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returnsandexchanges
returnsandexchanges
How It Takes $100 In UPS Labels To Swap Out A $100 Corsair Headset
By Laura Northrup on April 24, 2012 12:15 PM
17 Comments
Reader Chris may have found the answer to the U.S. Postal Service's woes: they just need to convince gadget maker Corsair to bring all of their warranty return business over there. A recent return had Chris sending enough incorrect items back and forth via UPS to Corsair that the shipping bills now exceed the original cost of the headset. At this rate, they could single-handedly bail out the Postal Service. More »
Change Your Mind About NetZero Mobile Interwebs? Tough.
By Laura Northrup on April 12, 2012 10:30 AM
28 Comments
Yes, NetZero is back, offering cheap mobile broadband Internet access instead of ad-supported or cheap dial-up Internet. That's pretty cool, and the idea appealed to Rusty. The problem is that once he did some research and realized the deal wasn't all that appealing, he couldn't back out. Buying a NetZero hotspot is a sacred covenant, and you can't return it after placing your order unless it's actually defective. More »
Best Buy Customer Service Has No Idea How Actual Best Buy Stores Work
By Laura Northrup on March 23, 2012 3:15 PM
68 Comments
That headline is not what one might call "surprising." But when Noelle's mom found an old, unopened charger bought at Best Buy and still had the receipt, the nice representative on the phone advised her to visit a brick-and-mortar store where they could "buy back" the item instead of accepting it as a return. Except there isn't any such program, so the duo wasted their time and had to, you know, go to Best Buy. Poor things. More »
White House/Black Market Return Policy Sticks Me With A Pile Of Bridesmaid Dresses
By Laura Northrup on March 8, 2012 11:33 AM
110 Comments
Buying bridesmaids' dresses from a place that isn't a bridal store can save you money and expand your style options, but their return policies aren't designed with weddings in mind. Lyndsay bought her attendants' dresses from the chain White House/Black Market, but needed to return them when a pregnant matron of honor meant changing all of the dresses. While the chain advertises "no hassle" returns, there's plenty of hassle if more than 60 days have passed since the purchase. Since that's how return policies work. More »
Target Sells You A Vacuum Full Of Crud, Won't Take It Back
By Laura Northrup on February 23, 2012 9:00 AM
56 Comments
Isabelle's $300 Dyson vacuum from Target arrived on her doorstep without some of the parts, and filled with dirt from someone else's house. Wanting to receive the item she actually had ordered, she dragged it to the nearest Target in a taxi and was told that she was obviously trying to pull one over on Target by returning this vacuum when she so clearly had used it and kept the handle. Clearly. More »
How Walmart Is Making Americans Even Stupider
By Laura Northrup on February 22, 2012 9:35 AM
194 Comments
Reader "Nick" manages a store that sells DVDs. And while store managers have many, many legitimate gripes that they could share with the Consumerist Nation, Nick has a very specific complaint about Walmart. It's his belief that Walmart is making Americans stupid. Well, stupider. Hear him out. More »
(DQD)
What You Buy From The Apple Store, You Must Return To An Apple Store
By Laura Northrup on January 13, 2012 8:00 AM
51 Comments
Apple recently introduced in-store pickup at all of its retail stores. They call it "Personal Pickup." order an item online, and you can go fetch it in person at your local Apple retail store, assuming that you have one. But you can't perform this trick in reverse. At least, that's what Randolph was told when he tried to return a sealed AirPort Extreme without taking it to a retail store. More »
Best Buy Screws Up Gift Return, Causes Family Awkwardness
By Laura Northrup on January 3, 2012 9:30 AM
177 Comments
Whenever we post a Best Buy story, commenters scold the tipster: don't they read the site? They should have known better than to shop at Best Buy in the first place! It's impossible (I hope) to blame Todd, though—his mother-in-law bought him a gadget gift there. A car dock for the wrong type of smartphone, along with a gift receipt. This should have been a smooth and simple transaction, right? Of course not. More »
(oamg823)
Was I Wrong To Profit From Returning An Online Purchase To Walmart?
By Laura Northrup on December 29, 2011 9:00 AM
142 Comments
A frequent reader who we'll call M. wrote in to offer his post-holiday moral dilemma. Well, it's not so much a dilemma, since he he's already done it. He bought a Microsoft Kinect controller online, but wanted to return it after the holidays were over. Too lazy to package the controller and mail it back, he instead took it to his local Walmart and returned it for store credit. $50 more than he originally paid for the device. More »
Before You Return Gifts, Check Out Return Policy Tweaks
By Phil Villarreal on December 23, 2011 12:15 PM
13 Comments
Retailers are always tweaking their return policies, weighing the delicate balance between protecting their bottom lines and treating customers with fairness. No two return policies ever seem to be the same, and even if they are, changes come along soon enough to differentiate them once again. More »
Only The CEO At Cuisinart Has The Power To Send You A Shipping Label
By Laura Northrup on December 22, 2011 12:30 PM
57 Comments
Jennifer bought the Cuisinart coffeemaker at right about a month ago. It lists for $145.00, and you can get it from Amazon for, as of this writing, $75.45. Unfortunately for Jennifer, her appliance just plain stopped working, and nothing she did at home would fix it. Cuisinart agreed to send her a new one, and even waived the shipping fee, but they want her old coffeemaker back. This wouldn't be a problem, but the cost to ship the large and heavy machine is $47.62. That amount would put Jennifer more than halfway to just buying a new machine. More »
(pdxmac)
Target Demands Extra $189 To Exchange Camera No Longer On Sale
By Laura Northrup on December 7, 2011 11:15 AM
221 Comments
Coco took advantage of a great deal at Target, buying a digital camera on sale for $189 below list price, with a $75 Target gift card on the side. Neat! Trouble was, he didn't open or test out the camera until a week later, once the sale was over and the gift card had been spent. Photos taken with the camera didn't come out, so he took the camera back to Target to exchange it for a working one. The trouble was, they couldn't exchange it for him unless he paid an extra $189 and return the $75 gift card. More »
(jillrdu)
Returning Wedding Gifts To Walmart: Not All That Easy
By Laura Northrup on November 2, 2011 9:30 AM
153 Comments
The greeters aren't the only ones at Walmart who demand your receipt. If you've registered for your wedding or other gift-lavishing occasion at there, know this: Wally World treats registry returns without a gift receipt as returns without a receipt. Even though they've got your registry right there, showing that someone else bought the item for you and precisely who bought it. Nope, being a registry item isn't good enough. Reader Chris shared his sad tale, which ends with him being stuck with an air compressor and an awful lot of Walmart gift cards. More »
(kakissel)
Pay Target.com With PayPal And Return Stuff, Only Get Store Credit
By Laura Northrup on September 28, 2011 7:45 AM
48 Comments
Cora has a warning for the Consumerist community: while you can pay on Target.com using your PayPal account and then return it, it's not necessarily a good idea. You'll get your money back, but it won't be automatically credited back to your PayPal account. Instead, you'll receive the balance on a Target gift card. This can be either frustrating or convenient, depending on the amount of the order and how often you shop at Target. More »
It Would Be Nice If My Lane Bryant Jeans Lasted Longer Than 2 Months
By Laura Northrup on September 9, 2011 10:30 AM
246 Comments
Andrea is very fond of Right Fit jeans from Lane Bryant. She likes them so much that she wears them until they literally wear out,then goes and buys another pair. Only that's a more expensive plan than it was a few years ago, because Andrea has noticed the quality of the pants that she buys deteriorating over time. She reached a breaking point recently when her jeans, too, reached a breaking point—wearing out this week after being purchased in July. $50 is a lot to pay for pants that only last two months. More »
You Can't Return This Phone To Walgreens, So Take It To Another Walgreens
By Laura Northrup on August 4, 2011 8:35 AM
119 Comments
Robert bought a prepaid AT&T Wireless cell phone at Walgreens in order to try out the company's service. He never ended up using the phone, so had the crazy idea that he might try returning the unopened phone to a different Walgreens for store credit. The store wouldn't hear of any such madness. More »
How A Sears Promotion Gobbled Up $25 Of My Money
By Laura Northrup on July 8, 2011 3:30 PM
61 Comments
Kenneth isn't quite sure what to do. He bought enough men's clothing items at Sears to trigger a deal giving him a restricted $25 gift card to Sears. Hooray! Only when he came back to return some of the items, the card's value was deducted from his refund, forcing him to spend $25 more at Sears than he had ever planned to. More »
Return Merchandise To Bankrupt Newport News, Get Sent To Collections
By Laura Northrup on July 6, 2011 9:00 AM
28 Comments
Late last month, the company that operates the Spiegel and Newport News women's clothing catalogs filed for bankruptcy. There's some very interesting background questions about why the company is bankrupt for the second time in eight years and why it's being sold to an affiliate of its parent company. But that's not what reader Angela is concerned about. She returned some merchandise to the catalog that she paid for with her store credit account. She sent it back several months ago, and still insist that she pay for it. This is not a practical way to get out of Chapter 11. More »
When GPS Suction Cup Won't Suck, TomTom's Customer Service Does
By Laura Northrup on April 22, 2011 8:00 AM
27 Comments
To be fair, it's not that the customer service agents that Dave spoke to at TomTom were unfriendly. It's just that their RMA process is needlessly complicated. He received a defective suction cup thingy with his GPS unit, and called up the company so they could send him a new one. He spent more than an hour on the phone with various customer service reps to get a replacement. How much did TomTom spend paying their employees to verify that Dave was, indeed, eligible to receive a small piece of plastic that's not very useful when one doesn't already own a TomTom GPS? More »
Best Buy Manager: We Didn't Sell You A Defective Blu-Ray Disc, Lionsgate Did
By Chris Morran on April 6, 2011 3:30 PM
145 Comments
A few months ago, Consumerist reader Dave picked up a few of the "Saw" movies on Blu-Ray while shopping at his local Best Buy in Georgia. And when he finally got around to popping "Saw IV" into his player last month, it wouldn't play. So, since he still had the receipt it shouldn't have been a problem to get a replacement disc from Best Buy, right? More »
