wait until the reviews are out.

^-.-^

[RichS]

Nothing is so must-have that I can't wait until the reviews are out.

Exactly! I wait until at least 3 reviews from trusted sources are out before buying electronics/games.

I'm meticulous with receipts as well, given that most of the computer-related hardware has a long or even lifetime warranty. It helped me a lot with some of my return battles.

Although, keeping receipts from my first built system (Pentium 200) might be a little much.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Well, the signs finally went up yesterday. We had them beforehand, but corporate said we couldn't put them up until Tuesday, the day the new policy went into effect.

Evidently, it did not occur to them to put "Effective April 29,2008" or some such thing on the signs.

From what I heard, today was pretty quiet. We expect the suck to arrive tomorrow, Senior Day.

AND I DON'T HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW!

[Andara Bledin]

A big question for you, Irv:

Are they going to keep the old policy around for everyone who bought before now, or is your work going to try to hold those people to a policy that didn't exist when they made their purchases?

^-.-^

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Don't know. The handdout doesn't mention that, and if the subject was addressed during one of the huddles last week I either forgot or wasn't paying attention. I'll try to remember to ask when I return to work Thursday.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

A big question for you, Irv:

Are they going to keep the old policy around for everyone who bought before now, or is your work going to try to hold those people to a policy that didn't exist when they made their purchases?

^-.-^

Purchases made before April 29 will have the old policy applied to them.


But then again, if the customer has no receipt and it's impossible to look up the receipt because they paid with cash, how do you verify when the purchase was made?

[Listerfiend]

My company is also changing the return policy (effective as of tomorrow). From now on items we stock regularly returned without a receipt will be taken back for 80% of the regular price. I can't wait to deal with this crap...

[Andara Bledin]

Purchases made before April 29 will have the old policy applied to them.


But then again, if the customer has no receipt and it's impossible to look up the receipt because they paid with cash, how do you verify when the purchase was made?

Ok. That's the way it should be done.

And if they don't have a receipt? New policy after, like, the first week. It'll be interesting to see how your work deals with that.

^-.-^

[fish3k1]

I want this to work for your company, I really do... but the only way this will carry is if the managers have spines (which partly comes from whether they're being backed by corp or not, but I digress...) I don't know how many times staff who are just following store policy have been overruled by some spineless manager because the SC kicks off... or worse, when the manager backs you and they complain to corp who overrule the manager.

That last actually happened to us a few weeks back... really pissed me off too. Customer brought back a bike, supposedly 4 or 5 weeks old, looked like hell - what wasn't mud was rust. But they do have a receipt, so we're thinking, they bought this bike a year ago, bought another one a few weeks back, and now are trying to return the old one for a replacement, essentially getting 2 new bikes. Even if we're wrong, and the bike is only a few weeks old, it's clearly been misused and so isn't covered by warranty. So we tell them no exchange, and any repair is chargeable. They go crying to corp, and about a week later, I found out we've been told we MUST replace his bike for him