Comedian Rodney Carrington once said of a very well-known “box store” that tends to be rather sue-happy, “…they’ll take anything back. You could go back one year later: “These diapers already got shit in them!” “Oh, we’re real sorry about that. Run back there and get you another package.” It’s their return policy: apologize profusely, accept the item with no question whatsoever, apologize again, and be sure to toss a couple of bucks at the customer on the way out of the door. Sounds like some store managers out there, don’t it? It happens, but you’d be amazed at where it happens. If I hadn’t witnessed this one personally, I would call you out for making things up. Honestly…if I ever had some kind of “spider sense”, make it so that when strange crap happens in my general vicinity, that I immediately whip out my phone and record the incident. This would’ve been YouTube gold.
Yours truly and his wrangler (read: wife) were making our rounds in a Home Depot. We had stuff to get, but first we had stuff to take back. Mercifully, the staff at Home Depot has a few more brain cells than the staff at the other store…they check out what you’re returning before they say “ok” and refund you the money. In front of us is a guy who is trying to return a toilet. From what we gathered from our powers of eavesdropping, the story was that the toilet was bought for a remodel, but at the last second the homeowner decided against it and wanted to return it. That itself isn’t unheard of. What struck the counter clerk odd is that the toilet had only been sold a few hours prior, so she wanted the customer to open up the box for an inspection. Now, if you had an unused, never installed commode, you’d comply, wouldn’t you? Not this guy. He got pissed, started yelling. “I ain’t gotta show you this toilet! I bought it, I’m returning it, that’s all there is to it! Why are you making this so damn hard?”
As I’m starting to develop the inevitable headache, a manager and (I presume) a member of the security team comes over to intervene. After being told that the only way the store will accept the return is to see the toilet out of the box, the customer removes the toilet…which, by the way, looked like it had been removed from a two-pump truck stop somewhere on the outskirts of nowhere…and proceeds to smash it, right there, in front of everyone. Bits of porcelain lay shattered in a puddle of fetid liquid that I refused to try to identify. As we left the store, we came to the conclusion that the guy had bought a new toilet and was trying to scam the cost by returning the old setup as a new throne.
I guess the store should’ve been happy that he didn’t just use a floor model for his business, a’la Jackass.
My son worked at Home Depot at the return counter a while back. Guy brought back 40 electric outlets that he “didn’t want”. Same deal. He bought new for his house and put the old ones back in the boxes to try to get his money back. What are people thinking?
I worked at a HD for a couple years, that type of scam goes on all the time. People fill power tool boxes with a brick, 5-gallon cans of paint with water. You name, it’s been tried.
This story vaguely reminds me about tales of people renting Mustang GT-H’s and swapping out the engines for something low-po prior to returning them.
… and then the car rental companies began installing tracking devices on the engines which was even more hilarious.
I’ve heard stories of people buying a chainsaw, leafblower, etc., use for the weekend and return it on a Monday.
Never buy an open box item from any of these stores, never seen them check things like faucets or lock sets. Just ask you if any things wrong with it, no? Back on the shelf it goes
My friend bought a light fixture once that had been used-for years,and returned and put in the shelf. Then Home Cheepo said he was scamming and wouldnt take it back! Sucked!
When i used to work at Lowes, one of our airhead customer service reps accepted a return for a very expensive commercial hammer drill. When i brought it back to check it out, there was just a brick in the box, the lady didnt even open the box when she took it in.