Sears Confiscates Your Coat For Attempting To Return It And Buy It Back For Less
Reader Nick's mother bought a coat that was on clearance at Sears. A week later she saw that the coat had been marked down even further, so she brought it back and asked if she could return it and then buy it again for the cheaper price.
That's where it got a little weird. Rather than just saying "no," the Sears employee processed the return, then told Nick's mother she couldn't have the coat back. Nick's mom then asked her to call the whole thing off, void the return and give her the coat. Sears refused.
Nick writes:
My mother has always been a Sears customer. She regularly shops there at least once a week. Recently she purchased a beautiful winter coat on clearance, at a price of $35, marked down from $150. She was so excited to have found the perfect coat to wear next winter.The Sears employee should have just told your mother that Sears doesn't have a price guarantee on clearance items and left it at that. Refusing to void the transaction and hiding the coat is just mean, not to mention bad for Sears. Stores don't put things on clearance because they don't want to sell them.A week later she goes in to see the same coat, different size at $15. So my mother naturally wanted to get some kind of reimbursement. She brings in the never worn coat and the original receipt. She explained to the associate that she wanted to return and repurchase it. After the return is completed, the associate explains that my mother "could not repurchase the coat because of store policies."
That obviously made no sense to my mother because somebody else was going to buy it at the same lower price. My mother explained her story once more, then asked for the manager. The manager also said my mother couldn't repurchase it. My mother was not angry, just confused. She watched as another associate took the coat away from the counter and bring it into the back.
My mother then asked to just cancel the return, so she could just keep the coat, all she wanted was a coat for next winter. Working in retail, I know how simple the "post void" would have been. The manager explained the coat had to go to the "return processing center," which made no sense to my mother who saw a dress on the floor she returned the day before. My mother at that point was mad. She just wanted the coat!
She approached several associates on the floor asking them where the "return processing center" was, nobody knew.
Finally she asked where the returns go, the answer from several associates, "right back to the floor."
Do sears employees find pleasure in torturing customer?
If we were you, we'd try to kick this complaint upstairs to the bigwigs, although we have to warn you that Sears rarely responds. Here's some contact information you might want to try.
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Comments:
I'm guessing someone at that register liked that coat, and probably later purchased it.
Stupid and I agree it sucks. Alas, since she'd already returned it, she had zero right to it and the store can legally refuse service.
I am confused, your mother wanted Sears employees to help her take $20 from the company and is pissed because they did not cooperate?
I am normally very pro consumer, but this one I am on the fence. I can can understand why they did it. They could not refuse the return, since it was being done in accordance with policy, but they did not want to help the person take $20 from the company.
I guess in those cases it is always a smart thing to go check if a similar item is still available and on the shelf before returning the higher priced item. A few weeks ago I bought an electric blanket for $48 which was on clearance at K-Mart (which owns Sears). A couple of weeks later I saw that they still had some blankets in the queen size I wanted at $40. I went to return the blanket (I had not used it or taken it out of its packaging). I was fully prepared to get a refund and then get another one off the shelf if necessary. However K-Mart Customer Service just gave me the $8 difference.
So mama had returned a dress the day before her coat was confiscated. Methinks Sears doesn't want to play the return-merchandise game anymore. Being a long-time customer and repeatedly buying and returning things are not the same thing.
I was surprised to learn not so long ago that people actually buy things and then return them to the store--repeatedly--as a sort of hobby. A friend who works at Kohl's says some people do this a couple times a week, every week. Ugh.
@Mollyg: The anger isn't at not being able to cut the price down. The OP is angry because, seemingly out of spite, they wouldn't just let her keep the coat at the original sale price.
Sounds like it was such a good deal, the person at the register had to take advantage of it, and the manager has an "understanding" with the staff.
Odds are the employee purchased it.
@Mollyg: Please tell me you are joking. Almost every major retailer has a price protection guarantee if the price drops within a reasonable period of time.
I just bought a Lenovo for $xx; the price went down to $yy within 10 days. When I called Lenovo, they just refunded me the differences.
I have had the same experience with JC Penney.
This is definitely something to be pro-consumer about. On a side note though, some credit cards have a price protection guarantee. e.g., my Amex refunds me the difference if the price drops within 90 days of purchase.
She returned a dress the day before, and now she's returning the coat to re-buy it at a lower price?
I'm not blaming the original poster or his mother, but it sounds like the staff at this Sears decided to fight back against a chronic returner. I really don't think corporate would be willing to help in this case, but I also believe that the manager in this case really took things to extremes.
Tough call on this one. I would like to have the difference in price back of course, but being so excited to get get it at $35, it might not even be worth the gas, time and aggravation for $20. Once again, tough call.
The local Kmart where I live will put a limit on the number of returns they will accept from a customer (thats why you have to fill out your name and address on the return form) But I have never seen a case where they would not let the customer do a price adjustment on an item. When I worked there, the policy was if the item went on sale within 28 days of purchase, you could ask for a refund of the difference. That was a few years ago, but I don't think it has changed. Perhaps the fact that it was clearance had something to do with it, but I think more its a case of the manager or cashier playing games.
If she said she planned on purchasing it back when she returned the coat, then this story looks very bad for Sears.
I'm wondering if she did actually mention this when she started the process - since I think it would have been very simple for the employee to say they could not do that. It just seems like this is one of those "pop on bottom of cart gets you arrested" type of stories in which once the whole truth came out made more sense.
how it is now - this story does not add up to me.
"So my mother naturally wanted to get some kind of reimbursement."
She "naturally" wanted to back of a deal see agreed to the prior week?!
When Sears raises its prices, they don't come to your house asking for a higher price than what you paid the week previously. Nor should you go to their store asking for the better price. Both sides should honor the price they agreed upon.
I frequently browse the clearance thread for Target on Fatwallet, and some users there have reported that some Targets won't let you return and rebuy - they make it go back to the sales floor. Sears might operate the same way.
If there was another jacket the same size, I would have bought it and returned it with the first receipt. If there wasn't though, she probably would have been better off eating the $20.
Stores usually have a price guarantee policy. She should have tried to do that with the receipt sans coat. What the store did was just awful though. They could have just said they don't offer a price match.
I find the amount of people returning stuff a bit disturbing though.
@somdeb: In many stores, the price protection guarantee is suspended when it comes to clearance items and they should have just informed the customer of this, if that is their policy.
The person at the register probably wanted it. Once the product is returned the customer gave up the right to it.
If she liked it at $35 she probably should have kept it.
You may want to look into local retail regulations. I know Washington has a law that requires retailers to honor discounts within 30 days of purchase. So if you buy something and it becomes cheaper at the same store any time in the next thirty days, they have to give you the difference (of course you have to spend the time to notice and take the thing back and ask for it).
This, my friends, is just one of the many reasons Sears has been slowly dying for the past 20 years.
"...which made no sense to my mother who saw a dress on the floor she returned the day before."
Not going for the blame-the-consumer jugular here, but if mom here makes a habit of constantly returning things, the clerk may have just cut her off.
@Imafish: Just today, Costco came to the house and asked for an extra $10 for the rice I bought last week.
I remember being at Sears several years ago on Boxing Day (here in Canada) with my Grandmother, returning a sweater she received for Christmas that was too large. She had wanted to exchange it for one that fit, but they didn't have her size, so they refunded her the money ($150.) On the way out we saw a rack with the exact same sweater....marked down by 80%!! She was able to purchase 3 other sweaters and 2 pairs of shoes there, with the $$ she got back from that one overpriced "pre-Christmas" sweater.
From that moment on, my family decided to stop giving gifts AT Christmas and instead we give gift cards or cash in a Christmas card and do all our shopping for large-ticket items *after* Christmas. We still have stockings with small stuff in them, but large gifts are purchased afterwards. Why pay double (or more) for something when you don't have to.
So Sears does not have a price difference policy? No wonder Sears is old fashioned.
Whats the worst is that they confiscated the coat... thats theft and against the law. Sears probably thinks "oh we wont see that customer again so we can do whatever we want."
I'm on the fence as well...
I work retail and we used to have a customer who used to rip us off constantly by buying things, waiting weeks, sometimes months, then returning and re-buying. We had to cut him off- hold unto a receipt long enough and eventually everything will be clearanced down. He said if I don't let him re-buy he was going to return and come back when I'm gone. I told him that in that case, the shirt won't be making it's way back onto the sales floor. I was happy to lose him as a customer, he was costing our sale rather than helping it.
On the other hand... I don't understand why Sears just wouldn't let her buy it back at the previous price of $30 or just post void the transaction. Not only that, a week is a reasonable time to expect a price adjustment. It's not like she bought the coat months ago.
Umm. woulnd't you just ask for a price difference. Why in the world would you goto a store and tell them how to do the return process.
can you return it and repurchase it..
most stores have a thing so they can just credit the difference, w/out having to return and rebuy.
In normal circumstances, I would empathize with the customer, e.g. if she bought the jacket at $150 and returned it to get it at $135 on a sale two days later.
But unless she is absolutely destitute and the poorest of the poor, I can't empathize. A $150 jacket marked down to $35 and she's still trying to get it for less?
Get a grip. I'm not rich, but when something like that happens, I suck it up and say, "Too bad, too late" and lose the few dollars. It's just not that important.
And yes, Sears is scum.
I seem to remember a similar story posted here a long time ago, and I'll say again what I said then.
She bought the coat, originally priced at $150, on clearance for $35. She saved $115 on the coat, then she goes back and wants another $20 off because it got marked down further?
Greedy much?
Why can't people just accept that they got a really good deal and move on with their lives instead of making a stink over a few extra bucks.
Plus, most stores return/price match policies explicitly exclude clearance merchandise. If she's that gung-ho about the extra money back, she should have just hung around till they put the coat back on the rack and then repurchased it for the extra discount. She already said that's what someone else would do anyway.
Best way to handle this next time - without ever handing over the merchandise - "I see that you have a better price on an item of clothing I bought just last week - can you refund the difference?"
If the answer is "no" - great, walk out with the item.
If the answer is "yes" - great, walk out with the item AND some extra cash.
Based on the description of the events, this was handled poorly on both sides of the counter.
@Mollyg: You said "did not want to help the person take $20 from the company." What in the world does that mean? She was entitled to a refund. I don't understand how you could be on the fence w/ this situation. And you say you are pro-consumer??!!
I have to side with Sears on this one. The customer returned the coat. End of story. If she wants to repurchase it at the lower price, she needs to wait until they put it back on the sales floor and buy it then.
I had to do a return after Sears' 90-day return policy, and they did not give me any hassle. But because it was over 90 days, I could only do an exchange (with receipt) by picking out something else in the same dept.
this makes sense to me. Returned items need to be checked for damage before being resold. Sure the item she saw the day before may have been threre (although for all she knows it may have been a different one...sicne you know..companies make several of an item in order to make money) I wouldnt have given it to her either.
First of all, notice that the headline didn't say "Illegal", but "Rude."
@P_Smith: I don't understand the difference: if the cost is $100 higher, $20 is allowed to matter?
As a starving law student, I would empathize the other way around: sometimes $20 matters a hell of a lot even if you ARE getting a steep discount. If it had been, say, a $150 interview suit, that had been marked down to $35, well, that's the only way I'd ever own that $150 suit, so I'd cough up the $35. But if it got marked down by $20 two days later, well, I'd be pissed off. That $20 would buy me groceries, not to mention pay back my student loans. So just because you don't need that $20, don't think it means that someone else doesn't.
Not to mention that the customer was willing to buy it back at the original $35 price, and the manager LIED to the customer.
Items go on clearance when they don't sell. This coat hit the $35 price point and sold. The customer was thrilled with that price. The remaining coats were still not selling and were marked down to $15. The customer bought a coat that was worth $35 to her. Why would the merchant want to give her $20 to keep that coat. It makes absolutely no sense.
@MsFeasance: Agreed - it was rude. If customer said upfront, "I want to return and repurchase this coat" as the OP says she did, then Sears should have said, "Sorry, no can do."
Whether she should or should not get the $20 is pretty irrelevant here - the lady should have been able to keep the coat if she was willing to pay what Sears required for it.
Admittedly, the fact that she had returned something the day before is a little suspect.
@qwickone: Well, my problem is with how they treated her. But do they or don't they have a policy against this very thing? It's a good question.
If they don't, then I can't see why she shouldn't (beyond "we can refuse service to anyone") be able to buy something for the same price someone off the street would pay.
Why didn't she check the sales floor and see if there was another one there she could buy. Then should could have done the return and done a brand new transaction for the coat.
@Mollyg: I disagree with you, which is fine, but beyond that I'm confused.
Have you ever met a retail employee not willing to legally take money from the company? If the cashier isn't already looking for a new job once Sears inevitably goes under, she should be. That $20 isn't going to keep a worthless company afloat, but it might make her a friend and potential employer.
The problem here isn't that Sears wouldn't price adjust. There's a difference between a "sales" price and a "clearance" price. When something reaches clearance they are normally down to a few remain items and there won't be the same selection of colors and/or sizes. I totally get why Sears wouldn't honor a price match on a clearance item that has been placed on further clearance.
That being said, they should have let her keep the coat at the $35 price. I can't blame her for trying and I can't blame Sears for saying no. But I can blame them for keeping the coat. The previous poster that described it as "spiteful" was dead-on.
@juniper: Like they do at Nordstroms now...
I've seen little old ladies return hundreds of dollars in pantyhose full of runs and red nail polish or bring back shoes littered with scuffs and missing heels. I asked my friend who is the manager at my local Nordy's why this is allowed, and she assured me they do keep tabs on who's a "return junkie" (that's why they ask for ID, address, and phone number) and cut them off once in a while. But she also said they usually just get their friends to return stuff for them or go to another Nordstrom's.
If a store offers a price guarantee, I say use it and abuse it to save a few bucks. But, I know how much it costs to manufacture clothes, so I'm already hesitant to buy clothes that are expensive. Even at $35, this lady is still getting the cost at near-cost.
Unfortunately, Sears s does not have such a policy, so this lady is SOL.
I'm guessing the store was sick of people gaming the return/repurchase system. I bet the coat ended up back on the floor after the customer left.
I've never shopped at Sears, so I can't say anything about their retail practices, but I just get the feeling that we're not being told the whole story here by the OP.
Not letting her have it back at $35 is just bizarre and spiteful. Like they're actually WANTING to go from $35 in pocket to $15 on the floor that may or may not sell.