Interesting modifications

[CLT65]

Wife buys several times a year from their "returned stuff". They often have some product that was returned due to damage at better price. For a good while the way they "graded" the stuff was nice. Lot of the stuff she got looked like it was still brand new. Then last couple times she tried it she was NOT happy. One was new bread machine. Claimed "minor damage". Damn thing was beat to hell but it did work. So she played with it for a bit to make sure she liked it, ordered a new one and sent the other back. That damn machine will probably float back and forth in the system for a good while

Several years ago when my wife had one of her many surgeries, I went ahead and bought her a knee scooter of her own (insurance had previously rented one for her but that's a hassle).

I found a good one on Amazon, and an "unused like new" return for a very good price. When we got it, from the wear on the wheels it was obvious that it had been used for a month or two, probably whatever the maximum return time was for Amazon. Someone bought it, used it after a surgery or injury, and returned it when they were done with it. We kept and used it because it works fine.

It reminds me of something my wife saw years ago on facebook, about a family that didn't bring any coats on vacation and it was colder than expected. They went down to Walmart and bought coats for the family, wore them all week and returned them before flying home.

Clever "life hacks" right? Or how about unethical, dishonest fraud?

 

[Nosferatu]

Yeah, but now look at it from the supplier perspective; they just ate how much in replacement product and outright stolen merchandise? That kind of business model is only sustainable if your per-unit costs can absorb that kind of shrink (to use the industry term). Sure, you, as a legitimate consumer, got a free replacement item, but it was a replacement of an already cheap item that still has massive margins in order to sustain the expected losses. And then people wonder why such products have literally zero quality control. Quality control costs money, and when you are replacing a product no-questions-asked anyway why bother? The consumer can test it out and if they do not like the results they can try again.

And if that customer does not notice a defect, or cannot be arsed to return it because the time investment is not worth their tiny loss on that individual product? All the better, you saved money on no QC and the consumer is either still happy with a defective product or is so unbothered by it they don't even care. But all this does have a large cumulative cost on consumers, as the cheap garbage must be replaced at an ever increasing rate (often times just outside of return policy limits, which are increasingly being -no hyperbole- scientifically engineered to) and the knock on effects of other destroyed equipment (e.g. by the improperly rated fuses) wind up costing consumers far more in the long term.

And then there is the counter-fraud-fraud (not a typo) aspect of it all, as Amazon refuses to police their vendors and counterfeit brand name goods (often QC rejects off the same assembly lines that produce the genuine article) undermine the price of the official distribution channels. That DeWalt you got off of Amazon may not have actually been purchased from DeWalt, and even DeWalt may not know how to tell the difference, so they in turn add that "shrink" into their own business models when trying to maintain price lists (through factors such as expected warranty RMAs). The knock on effects of all this are truly staggering.

I wasn't defending their moronic policy.

 

[Alexx1401]

Several years ago when my wife had one of her many surgeries, I went ahead and bought her a knee scooter of her own (insurance had previously rented one for her but that's a hassle).

I found a good one on Amazon, and an "unused like new" return for a very good price. When we got it, from the wear on the wheels it was obvious that it had been used for a month or two, probably whatever the maximum return time was for Amazon. Someone bought it, used it after a surgery or injury, and returned it when they were done with it. We kept and used it because it works fine.

It reminds me of something my wife saw years ago on facebook, about a family that didn't bring any coats on vacation and it was colder than expected. They went down to Walmart and bought coats for the family, wore them all week and returned them before flying home.

Clever "life hacks" right? Or how about unethical, dishonest fraud?

Sadly people do abuse this and all have to pay. In the last while Wally, CostCo and others have been in the news about how they have had to tighten the return policy due to this. One article was about Wally. Guy brought in one of those Stanley Steel thermos's. Said it no longer worked and they gave him a new one. The company them said the damn thing was made like 40 years before.
While back there was a blip on the news about Amazon that was supposed to be a hit piece on them. Had some telling tales of being banned from buying from them due to them having too many returns. They were of course crying about it and the news said Amazon would not give them a clear cut answer on how many returns would get someone booted. When I read it I VERY much suspected the people doing the crying were blatantly abusing the system.