OT- Shopping in hard economic times just got harder

[in2dadark]

I waited till later in the evening tonight to go purchase a dvd player as mine went to lunch today. So, I picked out a 29 dollar magnavox and when I got home it looked like it was repackaged. The cord was not wound up and the foam in the box was broken up. And the case of it even looked like it had been used.

It didn't work. So, I took it right back. As I was going back I just figured walmart took it back from someone else and 'they' sealed it up and put it back on the shelf. When I got to walmart customer service they said the serial number didn't match the box; And they asked me to step aside and wait and let the next person go.

So, finally she comes back and says will give you an exchange for the same one. I said, no I want a refund, I'm getting a different one. I said 'if I had done something wrong I would take your offer'.. They relented but not without treating me like I just scammed walmart.

I'm going to have the store (every store) open the box or I'm going to open ANY sealed box of ANYTHING I purchase from now on before I leave the store and make sure it is what should be inside. Someone probably sealed it up real nice and took it back as unopened and they didn't open it to see what was inside.

The one that was in my box was from 2008. They could have called the police and accused me of something. That would have been good because I could have then sued them when I proved I had no other unit in my home..

Beware,

[Oren]

I had about the same thing happen at a Best Buy (years ago). I bought a new WD hard drive. ($$) Got the perfect looking shrink wrapped box home, open it up and found some old aged HD drive in the box.

Went directly back, paper in hand and explained what it was. They did exchange the item with no hassle.

Musta been an inside job that someone had the tools to shrink-wrap the box.

At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing, after I opened the box. The drive was older than the one I was replacing.

[mm]

I bought an auto-air-AC power supply for a laptop at bestbuy.

It was barely rewrapped, and plainly had been opened. I think the price was marked down. When I got it home, one of the tips was missing. I returned it but not because of that. That tip I didn't need.

They took it back with no problem. Didn't reopen it.

Probably the guy before me bought it and stole a tip, then returned it. Or the guy before him stole the tip and the guy just before me returned it because a tip was missing.

[Oren]

I pay attention to boxes that are re-wrapped (discounted/tagged - those in shopping carts that block the aisles) by some means, like tape or such. The one experience I had with my disk drive looked like a pro wrapped it up in factory :-/

[mm]

I figure they must have shrink-wrap machines at these stores, for cases like, A customer at the store opens something to read the instructions. Doesn't buy it. Should they really have to send it back to the factory or the refurbish place and then sell it for less.

It's fair to reshrink it if that's all that happened, but it sound to me like much more happened, a guy who works in the store put in his old harddrive and kept the new one and then reshrank it. So now they'll have to keep the reshrinker locked and a log of everyone who used it and for what. Or maybe only one person will be allowed to reshrink.

[The Daring Dufas]

In hard economic times, people will scam anybody. I think it's a part of human nature that rears its ugly head when money is scarce.

TDD

[dadiOH]

It's not the economy, it happens *all* the time...good times as well as bad.

In my previous incarnation I was a photographer. It was common for young women to go buy a new outfit for a photography session and return it afterward. Ditto for high school proms.

A large percentage (most?) of the people see nothing wrong with chiseling a bit as long as the victim is big and impersonal...stores, insurance companies, IRS, etc.

[Nate Nagel]

I won't buy anything from my local Sears that isn't in a sealed box and/or I can inspect all the parts on the spot. Had a heck of a time there when I'd bought a fairly expensive set of shop-vac attachments and found that half of them were missing. Unfortunately there's enough shameless criminals that shop there to make it a normal occurrance. I thought this was supposed to be an "upscale" area? Guess the "upscale" clientele doesn't shop at the Sears tool department.

nate

[Doug Miller]

[Jim Elbrecht]

-snip-

I don't know what the percentages are- but I read an article yesterday telling of a UK priest advising his flock that it was OK to shoplift from big stores.

He misses the whole moral issue- and says that the cost it passed on and spread out amongst a great number of people.

His archdeacon disagrees.

Back to the OP- I can sympathize with him *and* the store. There are so many scams going on now they have to be on their toes.

Jim

[Jim Elbrecht]

Great minds and all that-- I just posted a different link to the same story.

Jim

[Rick Brandt]

Hold on a second. Someone scammed Wal-Mart by returning an old used item in a new box and you are bent out of shape that they were suspicious that you might have done so? How does that follow? Couldn't they see the halo over your head? How could the clerk behind the counter NOT suspect that you might be the one pulling a fast one?

Someone at Wal-Mart dropped the ball when the first return was not opened and inspected. Perhaps doing that is company policy and on this rare occasion somebody screwed up. If it is policy to check a returned item doesn't that make your story sound fishy? By refusing to accept an exchange for what you were originally trying to purchase you made yourself look even more suspicious. How does somebody scamming Wal-Mart out of something suddenly make your original purchase decision change? The offer they made you was more than fair.

Sued them? Well you can sue for anything, but they had zero obligation to give you anything back much less a full refund.

[Jules]

Yeah, I had that with a DVD at walrus-mart - perfectly shrinkwrapped, those security stickers on the case, but no DVD inside when we got it home and opened it. Had one hell of a job returning it (didn't help when the manager who told us on the phone to come back and they'd exchange it had then 'conveniently' gone on a break by the time we arrived!).

Apparently they'd seen it before a few times with different titles, so I don't know where they do the shrink-wrapping but I guess it happens at that point and by the time it gets sold the person responsible is untraceable.

Moral is to open everything in the store that's wrapped and check that it is what it says it is, I suppose - but that's difficult when it holds up other customers in the line...

cheers

Jules

[HeyBub]

I've got a shrink-wrap device. It's like a Xerox machine, once you have one, you wonder how you ever lived without it.

Maybe once a year I find the item I bought is not appropriate to the task I had in mind. It's so much easier to put everything back, shrink-wrap the contents, re-apply all the stickers, and return it.

You can shrink-wrap all manner of other things: food for the freezer, a collection of parts for the gizmo, small dead animals, collectable items you want to preserve (books, trading cards, coins, baby teeth, etc.).

[dadiOH]

Not a bad one either. In Mexico there is always a hot socket neaby light bulbs; stick a bulb in the socket (screwing in not necessary) and if it lights you know it is good. Here, some kid would sizzle his finger and the lawyers would be pouring out of the woodwork.

The same sampling concept works for foods in a jar too: how does one know if you like Such & Such brand of strawberry jam? Answer is, open lid, srick in finger and sample. Seen it done 100s of times; I never did that but I did open to see if the surface looked disturbed; not too effective with jam but works for peanut butter.

BTW, I never found Chinese to cheat more than any other group.

[benick]

So true...SWMBO is a manager at Walmart and the scams NEVER end....The big one now is shoplifting items and returning them for money or Store Credit on a gift card....Sometimes they steal it at one Walmart and return it to another , sometimes at the SAME store even...Now how many returns you make are kept track of.....So if you return alot of items EXPECT to be questioned about it and possibly asked to leave and not come back......Sucks that they have to do it but what are they supposed to do....Soon EVERYTHING will have built in chips that will have to be deactivated when cashing out or there won't be cashiers and whatever you take from the store will be automatically deducted from your account.........

[benick]

There are CARTLOADS of womens clothes returned daily at the Walmart my wife works at...LOL....Most have been clearly worn....Raises the prices for the rest of us.....

[Steve]

Last year I bought a "new" electric water heater from Home Depot still in the box.... Got it home and noticed the inside plastic wrap was not all the way up and over the heater.. Didnt think too much of it and proceded to install the heater. When all done installing and filled I turned the breaker on and nothing happened... Long story short after numerous calls back to the Home Depot, they did help me diagnose that one of the heating elements inside may be defective.. I shut the breaker off and drained the heater and lo and behold the bottom heater element was in fact defective... In fact it was burned right off!!!! Apparently someone had bought the heater took it home and somehow screwed up in installing it and burnt up the element and boxed it back up and took it back to the store. Then the Home Depot people put the box right back on the shelf and I got it... Steve ps They did give me a new element without charge to put back in and it has since been working fine.

[in2dadark]

I'm opening EVERYTHING from here on out.. The next one I purchased I took it to the CS counter and made sure 'they' opend it and looked at the serial # on the unit and compared it to the box. I said 'if this one is bad I'm taking IT back as well and I don't want any more problems'...They obviously refunded my money because they know there could be another way that unit got in there, ie someone bought one swapped their old, nonworking unit and left the new remote, sealed it up and returned it.

[in2dadark]

That's the thing for me. I've worked in financial services here in Fla for over 20 years. I can't get myself even close to an issue like this. Our DOI fingerprints us and is pretty strict; And new companies won't deal with you if you're involved in any kind of monetary deception. I have no reason to want to do it either. When I was at the counter I was joking with a young lady that was next in line and trying to stay reasonable. But it could have gotten ugly. I don't like being accused of something I didn't do.. Who does..

I could never understand people like you mentioned. When you have enough and are doing ok there is no reason to steal. If I were hungry it might be another story.