Some people do abuse this to rip companies off, to varying degrees; I know some people who treat returns as free rentals, buying something, using it without ever intending to keep it, and then returning it. Some people go even further and steal things and then return them for cash.
But I guess that on the whole, the good customer experience for the honest customers outweighs the cost of fraud.
REI has a 100% satisfaction guaranteed. About a year or two ago I purchased a few different bicycle parts. I kept them without using them for a few months and decided I didn't really need them after all. Since they were a few hundred dollars worth of parts I didn't want to just keep them or get rid of them, I wanted to return them. Even though their policy is "satisfaction" guaranteed, I felt like I was abusing the good faith of the policy--knowing just how heavily discounted their garage sale items are.
What I ended up deciding to do was returning them but asking for an 80% refund. The guy behind the counter gave me a really weird look and told me he had to ask if that was even allowed. Luckily for me, it was. They refunded me 80% of the total amount and I called it fair.
> "If the companies didn't want you to do this, then they wouldn't let you do this."
That is a poor assumption that is likely incorrect more often than not.
A Chinese restaurant that I go to occasionally has a bowl of mints by the register. I could take a handful of them, they would not stop me, but that would be a dick move. I could go hang out at library and pass the time by taking their books off the shelves and building castles with them on the desks, but that would be a dick move. I could go to the shoe store and try on every single pair of shoes that they have, leaving them all in a massive pile in the middle of the store, but that would be a dick move.
Generous customer-friendly policies like this can exist, for the benefit of the customer, because there is an understanding that most people will be respectful and not abuse the privilege. If everybody acted like your friend, then we would not be able to have nice things.
With policies like these, companies account for the % of times abuse is likely to happen. Retailers and manufacturers spend millions analyzing buying and returning patterns and factor that into prices.
So "abuse" over time could cause prices to increase by a small amount. However, not hassling people over things that rarely happen increases loyalty, which increases volume, which increases the discounts a retailer can get from a manufacturer...
The vast majority of people don't need to benchmark video cards or want to "rent" products - they buy things because they need them and that's why good customer service exists.
I would guess that the abuse has increased for Best Buy and Game Stop.
Game Stop now only offers returns for pre-owned games 7 days after instead of 14 days. My guess is too many people used this as a way to test games out or beat single player games for free.
Best Buy's return policy is down from 30 days to 14 and even on an exchange I needed a driver's license last week.
Retailers also plan on a base level of shoplifting and employee theft, referred to as "shrinkage". However that isn't an excuse for that sort of bad behavior.
> > "If the companies didn't want you to do this, then they wouldn't let you do this."
> That is a poor assumption that is likely incorrect more often than not.
As a concrete example, I worked someplace with a nice and consumer friendly return policy... no restock fees, no hassle.
But when a customer "bought" and then without fail returned something like 40 books, 1 at a time (without buying anything else), we did have a word with them. Depending on the books, that can adds up to several hundred dollars of overstock, eating up already crammed inventory space in high-rent storefronts. Plenty of seating for those who'd like to read books without buying that won't excite our inventory count ;)
Once upon a time, it used to be possible to get Bing points by playing a bunch of stupid games on Club Bing - you could accumulate at most 1000 per day, unless there was some sort of modifier (like "double ticket day") site-wide. The prizes available for these points were usually older Microsoft products like old games (9.99USD), kitchen appliances, hammocks, cheap headphones, etc. The biggest prizes were Zunes, Vista, Microsoft Office, and the XBox360 Arcade Edition. As I recall, the XBox required some crazy amount of points and thus wasn't worth it...and Vista and Office are hardly sexy items. You could win at most one of each prize per physical mailing address.
The games that you played to win points were flash games, so a bunch of bot writers automated this. They'd register multiple accounts and try to max out the number of points they could get per day. Since users had multiple accounts, people would maintain different amounts of points to save for the big ticket items. I believe that Office and Vista were in the 50,000 to 100,000 point range. (Side note: Microsoft was slow, but they DID actually deliver - I got a 360 controller for free!) There are forums dedicated to "opportunities" like these.
So, what do you do with a free copy of Vista Ultimate? Well, one day a user who had exhausted all of the other prizes tried going to Best Buy with his copy. He went to customer service, in-store, and said "Hey, my grandmother got me this for my birthday. I already have it. Is there any way you could possibly help me out?"
Can you guess what they did? They gave him $450 in Best Buy credit.
For awhile, the overarching Club Bing metagame was to simply farm Vista Ultimate, go to a different Best Buy, and "return" your copy. And, on top of that, someone discovered that Microsoft's shipping treated "123 N. Fake Street Apartment A" and "123 N. Fake Street Apartment Z" (and, for that matter, "123 N. Fake Street Apartment AAAA") as unique addresses - so it became possible to have multiple copies of Vista Ultimate shipped to your house. At one point there were so many Club Bing copies of Vista Ultimate floating around that you could go on forums and purchase it directly for $100 because botters had exhausted their local return options.
If the companies didn't want you to do this, then they wouldn't let you do this.
Why would a company want you to do that?! The only reason some allow it is that it's very difficult to have a policy that allows honest customers to return items they don't like (for whatever reasons) while at the same time preventing this behavior.
You'll find that there are many companies who have stopped the practice of accepting returns for any reason, for the very reason you stated. If you were running a product company, would you enjoy and encourage the "free rental" behavior?
I remember swinging by Home Depot just before a big winter storm. One of the sales guys mentioned that they didn't have any generators in stock because people would buy them, leave them in the box, and return them if they didn't lose power during the storm. Presumably, they wouldn't return the generators if they were actually used due to a power outage. I seriously doubt that Home Depot wanted their customers to do that. Large companies do sometimes keep track of how many returns people rack up over time to identify bad actors (that's much harder with "no receipt" or "no questions asked" policies).
On the other hand, Kragen advertises that they have a loaner tool program. It's essentially a liberal return policy, as long as you don't break the tool while trying to repair your car. I have used that, when I had a functioning tool to return when I was done with the job.
My guess is that if 100 people bought generators with the intention of returning them if they didn't need them, that 100-x people actually return them, where x is probably around 10 or more... People are lazy, decide why not keep it, etc. Worse case senario you have a customer coming into your store twice.. Maybe on the return trip they buy stuff to repair damages from the storm.. If you have the inventory this isn't a big deal and probably ends up increasing revenue vs. not having them buy in the first place.
The generators have a lot more value to being in stock before or during the storm than after. When I bought mine, I had to drive two hours away to a Lowes, because they were out of stock in my county. If the local Home Depot had one, I would have just bought it there. The person buying and returning it is not only costing them a fraction of the cost (credit card fees each way); but also actual sales.
On the other hand, I think that in general, the relaxed Home Depot returns policy helps them. I often take advantage of the ability to buy multiple sizes of things, extras in case I mess something up, and then when I'm done with a project go back return the excess. If you use a credit card, that is even easier than keeping the receipts, they swipe the card, scan the stuff, and it goes back automatically. I find this easier, because I always have my card; and there is no need to have however many receipts that the items were originally bought with. And for very small stuff that I could conceivably use in the future, there is a decent chance I won't bother returning it anyway.
As a native Floridian, here is what I would do. Buy generator, take it to area that has lost power. Resell it for 2x price. Most people don't take care of there generator until they actually need it. It sits in the garage or basement, until the lubes dry it and the bearings seize.
Interestingly, Les Schwab (the dominant regional tire company here in the Pacific Northwest) advertises that if you buy snow chains and don't use them, you can return them at the end of snow season.
Of course, once you have the chains, no real point in bringing them back since you'll just need them next year.
> This isn't morally wrong. My friend, a graphics programmer, did this with videocards in order to test his graphics engine on various types of hardware configurations. If the companies didn't want you to do this, then they wouldn't let you do this.
> This isn't morally wrong. My friend, a graphics programmer, did this with videocards in order to test his graphics engine on various types of hardware configurations. If the companies didn't want you to do this, then they wouldn't let you do this.
Morals have nothing to do with what others let you or don't let you do. If anything morals are about your sense of right and wrong in the absence of external pressures. It may be legal, but I don't think it's moral to abuse a system that's intended to help and protect honest customers. Even if you don't care about hurting the profits of a giant corporation, you're potentially hurting other consumers if the benefit is revoked because too many people are abusing it.
In the OP situation this could play out like this:
1. Have a broken laptop (item #1)
2. Buy a new laptop (item #2)
3. Return item #1 with item #2's receipt
4. Have a working computer.
note: I'm not condoning this and it's unlikely to working in the OP's case because stores are usually smart enough to check serials on bigger ticket items.
Walmart has a very liberal return policy (accept anything) and the staff was somewhat aware this was going on. This is what my friend and former Walmart employee tald me years ago.
I had accidentally bought two copies of the same book from Barnes and Noble. I didn't have the receipt anymore.
At first they thought I wanted to return it for money and seemed hesitant but I just wanted to get the first book (I had two of the second). They were really helpful and exchanged it for the correct book.
I know it's not too relevant but I was so afraid of a no receipt, tough luck situation. I'm surprised they didn't think I just grabbed it off the shelf and went to the counter. It was just a $10 book and not a TV or anything but it left a good impression.
You are wrong, using return policies to get test devices is morally wrong. Your friend is stealing the cost of discounting the returned item + the cost of processing the return.
Buying something that might work, trying it and returning it if it doesn't isn't morally wrong.
The difference is your friend is buying with no actual intent to keep and own.
>This seems impossible. Returns require a receipt. I don't know what you're talking about.
Ever try to do this? Plenty of times I've done this and sometimes you get store credit sometimes cash. Many stores have "customer friendly" return policies such as these. Walmart is a big one who will take any return. You need ID usually.
>The store then had the same graphics cards as before
No they don't, they now have used graphics cards, and they have the overhead of staffing the return counter if many people get this idea. Plus the contract (i will buy this item at this price from you) was entered into in bad faith.
If the companies didn't want you to do this, then they wouldn't let you do this.
They do not want you to do this. What your friend did is considered to be a form of return fraud and abuse. The industry term for it is 'wardrobing' or 'renting'.
It's a big enough problem that there is a company, http://www.theretailequation.com, that helps large firms blacklist people like your friend, though these defenses are fairly recent.
But I guess that on the whole, the good customer experience for the honest customers outweighs the cost of fraud.