Refund without return?!!!

[Ringwraith917]

This just came across my news feed.

Just keep your returns: Stores weigh paying you not to bring back unwanted items

www.cnn.com

"In some instances, when they determine it would be easier, some retailers advise customers to just keep or donate their return after issuing a refund."

And here I thought no amount of stupid could surprise me anymore

 

[dannyy315]

Yes it’s even happened to me before. I’ve ordered things from Target that arrived broken, and used the “Fix an Issue” option in the app. Went through the “request a replacement“ option, and they said they’ll send me a new one and I can keep the broken one. It’s more of a cost saving thing, it actually costs the company a lot of money to have you send something back.

Oh but I see this article is talking about something different. In store returns vs online ones.

 

[Luck]

Yes it’s even happened to me before. I’ve ordered things from Target that arrived broken, and used the “Fix an Issue” option in the app. Went through the “request a replacement“ option, and they said they’ll send me a new one and I can keep the broken one. It’s more of a cost saving thing, it actually costs the company a lot of money to have you send something back.

Oh but I see this article is talking about something different. In store returns vs online ones.

I know Amazon is notorious for this too. I have a realtive who changed every lightbulb in his house by ordering them, stating he didnt like them and wanted to return, and they told him to just keep the lightbulbs because we all know they would have arrived back broken anyway.

 

[GRC]

Shipping the item back, making sure it's not broken, and putting it back into inventory if it's still sellable all take time and most importantly money. Especially for cheaper items, the cost for a company getting an item back is often more than the profit they'd get from selling it again.

 

[versionDefect]

same thing happened to me with amazon. It was a super small old school keyboard plug to USB. Turns out I got the wrong one and the item was like 6 dollars so it was super not worth them paying shipping. I have it somewhere in my house.

 

[moninity]

Less stray to deal with or less items brought back to crc/salvage sounds good but what’s going to stop guest from using it to their own good? Like I can go buy a tv bring it up to guest service get money back and keep the tv?

 

[PackAndCry]

Less stray to deal with or less items brought back to crc/salvage sounds good but what’s going to stop guest from using it to their own good? Like I can go buy a tv bring it up to guest service get money back and keep the tv?

No, it's just on small stuff where it's not worth the cost of trying to repackage/salvage it. Food, basics in style, etc.

They've been doing this for years on the app if you choose Fix an Issue for an order. I've had it happen when I report food items missing/expired/damaged in my Drive Up or when I ordered some shirts that didn't have a good fit. I would assume that the system automatically stops offering it as an option if someone does it too much. I doubt they're planning on telling people to keep things that they try to return in person at the store.