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bought a miter saw from Lowes

5,371 Views | 11 Replies | Last: 11 yr ago by Martin Cash
shiftyandquick
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Had an extra piece of tape on top like it had been opened and re-taped. I bought online and had store pick-up. Asked if it had been used/refurbished/returned. Told "no."

Took it home, obviously opened and returned with a veneer of sawdust on it.

Now I'm out the time and hassle it took for me to exchange it.

Moral of the story, never leave the store without opening and looking yourself. Hate that Lowe's would stoop to such shoddy customer service.
drummer0415
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AG
AND THEN YOU THREW IT OFF A 10 STORY BUILDING AND IT CRASHED TO THE GROUND AND BROKE INTO 1000 PIECES BECAUSE TOMORROW IS GAMEDAY!!!!


JK. I've been reading the football board too much. That really does suck and I would be EXTREMELY pissed if that happened to me. Good job on taking the time to return/exchange it. Did you talk to a manager or somebody while there and let them know you weren't happy?

[This message has been edited by drummer0415 (edited 9/7/2012 10:20a).]
johnrth
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I know how you feel. I had something like that happen to me but with a CB radio and Flying J truck stops. Bought a "new" one going through Oregon, didnt open it unitl Salt Lake City, it was a CB from the early 90s. Someone had bought the new one, put their old one in there and returned it. The district manager at the next Flying J I stopped at basically told me to kick rocks and youre sol. Luckily for me though Flying J corporate offices were 15mins away. You bet your arse I made an unannounced, unscheduled visit. The lady that came down was very helpful and got me a new one, I also think that district manager didnt have a good day after my stop...

But true what OP said, ALWAYS open first!
MouthBQ98
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I've run into that a few times, which is why I won't buy any item that appears to have been previously opened. It may be as simple as someone opened it in the store and lost a couple of parts, or as bad as what is described above. The minimum wage employees have no clue how to evaluate its condition or that everything is in place.

I hate it when people buy something, use it for a single use, then return it even though it is perfectly fine (or worse, they break it then return it but don't say they've broken it). That's another form of theft or fraud, essentially, because unless it was a defect, the buyer is responsible for devaluing it in using and then returning it. It increases costs for everyone else.

A couple of people I know have both purchased things that were old crap passed off as returned items. That's flat out theft.

[This message has been edited by MouthBQ98 (edited 9/7/2012 10:29a).]
shiftyandquick
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lots of dishonest people out there. They justify it "Home depot can afford it, I'm not hurting anyone."

Thank goodness that most people are honest and honorable. At least that's what I try to tell myself.
Aggietaco
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AG
You'd be surprised what Lowes/HD would take back as returns. I bought a Ryobi router from HD a few years back to use for a quick job that ended up being a complete piece of junk (didn't hold height, wobbles, wouldn't hold bit tight) so I returned it. Told the CSA what the problem was, but since I had cleaned everything up and put it back in the packaging, they stuck it on the shelf to be restocked instead of throwing it in the garbage pile.

Similar thing could have happened. Someone is unahppy with their purchase and a CSA allows them to return it.
shiftyandquick
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Yes, part of this is on the hardware store. They have to decide how to handle crappy products.

I made the mistake years ago of buying a Ryobi gas trimmer. It broke on first use. I returned it.

I've never bought anything again with the Ryobi brand that has a moveable part (i.e. I have bought a ryobi drill bit).
BrazosDog02
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Sorry OP. It was just a quick cut. I promise, its fine...its pretty much brand new.
shiftyandquick
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Heard something that sounded like bird shot on my roof last night. Thought it might be brazosdog.
BrazosDog02
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AG
LOL
ConstructionAg01
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I've gone one worse than that. Our wedding gift of a 12 piece Calphalon cookware set was, in fact, a set of someone's old used cookware they placed inside the Calphalon box, sealed, and returned back to the store. My parents actually discovered it and fixed the problem before we even got back from the honeymoon. Sad that someone would stoop to such a level.
MackeyPatch
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There was a ton of brick in the box scams going on with Ipods, Ipads, etc. Anyway, here is a good little article from someone on the inside:

http://www.mikeoliveri.com/2007/10/30/buyer-beware-bricks-in-the-box/

quote:
There’s a problem in retail circles known as the Brick-in-the-box return. The scam involves taking a legitimate item out of a package and replacing it with something else to fill out the package. The scam then works in one of two ways:

The scammer relies on employee oversight/negligence and re-packs and re-tapes the box so it looks unopened, and returns the item to the retailer by saying they didn’t need it or something similar.
The scammer relies on a con game and tells the customer service agent that he opened the box and found the wrong stuff.
Most famously, this involved bricks replacing VCR’s many, many years ago. This was common enough that a retailer I worked for had a Standard Operating Procedure called “Brick-in-the-Box Returns” that outlined how to handle such situations. It boiled down to one thing: any customer requesting a return because they got the wrong item was denied.

I bring this up because a guy ran afoul of this very scam at Best Buy. You can read all about it at Consumerist, but the nutshell is he bought a hard drive, opened it up, and found six ceramic tiles in the box instead of a hard drive. Classic brick-in-the-box scam.

I think he’s screwed. Every retailer, be it Best Buy, Circuit City, or Toys R Us, has the same policy, and they’re going to assume he’s not the victim but the scammer. Yes, it sucks that someone okayed his return and then a manager overturned it, but that second manager was in the right (by store policy if not general human decency) and if the return had been completed the first employees would have been disciplined. The customer might even be dealing with Best Buy loss prevention and possibly the police if he’d been given his money back, depending upon how far Best Buy would want to take things.

I’ve had three direct experiences with bricks in the box, and these are exactly why the policy is in place.

In the first instance, an elderly man purchased a laptop. When I handed it to him, he asked me to verify if it came with a modem (this was back around ’94, when such things weren’t a given). We opened it up and instead of his shiny new laptop we found an old model that had been painted gray and glued shut. Further investigation of the package revealed the scammer had opened the bottom of the box, did the replacement, then taped the bottom shut and fastened the original tape over the new tape to make it look brand new. Because the unit never left the store and I even opened it for him, we gave him another one. He asked me what would have happened if he had taken it home, and the honest answer was he would be out of luck. I managed to find a return on the same serial number, turned the case over to loss prevention, and had to discipline the employee who accepted the return.

In the second instance, a man purchased a 20″ television. He then returned it an hour later, claiming he didn’t need it. As the warehouse associates unloaded it from his car, the bottom of the box fell apart. There was a different television inside. We found the box had been glued shut, and the glue hadn’t dried yet. We went round and round with this guy for two hours, and it was ultimately turned over to loss prevention. Someone along the line must have put a scare into him, because the next day he picked up the old television and I had to ring up a sale (I forget if he kept the television or had to pay a restocking fee). I was to take the cash and then refund his original credit card, and he asked if the transactions would show up on the credit card statement. I told him of course — he’d see a purchase and a refund. He grunted and walked out. We speculated that meant his wife would find out about it.

In the third instance, a man purchased a video camera. I just happened to be there when he purchased it and happened to be the one to hand it over at the customer service counter. An hour later he returned, claiming it had the wrong item in the box. The camera in the box, however, was much older and much bigger, and didn’t even fit in the packaging. He didn’t repack it, he just demanded a refund. He screamed and yelled and made vague threats, and there was even an elderly woman in earshot telling us we were mean and we should give him his money back. The store manager and I held our ground because I was sure he was full of it. He took the box and went home, and we put a comment on his ticket in our system to warn other stores of the situation. The next morning, someone called claiming to be the guy’s lawyer and threatened lawsuits against me personally and against the store. I referred him to our corporate office. I happened to be working open to close that day, and that evening I got a call from another of our stores. The guy was there trying to return a product, the customer service associate saw the comment on the receipt, and the manager called me. She was confused because the camera she found in the box matched the packaging, and the serial numbers on the box and in the system (entered at checkout) matched the camera. She described the camera, and it was definitely not the one he’d tried to return to us. She went ahead and accepted the return (with a 15% restocking fee) and told him “hi” for me.

In the first case the store lost, in the second two we prevented a loss. All three cases are exactly why the policy exists, and exactly why I think this guy’s going to eat $300. Don’t get me wrong, I feel for the guy and I have no reason to not believe him. I’ll just be surprised if he gets his money back.

If you’re buying a high-dollar item this Christmas, I strongly recommend you open the box and inspect the contents before you leave the store. The hustle and bustle of the holiday season is an ideal time for these scams to go down because employees will be less likely to take the time to inspect returned packages.
Martin Cash
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AG
Anyone have a different angle on this problem?
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