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How Your Returns Are Used Against You at Best Buy, Other Retailers
This may be paid content so here is a snippet:
Every time shoppers return purchases to Best Buy Co. BBY +1.45% , they are tracked by a company that has the power to override the store's touted policy and refuse to refund their money.
That is because the electronics giant is one of several chains that have hired a service called Retail Equation to score customers' shopping behavior and impose limits on the amount of merchandise they can return.
Jake Zakhar recently returned three cellphone cases at a Best Buy store in Mission Viejo, Calif., and a salesperson told him he would be banned from making returns and exchanges for a year. The 41-year-old real-estate agent had bought cases in extra colors as gifts for his sons and assumed he could bring back the unused ones within the 15 days stated in the return policy as long as he had a receipt.
The salesperson told him to contact Retail Equation, based in Irvine, Calif., to request his "return activity report," a history of his return transactions. The report showed only three items—the cellphone cases—totaling $87.43. He asked the firm to lift the ban, but it declined. When he appealed to Best Buy and tweeted his report, the company referred him back to Retail Equation.
This may be paid content so here is a snippet:
Every time shoppers return purchases to Best Buy Co. BBY +1.45% , they are tracked by a company that has the power to override the store's touted policy and refuse to refund their money.
That is because the electronics giant is one of several chains that have hired a service called Retail Equation to score customers' shopping behavior and impose limits on the amount of merchandise they can return.
Jake Zakhar recently returned three cellphone cases at a Best Buy store in Mission Viejo, Calif., and a salesperson told him he would be banned from making returns and exchanges for a year. The 41-year-old real-estate agent had bought cases in extra colors as gifts for his sons and assumed he could bring back the unused ones within the 15 days stated in the return policy as long as he had a receipt.
The salesperson told him to contact Retail Equation, based in Irvine, Calif., to request his "return activity report," a history of his return transactions. The report showed only three items—the cellphone cases—totaling $87.43. He asked the firm to lift the ban, but it declined. When he appealed to Best Buy and tweeted his report, the company referred him back to Retail Equation.