Black Friday @ BEST BUY, buyer beware NEW RETURN POLICIES could burn you !!!!!

Easy. Make sure you get what you want, don't buy 5 items at Black Friday thinking that you can flogg 'em for a profit and find out you can't and then try to return them. No wonder they've implemented these policies.

I can perhaps understand this for returns, but why not allow exchanges of defective product? I'm sorry, but people will be buying things as gifts, and if they don't work the customer needs to be able to return/exchange it for one that does.

yes, we have already been "warned"... you've already ranted aboutbthis several times...

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1420497/best-buys-return-warning-it-could-happen-to-you

This only affects people who abuse returns. I am glad it was implemented, because now it can keep some of those fools in check. Anyone who gets one of these warnings gets no sympathy from me.

^^^

agreed...

Yeah! You people who get caught up in all the black friday hype and buy too much stuff deserve exactly what you get! After all, Best Buy wants you to make coldly sober and rational buying decisions and would never encourage you to buy more stuff than you need. In fact, Best Buy is better off without you. Who needs irrationally exuberant customers?

/rant on

Replace "black friday" with "buy now, pay later".
Replace "Best Buy" with "the responsible taxpayer".

And then people are blaming government policy for the economic downturn?

Nothing else but our greedy, selfish motives that result in short-sighted gain, long-term consequences, and how typical for us to deflect responsibility for our actions.

Capitalism works, but only when we're respectful and honest in our dealings.

Seems we're missing one or the other most of the time these days in our transactions.

There will always be abusers of good will and honest mistakes, and minimizing that is unfortunately close to impossible today.

And it's much riskier today to speak up against those who take advantage of others.

Confrontation tends to lead to more violent and illogical outcomes, rather than mutual understanding and calm resolution.

On a larger scale, perhaps there shouldn't have been a bailout, but rather a general payout to the legitimate, taxpaying workers earning less than $350,000 of those trillions spent saving misdirected companies.

(I pose that number as a measure of sufficient income required based on today's price levels for a nice home, a couple of kids, a couple of cars, a couple of vacations, and one really nice home theater setup).

At least then, their financial decisions would have been their own (influenced or not by exterior entities), corporations that failed would eventually be replaced with new ones and new jobs created where entitlement is replaced by performance.

Then we could get back to living life within our means and with pride of accomplishment in affording the nicer things, like a decent home theater without excessive debt or irrational decision making.

/rant off

You can't blame BB for this problem!

Yeah, that's a full deck right there.
Best Buy trying to have its cake and eat it too has nothing to do with politics.
Messages like yours say nothing about the topic at hand and everything about the writer.

Best Buy is trying to limit abuse of its return policies.

The get-rich-quick schemes of unscrupulous individuals that force enactment of these policies are hindered because they can't continue what amounts to gaming the system.

This reduction in reseller returns results in less costs to Best Buy and increased profitability that could help increase employee benefits and customer experiences overall.

And more opportunity for those who stand in line for hours on end who have saved their money to buy that one item that would nowadays be snapped up in bunches by resellers, only to be returned later if it couldn't be flipped for profit and sold back at regular store prices a month later.

Have you ever lined up for something special to buy for your kids at Xmas only to be told they were bought by that one guy leaving with a Uhaul truck?

That one chance where the price was within your means to buy legitimately and guarantee that on Xmas Day you would be "the best father in the world?"

Don't get it twisted.

We are where we are because selfishness and greed has gotten the better of us.

Try to view things a bit more objectively, and perhaps your flippant remarks wouldn't be so quickly forthcoming.

Since this is an open forum, I'm entitled to my opinion, and you yours.

Only difference is that I'm right.

It is pretty funny how every bizzaro-world poltical argument you make is perfectly symmetrical -- you can switch BBY and the evil customer and it all makes just as much sense.

Are people really blaming cutomers for taking advantage of black friday deals?

So if I see a $150 40" lcd and pick it up, and also see a marantz av receiver at 80% off, I should only get one or the other?

You guys do realize that best buy WILLINGLY prices these items as such for black friday, right?

And the ONLY black friday experience I've ever had was working as a fry's employee. But its pretty ridiculous to expect people to NOT take advantage of these deals. Sounds to me like some people are jealous of the deals others get.

Also, that sounds kinda weird. At the time of purchase, the item comes with a 30 day return policy. It seems odd that they can just change that. If the no return policy apply to something purchased AFTER then it makes a bit more sense.

^^^

nope... at least that's not what i'm saying... buy to your hearts content...

what i (and i think others) are saying is don't abuse it... don't buy a bunch of stuff with the intent to flip it and then return it when you can't...

^^^

i rest my case...

I have to agree with the OP. I have worked in several Electronics stores and retail stores Electronics departments over the years. I have opened laptops to install software from our stockroom and found broken screens, ticking hard drives that failed within hours, all sorts for broken stuff right from our stockroom. Quality control sucks these days.

If I was to buy a new camera for my wife, TV for my family, and a video game system for my kids for Christmas, and two of those three were broken in the box I'd be upset. I will either get an even exchange or return the broken items. If they try to say no, I will call my CC company on the spot, inform them I am leaving the item on the desk in front of the store manager, and need a charge back. Then video the item being left in place as I walk out the door.

Consumers need to stand up for themselves. Preditory store policys should fall under our CC reform of the last few years.

^^^

IF they are declining returns on defective merchandise, you have a point...

however, that's nothing but speculation on the op's part...

Not quite.

In one scenario, there's potential for all consumers to benefit for the same low price and potentially lower over time.

In the other, only one. With even more corporate policy and price increases to protect interests.

Which would you prefer, good sir?

You are the only one talking about "flipping" -- even when you "rest your case" you point at an example which has nothing to do with reselling discounted merchandise. You've made up a moralistic scenario and have applied it to everyone you disagree with in order to rationalize your position.

This argument comes down to one thing - no vendor is legally required to take a return on non-defective merchandise. Any vendor who has a return policy for non-defective merchandise does it for one reason and one reason only - to encourage sales by eliminating the customer's risk of ending up with a product that they do not like. The vendor transfers that risk from the customer to themselves by accepting non-defective returns.

BBY has decided that they only want to shoulder that risk in certain limited situations. That is their prerogative. But their method has not only returned some of that risk to the customer, they've also chosen to do it in a way that is not predictable at the point of sale. Joehonest has spelled out at least one scenario where the customer can not know that they will be refused a return until well after the point of sale. Because of that unpredictability, any rationale customer must assume that BBY will not accept a return unless they limit purchases something unreasonable like only one item every six months.

So you have a situation where BBY advertises that they accept returns, but the uncertainty of their return process means that effectively they do not accept returns. At best, that contradiction creates ill-will and at worst it tells customers that they should shop somewhere else that does have a reliable return policy.

Reports that BBY handles exchanges of defective merchandise as a return and rebuy which counts towards this new policy of limited returns only adds to customer uncertainty with the new return policy.

My interpretation of this situation is that BBY continues to act as if they have a monopoly when they really do not. It started with the implosion of Circuit City. After that, BBY cut back on value-priced product lines and focused on a smaller range of mostly high-margin products under the false belief that the customer did not have an alternative.

No one likes being held hostage, so BBY lost customers to internet retailers and the company has been hemorrhaging money ever since - they posted a Q1 loss this year of $1.7B. You don't lose that kind of money due to people returning un-opened merchandise that couldn't be "flipped" on ebay. You lose that kind of money because you are not providing value to your customers so they go elsewhere. This new unpredictable return policy further encourages people to shop elsewhere -- at places where the return policy is reliable.
Edited by JerryW - 11/13/12 at 8:11pm

It appears the hypothetical situation proposed by the OP is one that considers a customer buying more than one of the same unit, for whatever purpose.

And unless it's a defective product, Best Buy is limiting returns of purchases to discourage repeat offenders whose intent is to use/sell the brand new product within the rather generous return period, and then request a full refund.

If anything, Best Buy is trying to pull back the reins of a goodwill policy that has gotten out of control and ultimately contributed to these massive losses.

As a legitimate customer, you research online, you check it out at the store, you negotiate a sales price, you bring it home to enjoy.

If it breaks of no fault of your own, and you have a valid warranty, you bring it back for repair or replacement.

Your generosity allows you to buy the same item as gifts. For those that receive defective items, they can return/exchange with the gift receipt.

Doesn't affect your purchase history, unless perhaps you're sending your immediate family to return it for you. (same address documentation)

Rinse and repeat if you can afford it. Happy times for all involved.

Contrast this with the consumer who has an upcoming special occasion, buys top-of-the-line equipment, uses it for 28 days, then returns everything for a full refund.

Or the customer who buys a pallet of stuff discounted as a doorbuster, and then tries to sell it off for profit over the next 28 days, but returns some or all of it for a full refund.

Store gets returned stock that sits back in inventory, ultimately having to be clearanced, usually at or below cost because it's marked open box, end of line or old tech.

Carrying costs are higher, increased administrative costs to deal with returns, and profitability suffers resulting in lower potential incentives to employees and consumers.

No longer happy times. Just more policy that detracts from the buying experience.

If enough consumers continue down this path, soon Best Buy will simply become a dot-com enterprise like the Big River.

And that would suck.

That is a false assumption and suggests you do not understand the issue at hand.

BBY's return policy does not discriminate between identical returns and unique returns, all that matters is the number of returns over a period of time. Furthermore, they are outsourcing the decision to a company that tracks returns at multiple vendors so a return at some other merchant will impact how BBY handles your return. You could potentially return a purchase at, say, Home Depot and that would trigger BBY to only let you return one item with them for the next six months.
Do you understand that this new return policy does nothing to prevent this scenario?
Edited by JerryW - 11/14/12 at 12:55pm

Do you think that there might possibly a difference between a return due to defect and a return for other than defect and that the system may not classify them equally when recorded against your purchase history?

Perhaps we'll have to wait for evidence to prove that returning items that are defective chalk up the same warnings as non-defective items.

I don't know that they do yet.

Please advise if you know otherwise.

1) Defective merchandise has only been a tangential issue in my arguments as for why BBY's policy change is poorly thought out. Certainly no word of it in the post you quoted. Seems like you are grasping at straws.

2) Now that you have brought it up, BBY's website groups returns and exchanges together and says, "Based on return/exchange patterns, some customers will be warned that subsequent returns and exchanges will not be eligible for returns or exchanges for 90 days." Although poorly worded, I think it is reasonable to parse that warning to mean that if you return too many items they will refuse to exchange a defective item and vice versa.

What about their extended holiday return policy, how do you prove it was purchased as a gift? I tried checking out with a TV and didn't see an option for gift receipt... do they just take your word for it?

Yeah I don't mind that stuff, I just wanna know how I get a tv purchase to fall under the extended holiday return policy. There's really no better electronics store here

In which case the purchaser has the option of taking advantage of the mfg's warranty to deal with the defective product. There are retailers that will not accept returns on game consoles once the packaging's been opened, defective or not. If the product is not defective it's yours once it's openned, if it is you have to deal with the mfg. This is in response to the common scam of buying a new console to replace a broken one, packing the broken one into the box, and returning the broken one for a refund.

The idea that BB might deliberately stick someone with a defective product per joehonest's last post indicates a lack of understanding of how retail works in the real world. Nobody at any level in any store is going to bother deliberately seeking out a defective product to stick somebody with, they're too busy just doing their jobs. This is right up there with the idea that store personnel run around deliberately changing settings on tvs to push sales of one over another for sheer fantasy.

If retailers want to protect themselves from those who return 5 sets of the same model in search of some mythical level of perfection I say more power to them, likewise serial auditioners, E-Bay scammers, renters, etc. Funny how those most opposed to some control on return abuse are the first to complain about the high prices caused by that abuse. There used to be signs in retail establishments that said "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" and the kind of people who trigger BBs policy are prime candidates. Anybody getting burned has probably been burning retailers for quite some time.