For years, Walmart has been offering ways for customers to shop online and pick up in stores. But Walmart’s new idea to attract online shoppers flips things on their ear by using its retail stores as the places where you return unwanted online purchases. [More]
returns
Man Stole $11,000 In Stuff From Home Depot, Then Returned It All For Refunds
By 4.18.17
Most practitioners of the “hot exchange” — the retail grift where a fraudster steals an item then “returns” it to the store for a refund — are happy to chisel away a criminal living, earning $50 here, $100 there. But one Texas man was thinking big when he stole — and then returned — more than $11,000 from Home Depot stores. [More]
McDonald’s Manager Arrested For Refunding $3,800 Worth Of Big Macs … To Herself
By 4.14.17
Each day, fast food managers around the world refund money to unhappy customers, but one burger-brained McDonald’s manager realized she could issue a fake refund for a Big Mac and pocket the money… Then she did it nearly 1,100 times. [More]
UPS Expecting To Send 1.3M Packages Back To Retailers On ‘National Returns Day’
By 12.27.16
If you’re the kind of person who likes keeping track of arbitrary holidays, here’s one more to add to your list: Jan. 5, known as “National Returns Day,” or, “The Day You Send That Horrorshow Of A Sweater Back From The Fiery Chasm From Whence It Came.” [More]
Store Fitting Rooms Are Terrible And Make Everyone Feel Terrible
By 6.8.16
Do you like to take an armful of clothing items, bring them three at a time into the fitting room, put them on, look at yourself in the mirror under harsh fluorescent lights, and make a quick judgement in the store? Most people don’t appreciate this experience, which is one of the reasons why people are shopping online as much as they can. However, the return rate for clothes purchases is the same in stores and online. Why is that? [More]
Don’t Throw Away Prepaid Debit Cards After You Use Them To Make A Purchase
By 5.4.16
If you exhaust all the money on a prepaid debit card and have no intention of refilling it, your tendency is probably to simply discard the piece of plastic and move on with your life. But you may want to hold on to that card for a while, lest you have to jump through hoops if you return the purchase. [More]
Police: Mother-Daughter Duo Stole $28K In Target Merchandise Through Return Scheme
By 4.7.16
When you think of someone stealing merchandise from a big box retailer you probably first think of smaller items that could easily be concealed in purses or on your person. But that certainly wasn’t the case for a mother-daughter duo accused of making away with bed sets, ottomans, chairs, and other items through a return scam at several California Target stores. [More]
This Year’s Avalanche Of Online Orders Won’t Be So Great For Retailers When Everyone Starts Returning Gifts
By 12.30.15
While many retailers were surely over the moon with an increase of online sales this year, that same burst in orders will have one effect that likely won’t make companies happy. Because when it comes time to return gifts purchased online, retailers are often on the hook to cover the costs involved. [More]
Here’s Where The Gifts You Return To The Store Will End Up
By 12.28.15
Are you planning to return a gift this holiday season? The odds are good that you’re returning something: as many as 15% of all items bought online are returned to the retailer, and the number is even higher for items where fit and color can vary, like clothing. When an item has been opened or is otherwise unfit to go back on the store shelf, where does it end up? It goes to a growing industry of specialized liquidators. [More]
Which Retailers Have Changed Their Return Policies This Holiday Season?
By 12.16.15
While it’s always important to keep a store’s return policy in mind when you shop, during the holiday season, return policies are extra important. That’s what happens when we give gifts that other people may not want. Every year, ConsumerWorld’s Edwin Dworsky compiles a list of major retailers’ return policies, comparing them to each other and to previous years’ policies. What do stores have planned for remorseful buyers and giftees in 2015 and early 2016? [More]
Using Only His Phone, Man Scams 217 Macy’s Stores Into Issuing Fraudulent Refunds
By 9.18.15
If you plan to go on a scamming spree, you probably shouldn’t use your actual email address when completing the transactions. That was ultimately the undoing for a Georgia man who federal authorities say duped more than 200 Macy’s stores in 31 states into issuing fraudulent refunds — and all without having to drive to the mall. [More]
Home Depot Declined My Return, But I’ve Only Returned One Thing There
By 7.20.15
Having returned stuff to Home Depot before, Stephen knew that he could expect to have his driver’s license scanned and the transaction logged by The Retail Equation, a company that logs information about people who return merchandise at a variety of retailers. What he didn’t expect was to be told that his return of some cabinet parts would be denied after he had only ever returned one $10 item to Home Depot before. [More]
Long-Time Walmart Employee Charged With Stealing $240K From Store Over Two-Year Period
By 4.16.15
Occasionally, Consumerist reports on some less than perfect Walmart employees: the man arrested for stealing cash from a customer and food from the company’s deli, or the woman who allegedly stole $10,000 in cash and gift cards while working as a cashier. While those incidents are indeed bad, they pale in comparison to a long-time employee of the nation’s largest retailer who allegedly stole nearly $250,000 from her employer. [More]
Can Retailers Make Us Stop Returning So Much Stuff?
By 11.24.14
After the holiday shopping frenzy is over, frenzy season isn’t yet complete: in malls and in post offices alike, shoppers then go into an item-returning and gift-card-spending frenzy. Unfortunately, this costs retailers a lot of money. Instead of accepting the cost of returns as a recurring annual thing, can they find a way to reduce them? [More]
The Good, Bad & Ugly Of Stores’ Holiday Return Policies
By 12.18.13
As much as we’d all love to believe that everything we give to our loved ones — and everything we receive from them — this holiday season will be exactly what we want and need, and that it will fit our bodies and/or be compatible with everything we already own. But odds are that a lot of us will be returning at least one thing to a store in the days and weeks after Christmas, so it helps to know retailers’ return policies. [More]
Walmart Workers Don’t Understand Store’s Return Policy, But Think They Do
By 11.26.13
In the retail shopping realm, there are few things worse than running up against an employee who is not only mistaken about his or her store’s policies, but insists that you are the one who does not understand the finer points of that retailer’s rules. [More]
Sears Settles With New York Over Deceptive Refunds
By 9.12.13
For more than two years, Sears offered “Come Back Cash” promotions that rewarded customers with Sears gift cards for purchases over certain qualifying thresholds. But if a customer returned an item, they would have the proportionate value of that gift card deducted from the refund, even if the total value of the purchase was still above the threshold for meriting a gift card. [More]
Don’t Notice Appliance Delivery Damage Within 48 Hours? Too Bad
By 7.24.13
Sometimes you buy a new appliance, but don’t use it right away. Maybe you just don’t have any dirty clothes or dishes for a while, or the room where the appliance goes just isn’t ready yet. That’s what happened to Russell when he bought a new washer from Home Depot: it was damaged during delivery, but he didn’t know it at the time. Since he didn’t report it within 48 hours, he’s stuck with the broken appliance, in a sad and desolate land between where Home Depot’s return policy ends and LG’s warranty begins. [More]
