Sly shoppers' bag of tricks

[question everything]

Nordstrom is famously forgiving when shoppers change their minds about purchases. Customers love it — especially those whose motives may be questionable. The Seattle retailer has been known to take back well-worn clothing, shoes bought years earlier and jars of half-used moisturizer.

(snip)

These days, shoppers are playing faster and looser, experts say. Serial returners have been conditioned by a culture of retail discounting and tight economic times. And the Internet has opened up new opportunities for testing the limits of retail return policies. At times, the activity amounts to flat-out fraud. Sham returns involving stolen merchandise, items bought with fake money and doctored e-receipts cost the industry $8.8 billion last year, affecting nearly 95% of retailers, according to the National Retail Federation.

But there's also a mushrooming undergrowth of not-quite scams and ethically hazy work-arounds — tricks that regular customers pull to save some money. Spending a minimum of $50 to get a freebie and then returning everything but the gift. Scouring aggregator websites for online coupon codes intended only for a retailer's email subscribers. When buying discounted items that are final sale, asking for a gift receipt just in case — that way, the product can be exchanged later for store credit.

(snip)

Some consumers justify their tricky tactics as a necessity in a shaky economy or simply as smart shopping. Others call it a form of retail Robin Hooding — retailers, they say, overcharge for products, and those bloated corporations wouldn't miss a few extra dollars, right? And there are those for whom wriggling through the loopholes in a return policy heightens the thrill of a bargain hunt.

(snip)

But some retailers are finding ways to block sly shoppers.

Online coupon aggregator RetailMeNot said it monitors coupon redemption from users and is in constant contact with retailers such as Macy's and Best Buy. The company said it tightened the rules for what kinds of codes can be listed by users, whose submissions make up a third of the roughly 500,000 codes in the RetailMeNot database. Nearly three-quarters of retailers now require customers returning items with no receipt to show identification; 12.3% mandate ID even with a receipt — both up from 2012, according to the National Retail Federation.


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-retail-returns-20140202,0,1314192.story

[Scuba]

1. My daughter works the service desk in a retail big box store. The stories she tells are incredible.

It would be easier to work three jobs and just buy stuff compared to what some do to scam the store. Some of it HAS to be because of the rush of "beating the man".

[Curmudgeoness]

2. Why would I never think of doing things like this?

Even after being told about these "tricks", I would not be able to do it.

Sham returns alone cost the industry "$8.8 billion"....and that costs all of us more. I truly do not know if the stores would reduce prices they charge is all fraud and theft disappeared tomorrow, and I am inclined to doubt that they would, but I do know that the prices continue to rise because too many people have no scruples.

[840high]

3. ....^

We all pay for this.

[madamesilverspurs]

4. I worked in one of the 'tonier' stores

back in the 60s. It was not uncommon for high society types to purchase a full ensemble, undies to jewelry, and then return it for full refund after their pictures had appeared wearing the items. And some of those items were badly in need of laundering when they were returned. One of these women returned a whole case of crystal stemware, claiming poor quality; we were told to ignore the tire tracks on the outside of the case. But if I tried to exchange a pair of shoes after three days because the sole had separated on one of them, whole nother story.