How Your Returns Are Used Against You at Best Buy, Other Retailers

[ATCclears]

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.

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[mkwerx]

If true, I smell a lawsuit

 

[Mikej]

The other side of that is pilferage by dirt bags, scum, thieves. People come into stores, steal items, and then return them. Either for cash, or something that wasn't as easy to steal first. In an attempt to appease customers, who pay for items, the stores have generous return policies. Many stores started allowing refunds for items without receipts, no questions asked type return policies. Dirt bags, scum, thieves take advantage of that. If this story is really true it's a shame this guy had to deal with it. For me? I WANT retailers coming up with ways to bust the dirt bags!

 

[mkwerx]

If you have a reciept, and the stores stated policy is to take returns with receipt wuthin X time frame, then they must honor said policy. Otherwise, bring in the sharks.

 

[UserNameInUse]

The other side of that is pilferage by dirt bags, scum, thieves. People come into stores, steal items, and then return them. Either for cash, or something that wasn't as easy to steal first. In an attempt to appease customers, who pay for items, the stores have generous return policies. Many stores started allowing refunds for items without receipts, no questions asked type return policies. Dirt bags, scum, thieves take advantage of that. If this story is really true it's a shame this guy had to deal with it. For me? I WANT retailers coming up with ways to bust the dirt bags!

Not only that but people use these stores as a free rental service. One time I was shopping for neoprene waders. I pulled one out of the box that had sand on it, a nail clipper in the chest pocket and stunk of BO.

 

[41mag]

bring back the unused ones within the 15 days stated in the return policy as long as he had a receipt.

something here doesn't add up in the story

 

[mkwerx]

Not only that but people use these stores as a free rental service. One time I was shopping for neoprene waders. I pulled one out of the box that had sand on it, a nail clipper in the chest pocket and stunk of BO.

Gross

 

[ATCclears]

Here's my take.

The story is probably real and Retail Equation is probably real. Retail Equation has probably put together some form of risk model with some level of "machine learning" where they analyze the data and look for trends and risks. Is their approach and model generally accurate or has wild variations? Who knows. Best Buy is probably using them to mitigate some of their return problems.

 

[mkwerx]

The Retail Equation

Its a real thing

 

[Dungannon]

[Many] years ago, when my wife worked at Sears catalog sales while in college, a guy brought in a rototiller in the fall and said he wasn't satisfied with its performance; next year, the same thing. Nursing bras returned by a mother who had finished weening her toddler. Over that four year period, she got to know more about the lives of certain 'customers' than she ever wanted to know.

 

[Mikej]

I know people, personally, in the front end of retail, and in the executive end of retail. They can't stop people anymore and ask for receipts, without witnessing the actual theft. If the person in question disappears from their sight, even for a few seconds, they cannot contact them. This is thanks to law suits the judges have awarded large settlements I imagine. Remember the HUGE stink and media circus stirred up by Avel Gordly when she was stopped outside and asked for a receipt at Fred Meyer? I don't know if there was a winning law suit on that or not. One major retailer doesn't even attempt to stop thieves. Personnel is forced to watch people come in with empty bags and leave a few minutes later with full bags. Once in a while management will stand at the front, hoping to bluff the thief into giving up the product. They can't touch them though, so they only need to walk around them. It's demoralizing! In the 25 years or so Wifey has been in retail the problem has increase 10 fold at least.

The large retailers count theft as a part of "Shrink'. Shrink is product lost from spoilage and other losses. So it boils down to the customer just paying ever higher prices!

I did get to see a Portland Policeman and a store security at Hollywood Fred Meyer run out the door after someone just a couple days ago. We stood there and watched them stop a nice looking young girl, AFTER she was out the door, with a large bag on one shoulder. She had four pairs of shoes, and some other stuff. Felt really good to see that. I think it's a shame that people don't crowd around someone like that and boo them.

 

[clearconscience]

Just think of the bean counters and bonuses paid then have to sort through return and return and it can really change the numbers.

I don't have an issue with that. If some azzhat continuously buys stuff and returns it then I would ban them too.

 

[Kruel J]

I was a service manager at an RV repair facility that also had a store. People would come in, buy a $1000 Honda generator on a Thursday afternoon and then show up the following week and try to return it. Same with portable satellite TV equipment. It was especially bad over the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. Basically, they were using the place as a rental outfit for their once or twice a year RV trips.

It got so bad that generators and satellite gear is not returnable per the company policy now.

 

[The Heretic]

It isn't just consumer retail.

In a previous life I was a diesel mechanic.

While working thru college I would work summers/weekends at John Deere dealerships.

There was one guy who was well know at various equipment dealerships (and IIRC, at car/truck dealerships too) - a farmer. He would buy equipment, make payments on it for a while, then stop. When the equipment was repossessed/etc., he would sue and sue and sue. He sued everybody for everything. Eventually most dealerships would not do business with him anymore.

The point is, that there are always people who abuse others and take advantage, to the utmost, of everybody they deal with in life (e.g., my ex-wife). So it isn't surprising that retailers, especially those who deal with a lot of people, try to find ways to cut down on the abuse.

Most people don't get caught up in it. I never have because I rarely return things - I've returned something to Costco maybe two or three times at most over the past decade. Amazon, returned maybe two things, and complained about things not delivered maybe twice.

If some retailer doesn't live up to the letter of their policies, then complain to them and various gov. agencies - but read the fine print first, I bet there is something in there about mitigation and arbitration. Otherwise, just don't do business with them again.

 

[Jamie6.5]

I had a guy that would dig through the garbage outside the front door for receipts people would throw away on their way out.
He would bring the receipt in the store, and wander around the retail area doing his "shopping."
Then he would bring the items to the counter with his receipt, and claim he wanted to return the items he had bought earlier, when in reality he had just picked them up according to the part numbers and descriptions on his recovered receipt.
This guy must have hit us about 3-4 times before we figured out how he was doing it.

I had to tell him he was persona-non-grata when I busted him, because technically he had a receipt, so I couldn't accuse him of theft or call the cops. AFAIK he never came back.

So it doesn't surprise me that major retailers are inventing new ways to beat the scammers. "Shrink" (creative/polite word for theft/shoplifting) is a major problem that costs every consumer money.

 

[Alexx1401]

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.

To me this would be a huge "so what"? The store can set any policy they want. Places like Best Buy are facing huge competition from on line retailers. If they want to piss off some customers let them. If they piss off enough of them Best Buy will end up like so many other places like this I have seen come and go.

 

[Mikej]

I had a guy that would dig through the garbage outside the front door for receipts people would throw away on their way out.
He would bring the receipt in the store, and wander around the retail area doing his "shopping."
Then he would bring the items to the counter with his receipt, and claim he wanted to return the items he had bought earlier, when in reality he had just picked them up according to the part numbers and descriptions on his recovered receipt.

Forgot about this one. It's common in the grocery business.

 

[clearconscience]

When i worked at circuit city we had a guy that was having his friends buy directv boxes then return them defective without the card. They would program the card to get unlimited channels. Basically pirating the service.
They did so hundreds of times and sold the cards for $200 each.

It was a fun game until the FBI came in and arrested them.

 

[clearconscience]

We also had this promo at circuit city for cell phones, you could buy one for a $0.01, then it had a $50 rebate. You had to sign up for service but never checked on it after POS.

So people would buy 10 phones, cancel the service within 2 days and then get a $50 rebate for each phone.
This went on for about 3 mths until the company changed the policy and people had to wait like 90 days for their rebate checks and they made sure people kept the phone service

 

[mkwerx]

How garbage were those phones that they had to pay people to take 'em?