Archived No Receipt Returns

[706]

Lately we've been hit with a monsterous amount of softlines and HBA returns with no receipt. It isn't uncommon to have nearly 1,000 dollars a day in these obviously fraudulent returns, and it is getting worse. Our STL has stuck with the this is the yes desk and we need to process every return line despite having been shown numerous receipts from these transactions. I'm curious to see if anybody is having this same problem at their store and what they've done about it if anything?

 

[HRZone]

Your STL is not always the best person to talk to in these situations... They are looking out for themselves, there is another thread on here about how workbench says we have to attempt every return. Target values "Making it right for the guest"

Every store has some form of Assets Protection beit an ETL AP or a APS. Get in contact with the leader at your store. Worst case they will document these scammers and start building a case against them, its their job.

Stop wasting your time with the STL, they often do not care about scammers, many of them know when they deny a return they will get corporate called on them. Some dont mind that, but others do.

Remember an AP persons job is to specifically stop people like that, we call our ETL AP to guest services when there is a shady return and sometimes he tells them to GTFO

 

[shortstuffishere]

Our store policy (ASANTS) is you may exchange in the SAME department only of equal or greater value. It was because we were having a HUGE amount of fraudulent returns. We used to do it if you where doing a no receipt return we would force to get a red card to do it.

 

[NPC]

The IDs have a return amount limit for a reason, so don't feel bad about giving the guests store credit. Usually, the best thing you can do, is do the return, document it, and tell AP. Feel free to scrutinize their ID too. It must be valid. If it's expired, I don't take it. I also don't take photocopies of IDs either, or DMV papers. (No clue what the actual policy is.) But I only accept real, original, non expired ID.

There have been times where I cut the guest off at $50, and told them they were over their ID return limit. I've only done that when the guest had an absurd amount of items.

If it's HBA, I don't even take them. If it looks like it's over $30~, or coupon items, or small expensive items that are easy to pocket, I tell them I need an original receipt. No ID, no card look up, no gift card. Original receipt only. Same typically applies to electronics as well.

With electronics though, I usually attempt the return anyway, because over a certain amount, they have to do an exchange anyway. Same goes for baby formula.

One time a guest came in with two stuffed duffle bags, full of random merchandise. He wanted to return all of it, as well as the bags. I didn't even ask for ID, I flat out denied the return.

Just remember...you want to trust the guests. Never accuse. But, sadly, people do shady shit all the time. Just partner up with AP, keep a mental list of things for them, keep them up to date on what's been going on. Eventually you'll learn what to deny, and what to accept.

 

[706]

I think the most frustrating part is that our AP can't do anything to stop it. For the past year or so we've had a strong partnership between the AP and the GS team, but it doesn't seem that the product is coming from our store or any of the stores around us. It may not even be from Target given how many other general retailers are around us. Obviously the clothing is ours, but the HBA items could be anyone. It's just frustrating when you have to stand there and take this stuff back knowing full well what's going on. In the past our AP had started sending the obviously bad returns on their way, but that was stopped fairly quickly, and a stern "yes desk" memo came not long after. Honestly the worst part is pointlessly reprinting receipts for the AP and watching the losses ad up day after day. I can get called up to reprint a receipt for GS multiple times in a shift anymore each one for right at the 250 limit.

 

[706]

It might also be worth adding that a lot of my negativity around all of this stems from Target's new found fear of upsetting a guest. Oh you didn't get to use your expired coupon? Here let us send you a 20 dollar gift card because you're upset. Oh you bought a ton of stuff 3 weeks ago that now has a Cartwheel offer? Here let us just store coupon that out for you since you're screaming at the lowly GS employee. It feels more and more that Target encourages people to abuse our teams and throw fits over policy without any obvious boost to quarterly profits or guest loyalty. I'm all for benefit of the doubt and making it right, but reinforcing the unreasonable sense of entitlement of some guests have only serves to encourage their nasty behavior.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Your ap could be building a case.

 

[BullseyeBabe]

It might also be worth adding that a lot of my negativity around all of this stems from Target's new found fear of upsetting a guest. Oh you didn't get to use your expired coupon? Here let us send you a 20 dollar gift card because you're upset. Oh you bought a ton of stuff 3 weeks ago that now has a Cartwheel offer? Here let us just store coupon that out for you since you're screaming at the lowly GS employee. It feels more and more that Target encourages people to abuse our teams and throw fits over policy without any obvious boost to quarterly profits or guest loyalty. I'm all for benefit of the doubt and making it right, but reinforcing the unreasonable sense of entitlement of some guests have only serves to encourage their nasty behavior.

OMG!!! Thank you! Why are we rewarding bad behavior? We are still missing sales goals every day, yet we're enabling fraud to the tune if thousands of dollars every day. We even have to take back used air mattresses.

 

[Firefox]

At least at my store, we were given free license to deny any return for any reason. the big one was for anything HBA, electronics, or softlines. As far as I know, that's still how we're doing things. We would deny any return with more than 4 of the problem items. I got a lot of the scammers threatening to call corporate over it, but each and every time it was nothing but talk and they just stopped trying after a while.

 

[thetargetman]

I favorite was the squawky chicken lady who always returns several hundread dollars worth of clothing and she claims to pay in cash but does not keep the paperwork. She knew the store did every return no mater what and if you questioned her she got squawky. ugh..

 

[HRZone]

It might also be worth adding that a lot of my negativity around all of this stems from Target's new found fear of upsetting a guest. Oh you didn't get to use your expired coupon? Here let us send you a 20 dollar gift card because you're upset. Oh you bought a ton of stuff 3 weeks ago that now has a Cartwheel offer? Here let us just store coupon that out for you since you're screaming at the lowly GS employee. It feels more and more that Target encourages people to abuse our teams and throw fits over policy without any obvious boost to quarterly profits or guest loyalty. I'm all for benefit of the doubt and making it right, but reinforcing the unreasonable sense of entitlement of some guests have only serves to encourage their nasty behavior.

You are preaching to the choir. Target is afraid of getting sued so in many cases they swallow these losses. Just remind yourself as frustrating as it is, its corporats deal. Costco is well known for taking items back a year old. Most people arent taking advantage of the system but some will. oh well

 

[Yetive]

Without a valid receipt, including gift receipts without all of the information, we will offer to goto a computer and look up the receipt for them. They know that means we will see all coupons/gift cards, and they tend to slink away.

 

[706]

I think the fear of being sued is silly. Plenty of companies have hyper restrictive return policies or have noticed problems with abuse of the current policies and proceeded to tighten up. REI comes to mind as one who found that they were hurting financially by having such a loose return policy like L.L. Bean. They quickly tightened up the policy and haven't been sued to my knowledge over it.

 

[706]

Target is quickly becoming the rich guy with no friends who uses his money to get people to like him. In the end though they only stick around for the free party.

 

[TallAPGuy]

Yeah, unfortunately we are not allowed to veto returns for any reason. I'm not even supposed to go to the service desk unless I'm called over there; at least according to our etl ge.
Thankfully our GVP just sent out a very strongly worded email to the entire group that nobody is to use the return override code for anything less than emergencies.

 

[PassinTime]

You are preaching to the choir. Target is afraid of getting sued so in many cases they swallow these losses. Just remind yourself as frustrating as it is, its corporats deal. Costco is well known for taking items back a year old. Most people arent taking advantage of the system but some will. oh well

But Costco can track those purchases. The customer needs to buy and return with their member id.

 

[MrGSTLman]

I'll flat out deny any HBA return that looks like the totals will be high. Especially when it's the guy returning $200 of makeup "for his girlfriend" but she paid cash and he didn't have the receipt. Yup. Nice try, go scam another store. Not in my house. I don't accuse, mind you, I just deny it and say we need a receipt. It is frustrating, though, when you KNOW it's a fraudulent return but you can't do anything about it because the items didn't come from your store.

I remember corporate sending out a memo about override code usage. My GE and STL are on the "yes desk" mentality, too. I've pushed back a lot because I don't want the override capability taken away like the missed coupon function was (we were one of the districts where the option was taken away). To do a missed coupon we have to return the item and apply the missed coupon to it. It's easy when it's one specific item but now that we have all the category coupons it's not as easy (and if anyone knows a way that is I'm all ears... or,. eyes).

 

[LUR99]

The IDs have a return amount limit for a reason, so don't feel bad about giving the guests store credit. Usually, the best thing you can do, is do the return, document it, and tell AP. Feel free to scrutinize their ID too. It must be valid. If it's expired, I don't take it. I also don't take photocopies of IDs either, or DMV papers. (No clue what the actual policy is.) But I only accept real, original, non expired ID.

There have been times where I cut the guest off at $50, and told them they were over their ID return limit. I've only done that when the guest had an absurd amount of items.

If it's HBA, I don't even take them. If it looks like it's over $30~, or coupon items, or small expensive items that are easy to pocket, I tell them I need an original receipt. No ID, no card look up, no gift card. Original receipt only. Same typically applies to electronics as well.

With electronics though, I usually attempt the return anyway, because over a certain amount, they have to do an exchange anyway. Same goes for baby formula.

One time a guest came in with two stuffed duffle bags, full of random merchandise. He wanted to return all of it, as well as the bags. I didn't even ask for ID, I flat out denied the return.

Just remember...you want to trust the guests. Never accuse. But, sadly, people do shady shit all the time. Just partner up with AP, keep a mental list of things for them, keep them up to date on what's been going on. Eventually you'll learn what to deny, and what to accept.

Great advise! I do the same thing. I also write down notes for AP with a description of the person, date time and items.

 

[Frontlanegirl]

I'll flat out deny any HBA return that looks like the totals will be high. Especially when it's the guy returning $200 of makeup "for his girlfriend" but she paid cash and he didn't have the receipt. Yup. Nice try, go scam another store. Not in my house. I don't accuse, mind you, I just deny it and say we need a receipt. It is frustrating, though, when you KNOW it's a fraudulent return but you can't do anything about it because the items didn't come from your store.

I remember corporate sending out a memo about override code usage. My GE and STL are on the "yes desk" mentality, too. I've pushed back a lot because I don't want the override capability taken away like the missed coupon function was (we were one of the districts where the option was taken away). To do a missed coupon we have to return the item and apply the missed coupon to it. It's easy when it's one specific item but now that we have all the category coupons it's not as easy (and if anyone knows a way that is I'm all ears... or,. eyes).

I hate having the missed coupon key. Many times this week I have had to return a bunch of grocery items and then re-ring them to apply the coupon. This alone causes a shortage since most of the grocery items are automatically defected out and tossed in theory.

The front end knows not to use the override key. Pretty frustrating when you see another ETL in the store use it if they are helping at the desk and they don't want to deny a return.

 

[MrGSTLman]

When we couldn't look up debit cards for that extended period my team would ask me to override so the guest wouldn't have to get a gift card. I did if the guest got nasty with us but I tried not to for the most part, and explained to the team that regardless the receipt lookup is a courtesy we provide, it's not a substitute for the receipt. I explained to my GE that even though we have the option of the override it shouldn't be abused just to make a guest happy. We should use it only when we need to.

For the category coupons do a fix a mistake as a wrong payment that way you can get back into the transaction without having to return/repurchase multiple items. Just be careful when it comes to Debit cards, as it does not instantly go back into their accounts it can take up to 7 days. Hopefully corporate has mercy on us and considers turning the function back on for the holidays. It's a pipe dream but it could happen (no evidence it will but I can dream).

 

[Saylavee]

We've also been told we need to be a "yes" desk. We have also been told to let the POS guide as to whether we can perform a refund or not because of the possibility of legal action. But then we're told we aren't supposed to return HBA items without a receipt but yet if it's only one or two items we sometimes look it up on their card and do the refund. If it's several identical HBA or cleaning supplies, etc. that were obviously purchased with a "Buy _, get a $5/$10 Gift Card" then we usually refuse a no receipt refund.

It's wonderful that we're empowered to use our discretion in certain instances, but when a guest has a fit, treats you badly, and demands to speak to a manager, who then allows the return, it can be quite frustrating.

 

[Frontlanegirl]

When we couldn't look up debit cards for that extended period my team would ask me to override so the guest wouldn't have to get a gift card. I did if the guest got nasty with us but I tried not to for the most part, and explained to the team that regardless the receipt lookup is a courtesy we provide, it's not a substitute for the receipt. I explained to my GE that even though we have the option of the override it shouldn't be abused just to make a guest happy. We should use it only when we need to.

For the category coupons do a fix a mistake as a wrong payment that way you can get back into the transaction without having to return/repurchase multiple items. Just be careful when it comes to Debit cards, as it does not instantly go back into their accounts it can take up to 7 days. Hopefully corporate has mercy on us and considers turning the function back on for the holidays. It's a pipe dream but it could happen (no evidence it will but I can dream).

The debit card lookup is still having issues. Have had some lately where we try to do a lookup and can't find it, only to have the guest find the receipt and it is the right card.

You can only do a fix a mistake the same day. Had a man come in the other day because the cashier didn't take off the $10 on his grocery bill and I had to do a re-ring. Yes, I am aware of the debit funds issue. Wait til we have a screaming guest whose account will be overdrawn because of the re-ring.

 

[thetargetman]

I favorite was the squawky chicken lady who always returns several hundread dollars worth of clothing and she claims to pay in cash but does not keep the paperwork. She knew the store did every return no mater what and if you questioned her she got squawky. ugh..

sometimes you just want to say "stop squawking you twit!!!!"

 

[garbage]

Yeah, unfortunately we are not allowed to veto returns for any reason. I'm not even supposed to go to the service desk unless I'm called over there; at least according to our etl ge.
Thankfully our GVP just sent out a very strongly worded email to the entire group that nobody is to use the return override code for anything less than emergencies.

My ETL-AP overrides the ETL-GEs policy on this. We currently deny anything that looks overtly sketchy.

$200 with of HBA/cosmetics? No receipt? I'll be glad to look it up for you...you said it was purchased here last week right by your stepdad's brother's sister-in-law? Odd MyDevice says last sold 8 months ago. Sorry but we can't take it back. Here's a comment card if your upset. Also, one of the products has a Walgreens security sticker on it...you sure you bought it here?

 

[HRZone]

When we couldn't look up debit cards for that extended period my team would ask me to override so the guest wouldn't have to get a gift card. I did if the guest got nasty with us

And I hate this, not your actions in particular but guest who are friendly we shut down but those who complain and whine enough get what they want when they threaten to call corporate. Only further enables the monster.