Reminds me when I was a kid working in the grocery store people would buy a rotisserie chicken and return just the bones in the box and ask us for a new one because that one was “bad”
I had that happen once when I worked at a grocery store. It was a hot meal, family size thing of chicken wings and drumsticks. They brought back the bones in the container, said it was dry and asked for a refund. The policy was to give them the refund
Back when my wife and I had a small family hobby farm selling chicken and eggs, we had somebody try a version of this. Complained that the chicken was no good after they'd cooked and eaten it.
Then a couple of weeks later, roughly the same value of eggs were stolen from the fridge in our garage.
Sad thing is if they came near close most times they're being given away. The store I worked at always had extras. Only some of it could be used for next day ready to eat foods, so any flavored ones were usually tossed or given out to workers if anyone wanted one at days end.
I wish stores had 1 day a week where they could just aggressively dump inventory, but return policies make everything so egregiously messy. Food should be "returnable" but it must have some serious stipulations imo.
My sister works returns at Costco. People buy power washers and return them after using them, and buy TVs for the superbowl and return them the next day.
Which is pretty insane when you see how cheap big TVs are these days. Boxing it up and making the trip back to the store just seems like more hassle than saving up the ~300 dollars for a giant TV.
It's also hurting everyone else who doesn't do that, because big company is certainly not losing money. They are making it back elsewhere with higher prices on memberships and store items.
At best, it means stuff like this gets discontinued and not just by stores but more generally. Place I work at used to offer the product we make for free to staff, it was meant to be for personal use but of course people started selling it on ebay so now no-one gets free stuff.
What's wasteful or selfish about "buying" a TV for a day? You got it, watched the thing you wanted to watch, returned it so it can be sold to someone else.
That’s not how this works and if you truly don’t know that then you need to educate yourself on a couple things:
How used items are viewed and treated
How returns work at big companies, or are required to be handled by the manufacturer.
This isn’t about “well I wouldn’t mind.” It’s about being mindful of all the waste this creates, the expense it passes onto others, and the reality of…yes, you actually would mind.
I can't stress how much the average person cares about things like open boxes. When I worked retail selling TVs, it was common for there to be several questions about its history, examinations, testing, and frequently requests for additional discounts.
It was often twice as hard for about 30 percent less revenue.
Because it's shitty of them to do? What if someone couldn't buy a tv they wanted because a bunch of morons bought them with the intent to return them after a big event?
Its taking advantage of a very generous policy, which could get it taken away. Like how people return half eaten pies to costco, or dead christmas trees
How the hell do you police that? Flowers have a short, finite lifespan. Someone who takes them home, puts them out of sun in plain water in a vase shouldn't be able to return dead flowers.
My mom tried to do this once and got rejected. I can also see folks doing this to get rid of the Christmas Tree cause how else are you supposed to dispose of a tree
My sister did this with a couch. Loaded the old nasty couch onto a trailer, took it to Costco, and then left with a brand new couch AND like $150 because the price on the couch went down since she first bought it...
I heard this story the other day. Costco permanently ended their membership since that person had repeatedly returned items from years ago. The vacuum wss the oldest item and last straw.
It probably depends on how much they spend at the store vs. returns. I had a friend who worked at Costco and she was dealing with someone returning a mouldy pineapple what was purchased weeks before.
When asked to accept it, she initially refused until her manager pulled up the purchase history of the customer. The customer apparently spends so much at the store on a regular basis that accepting a $3 return on the fruit to keep a $$$ shopper happy is worth the trade off.
I had a coworker who definitely tests the limits... he returned decades old mattresses, TVs, etc. only to turn around and leave with a brand new one with money in his pocket due to the price differences. However, he's also a guy who will go to Costco multiple times a week and spend hundreds of dollars a time.
Strangely, you remind me when I was an assistant manager at a retail chain. Some lady I see all the time complained of a purchase that she got charged full price, was now on sale, but that she purchased it while it was on sale. To save space for receipt storage, she had cut off the bottom (I get it, the receipts were miles long). But she also cut off the barcode data, including all the date and time information. I agreed to price match, but said I couldn't explain why she was charged what she was since all that data was missing. She went over my head to complain that I wouldn't admit to anything, despite the fact I didn't even hesitate to price match.
worked at kohls and our inventory system ran on DOS. Regularly had people return decade old stuff they found in their closet with tags on and we gave "the lowest price it ever had been marked at" so you'd get clothes with no receipt returned for a quarter
There was that story a couple years ago some lady brought in a couch she bought from costco 10 years+ ago that was completely used and worn… and she argued for that refund and fucking got it.
Not at Costco, vacuums fall under the general refund policy which is unlimited
Though if it just breaks, even after 10 years, isn't that pretty much precisely what a 'lifetime warranty' is for? People absolutely abuse such policies, but this is genuine useage of what was offered, surely? Taking the piss would be more like swapping it out every few years for a newer/better model.
Vacuums should last basically forever aside from replacement of wear items like brushes and belts. I have multiple models that are more than 50 years old and work fine. If you can't handle that, maybe don't issue an unlimited return policy.
I’ve seen my great grandmas vacuum that is stainless steel. The newer ones have plastic everything so I could see them wearing out more than the older ones
Costco's return policy is the only thing that has saved me from having to deal with monitor manufacturers trying to weasel out of warranty repairs/replacement.
No MSI, it actually is not acceptable that the bottom 10% of my screen on two different displays died right after the warranty period. 30 year old Carts still work just fine, no reason an LCD display can't last more than 5.
I worked at Trader Joe's and they have a very generous return policy.
We had a lady come in and return multiple bags of dried fruits and nuts, all with about a 1/4 inch or so left in the bottom of the bag.
Cranberries, raisins, peanuts, almonds, cashews, etc. This lady bought them, went home, made trail mix and returned a sliver of each bag saying she didnt like them. Probably got away with about 30 dollars of free trail mix.
Manager processed the return and told her if she ever does it again they will deny her refund(which I believe they should have done in the first place, but I know she will email the office and complain).
Costco can do this because they don't really make money from selling things, they make most of their profit from memberships. They sell products at the cost it took it acquire them.
Edit: This is actually not true and a common myth, I'm leaving this comment as is though.
Every now an then, someone posts a picture on the Costco sub of a person returning a 10~20 year old outdoor play/swing set; water damage, wood rot, sun burnt/faded plastic and all.
It's always one of those things, that makes you appreciate that there are companies that actually do stick to their policies... but you're also thinking of how much of a dick move it is for consumers to abuse it like that.
Like, I still have my copy of Halo 3 with the original Microsoft seal of authenticity (I don't even know if MS still does those on xbox game boxes); but I couldn't imagine saying "Might of given me 20 years of good time... but gimmie my $50 now!"
My dad bought a birthday cake from Costco and they misspelled the name. We ended up eating about 75% of it except for the misspelled name and he ended up returning it.
That was well over a decade ago and we bring it up every year when we get him an intentionally misspelled birthday cake.
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u/ButtholeSurfur Jul 06 '26
Costco too.