BestBuy banning people for returning things

[OriginalAppleGuy]

Funny - this was just on ABC - Good Morning America. They say they saw it first in the WSJ. They listed JCPenny, Home Depot, Sephora, Best Buy and Victoria's Secret as being customers of The Retail Equation. They say it's a $15 Billion industry issue for losses from returned stolen items, returns from competing stores, etc. TRE They also said 99% of returns are authorized. So if you got flagged CONGRATULATIONS, you are in the top 1%!!!

Guesses for people getting flagged for returning items were those that tend to get stolen, returning items just before closing, or a large percentage of your purchase.

Not sure if any of you are a "Jake" who used Yelp to report this, but they mentioned Jake and others have written negative reviews about this.

 

[maflynn]

They say it's a $15 Billion industry issue for losses from returned stolen items, returns from competing stores, etc

Regardless of how people feel about this service, its not going to go away. There will be people who are incorrectly flagged and will be very upset. Those people have two choices, stop doing business with bestbuy (or others), or keep buying from those places suck up the ban on returns

The service in theory should be silent and only flag those people who meet a criteria, but nothing is perfect and innocent folks will get flagged. Since retailers are under incredible pressure thanks to the likes of Amazon, they doing everything they can to reduce their overhead and losses on returns. This type of service isn't going away anytime soon.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

Regardless of how people feel about this service, its not going to go away. There will be people who are incorrectly flagged and will be very upset. Those people have two choices, stop doing business with bestbuy (or others), or keep buying from those places suck up the ban on returns

The service in theory should be silent and only flag those people who meet a criteria, but nothing is perfect and innocent folks will get flagged. Since retailers are under incredible pressure thanks to the likes of Amazon, they doing everything they can to reduce their overhead and losses on returns. This type of service isn't going away anytime soon.

I agree. Especially if it's anything close to what they report as a $15 billion industry-wide issue.

There has got to be a much better way to address the issue, though. Allowing general managers of the stores leeway to investigate and remove the ban is one of them. Especially when their employees tout how easy it is to return merchandise. This hasn't impacted me. But because of this thread, I'm certainly thinking twice about my purchases at these stores. One person with a bad experience is broadcasted to tens of people who then may broadcast to another tens of people. It's not an easy thing to recover from either.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Regardless of how people feel about this service, its not going to go away. There will be people who are incorrectly flagged and will be very upset. Those people have two choices, stop doing business with bestbuy (or others), or keep buying from those places suck up the ban on returns

The service in theory should be silent and only flag those people who meet a criteria, but nothing is perfect and innocent folks will get flagged. Since retailers are under incredible pressure thanks to the likes of Amazon, they doing everything they can to reduce their overhead and losses on returns. This type of service isn't going away anytime soon.

The service and concept isn't necessarily the problem, but really the execution of it is.
TRE needs to be far more integrated with its customers and Best Buy should be able to print out a list of the issue returns and discuss it with you, right onsite, perhaps with a manager.

It's really shoddy to have some nebulous 3rd party swooping in and the Best Buy agent directing you to them and their "process" to even have some concept of what has taken place.

But beyond that, they have to have exceptions for returns of Open Box items (2 of my 3 returns that got me "banned").

The variability across open box & certified Best Buy items is staggering. It's all over the map and you often can't know for sure if something is as advertised/correctly working until you get it home and use it.

 

[mmomega]

They might want to watch it or end up going the way of Circuit City and just be a store that people mention they used to go to.
I know my personal and business shopping at their stores have dropped dramatically in the last 2 years.

A couple years ago we were opening and expanding 2 businesses and I spent around 15,000 that year. 4-5k the year before, 5-6k the next year.
This was with the older "Elite" whatever program they have, and my status said I would be an elite memeber for the next 5 years from just that one year of spending.
24 days later the next calendar year started and BestBuy decided to base their elite membership on single calendar year of spending.
I didn't even get much BestBuy points for being loyal to the store and then a calendar year changes and it was as if I was a brand new customer that had just walked in for the first time.

I talked to a few reprentatives mainly to just plead my case, they reinstated my 1.25pts per dollar or whatever it is now but it took 3 days of back and forth and ever since then I won't really even go back in unless I need a cheap keyboard or mouse or just to kill time looking at TV's.

Amazon ships to me in one days and charges a couple dollar "whoopsie" fee if I need to return something.

Funnily enough I have something to return tomorrow to BestBuy which will be item #5 that I have ever returned in probably 20 years of purchasing.

 

[turbineseaplane]

@mmomega

I hear you man..
I've not even set foot in a Best Buy for months now - no intention of returning

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

There's probably other criteria, such as cost of the item. Returning 10 items that cost 20 dollars is different then returning 4 items that cost 500 dollars.

I think this is it! It's not how many times you return things, but probably that you returned things that are expensive, or are items that have a low return history.

I did know someone who 'played' Circuit City, but buying high priced items (computers, TV's, etc) and return them and then watch for them to pop back in the store as 'Open Box' at a sometimes huge discount. I worked at CC for a stretch, and actually don't doubt that as a possibility for some of their customers. I had heard that some of the more densely populated Best Buy areas were shipping returns to another store so when they went 'OOB', they weren't in the same area.

People that do that to save a few bucks are, IMO, pushing the line into being banned, or worse. It's retail fraud. It's using the policies of a retailer against them, and makes people that return things look like opportunistic frauds, criminals... Especially on 'high ticket' items with really low margins.
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As much as I like Best Buy, because of the wide variety of products that they carry and they receive the latest tech rather quickly. However, I have never been in a store where employees are poorly trained as they are. The knowledge, understanding of a product, are all considerably lacking. There are a few good employees, even the mere basics of general knowledge of some of the products they have in there is insufficient to even be working with a customer with.

And Geek Squad is no better and is rather comical with their training as well.

I was almost banned from their store (Best Buy) after overhearing a 'specialist' tell a customer an outright lie. I stepped in and corrected the lie, and had the salesperson get hostile and call for the manager, who swooped in, heard the bleatings of the sales droid, and my correction of their BS, and told me that he backs his salespeople 100%, but acknowledged the information provided by the salesgoon was 'out of date'. He asked that I do not interfere with their 'sales process' in the future, or I would be banned. I was shocked, the customer, by that time had left disgusted as I had proven my point, and the store didn't get a sale. I was embarrassed for the chain. It's not my job to make sure they tell the truth, and yes, they perhaps do need to die because of their BS. I never saw that manager again, high turnover. The 'salesfart' avoided me like the plague, even commenting that I was 'a problem customer' on one occasion.

 

[mmomega]

and returned an item today . . . not banned that I know of.


yet

 

[ignatius345]

I've been a BestBuy customer for many years. Last year, 2017, I returned two things. The salespeople are always touting their return policy which is shown on a big sign up front, saying try it out and if you don't like it just return it. Both items that I returned were returned within two days and with the receipt, the second, an IPad pencil, was not even opened. The year before, 2016, I returned two inexpensive items totaling $34. Along with the refund for the pencil came a printed note saying I have been banned from any further returns for 365 days. The store manager said he has nothing to do with it and he has been seeing that a lot lately, often with their best customers. He showed me a person on his computer who had returned huge number of things but has not been banned. He said that if I buy anything in the future he can get around the ban and see to it that I can return it if I want to, but I don't know how that would work, and I don't want to deal with them anymore, even though the people in the local store are very nice. The ban is coming from BestBuy headquarters, or rather some "third party", as they call it, flunky outfit that they are using to do their dirty work, namely The Retail Equation in Irvine CA (look that one up on Yelp!). When I called the number on the receipt I got some barely intelligible guy who sounded like he was in India who said, "thank you for being such a good long time customer but there's nothing I can do about it". Search "banned by BestBuy" or somesuch for lots more on this. I'm not the only one. BestBuy even has their own heavily moderated and censored online forum.

What garbage behavior. Pay in cash and get a friend to do the return if you really need to.

 

[maflynn]

What garbage behavior. Pay in cash and get a friend to do the return if you really need to.

Paying cashs is the best way to avoid this, though in this day and age, that seems harder to do.

 

[kdarling]

A long time ago I worked in a Radio Shack.

A very common occurrence was someone coming in on Friday, buying hundreds in speakers, amps, cables, microphones and other band equipment on a credit card, then returning it all on Monday.

Basically, bands saw our stores as a source for free rentals.

After a while we began telling such buyers "no refunds", which was against company policy, but so what.

 

[ignatius345]

Paying cashs is the best way to avoid this, though in this day and age, that seems harder to do.

It's not that hard. You hand them the money and they give you the thing you bought.

 

[AppleDior31]

I know this may be a relatively old post but I was just denied a return by BB. I came across this post by simply typing in, “the retail equation Apple.” So here’s my story: I purchased three Apple watches that I ordered online and received this week. I was on the fence about what size, the 44 or 40 and between the silver or space grey. I opened one and decided to return the other unopened two. The first return went through. However, on the second, I received a warning that future returns may be denied. I’ve never heard of anything like that before. I had the receipts and the items weren’t even open! Upset from getting a warning, and feeling like I was accused of being a theif and fraudster, I decided to return the third one too. It was denied and I was given the detailed receipt for me to contact TRE. I wish I had known about this before I stupidly bought all 3 watches because I couldn’t decide in the first place. Lesson learned, no more indecisiveness and never shopping at BB again.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

@Appleloves22 - that sucks. I'd seriously consider taking BB to small claims court for the return of the 3rd watch. I think it's time for us to stand up to these companies for deceptive practices. Sales people tell you anything can be returned. But that becomes an issue when you meet some kind of pattern. They don't say "anything can be returned to a point where you may be denied".

Enough small claims cases and BB and others may rethink their relationship with TRE.

 

[metalsiren]

if they were Never opened, I would ram it down their throats. thats BS. and here is the problem NO ONE I know has EVER been able to fight the retail equation. they dont even have a real pone number to call and fight it.

 

[AppleDior31]

@Appleloves22 - that sucks. I'd seriously consider taking BB to small claims court for the return of the 3rd watch. I think it's time for us to stand up to these companies for deceptive practices. Sales people tell you anything can be returned. But that becomes an issue when you meet some kind of pattern. They don't say "anything can be returned to a point where you may be denied".

Enough small claims cases and BB and others may rethink their relationship with TRE.

Lesson learned for me. I just won’t ever shop at Best Buy ever again. No big loss to me...or them.
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if they were Never opened, I would ram it down their throats. thats BS. and here is the problem NO ONE I know has EVER been able to fight the retail equation. they dont even have a real pone number to call and fight it.

Never opened! I was too shocked to really say anything.

 

[turbineseaplane]

@Appleloves22

Maddening isn’t it?

It worked though…
I haven’t bought a single thing from a Best Buy since I was warned.

I sometimes go in just to play with the ThinkPad keyboards but I would rather get a root canal before buying anything from that company again.

 

[spacemnspiff]

If BB is going to play this game, BB needs to let the customer know before they purchase that the item is not returnable, that way the customer can make a decision before making the purchase. And this becomes deceptive practice if the store clearly states with a big hoarding that all items can be returned, which is patently false. They return items at their discretion while fooling the customer into thinking that item is returnable.

This issue needs to settled in the court.

 

[Rocko99991]

This happened to me too. I bought 3 macbooks over the course of a year. All three had bad screen issues. Salesman told me keep buying/returning until you get a good one. One the third I was told I am on return probation and future returns will be denied. I have not bought another thing from them since.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Salesman told me keep buying/returning until you get a good one. One the third I was told I am on return probation and future returns will be denied.

That is the disconnect that is so wrong that Best Buy shouldn't be doing.

 

[mmomega]

If you are returning close to the same amount as you buy per year. You are probably going to get dinged or "banned" from returning.
ie: Spend $2,000 a year and return $1,500 of that.

Spend $20,000 a year and return $3,000-$4,000 and you'll still have your terrible elite account or whatever it is called, the next year and so forth.

 

[jtara]

Why are you buying/returning instead of exchanging? Did they urge you to do it that way, or was it your own idea? (Credit card points? Aren't they taken away when you return an item?)

It seems to me there should be no issue if you exchanged.

 

[AppleDior31]

Why are you buying/returning instead of exchanging? Did they urge you to do it that way, or was it your own idea? (Credit card points? Aren't they taken away when you return an item?)

It seems to me there should be no issue if you exchanged.

TRE bans from returning or exchanging once they ban you.

 

[chabig]

Why are you buying/returning instead of exchanging? Did they urge you to do it that way, or was it your own idea? (Credit card points? Aren't they taken away when you return an item?)

It seems to me there should be no issue if you exchanged.

I agree. This poster, though, was trying to use Best Buy’s return policy as a kind of “shop at home” thing—buy three, choose the one you want to keep, and return the others. Now he vows to no longer shop at Best Buy, which I’m sure is exactly the way they’d like the relationship.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Honestly guys, if you're giving Best Buy the benefit of the doubt here, trust me when I tell you that you won't...once you experience what the TRE situation is like.

It's extremely unethical to have so much sales push to "buy! return if you don't like it!" with no mention of the potential ramifications of using that approach to shopping/trying/no concerns if on the fence, etc.

...and then having absolutely NOTHING for a customer to do in store, in person, to understand what's happened and why...it's just wrong, I'm sorry - no other way around it.

Horrendous way to run a business.