I did not lie.
Here is the return policy:
"We guarantee your satisfaction on every product we sell with a full refund."
Now, this does not say, within a year, if it is broken, or if i wore it out, etc. I couldn't return it.
If I was not satisfied I could return it as long as I had not damaged it. Without reason.
I know of no other retailer that does this. That is why I returned the TV.
Now, subsequently to my purchase of this tv they changed their policy. My purchase was grandfathered in. (You know, it didn't have to be, that was a COSTCO decision).
If COSTO didn't want to refund the money, if they couldn't afford it, why did they do the refund? If they had told me sorry, I would have kept it. They didn't.
So if at lets say 89 days you return a tv on a return on 90 day policy, is that unethical? What if the limit was 110 days, what if the limit was a year, or five years, or forever? What is the difference? Time.
What if your kid poured Kool-Aid in the remote and you returned it because the remote quit working within 90 days of a 90 day return policy? In my book, that is unethical, you damaged it.
Have you ever tried to return something to WalMart or some big department store that was a gift that you don't know where it came from? Would that be ethical? (My family doesn't do this either.)
In the end, what matters here is the decisions Costco made. IT IS PART OF THEIR BUSINESS MODEL. It is not part of the business model at Best Buy, WalMart, Sears, etc. When you deal with a company part of what you are buying is the way they run their business.