Buy On Amazon, Return to Apple Store

[Mac'nCheese]

I have a gift card to amazon but would rather have a gift card to apple for the (hopefully) new iMac. If I buy a ipad from Amazon, can I just return it to apple, without a receipt of course, and get a apple gift card? I'll just say I got it as a gift, which is kind of true.

 

[Weaselboy]

No, since you did not buy it from Apple.

 

[Brookzy]

I don't want to be really horrible or anything, but I would love to know how such an arrangement would work in your head.

I mean you're giving money to person A and asking for it back from person B.

 

[Mac'nCheese]

I don't want to be really horrible or anything, but I would love to know how such an arrangement would work in your head.

I mean you're giving money to person A and asking for it back from person B.

It would work like this: I buy an apple product from amazon. Bring it back to apple who can resell it and they give me credit for which I use to supplement buying another apple product from the Apple Store. Plenty of people get gifts without receipts and return them to stores that sell those products for credit even though they have no idea if the gift came from that store.

 

[Brookzy]

It would work like this: I buy an apple product from amazon. Bring it back to apple who can resell it and they give me credit for which I use to supplement buying another apple product from the Apple Store. Plenty of people get gifts without receipts and return them to stores that sell those products for credit even though they have no idea if the gift came from that store.

I'm afraid you've made a glaring omission.

If this happened Apple would end up selling a product at cost with Amazon earning the profit.

Illustrative (and simplified) example: Amazon sells iPhone to you for $500. They bought it for $400. They make $100 profit.

You "return" the item to Apple. They credit you $500.

Apple sells this iPhone to someone else for $500.

Apple profit zero; Amazon profit $100. It simply doesn't work... Apple has the sale; Amazon has the profit.

Indeed then every Apple reseller could just buy at trade prices (i.e. $400 in this example) and just "return" them to Apple. Waaheyyy free money! No.

And this is before we even consider real-world factors such as that Apple will not resell a returned item. For all they know you could've re-cellophaned it and it just has a brick inside. All Apple returns become refurbs.

The shocking thing is that so many people think OP's idea is actually how it works. That crazy guy who smashed up that Apple Store in France did exactly the same thing - he wanted a refund for an iPhone he didnt buy from there. Madness.

Oh and the loads of people doing it thing... that's fraud.

 

[Mac'nCheese]

I'm afraid you've made a glaring omission.

If this happened Apple would end up selling a product at cost with Amazon earning the profit.

Illustrative (and simplified) example: Amazon sells iPhone to you for $500. They bought it for $400. They make $100 profit.

You "return" the item to Apple. They credit you $500.

Apple sells this iPhone to someone else for $500.

Apple profit zero; Amazon profit $100. It simply doesn't work... Apple has the sale; Amazon has the profit.

Indeed then every Apple reseller could just buy at trade prices (i.e. $400 in this example) and just "return" them to Apple. Waaheyyy free money! No.

And this is before we even consider real-world factors such as that Apple will not resell a returned item. For all they know you could've re-cellophaned it and it just has a brick inside. All Apple returns become refurbs.

The shocking thing is that so many people think OP's idea is actually how it works. That crazy guy who smashed up that Apple Store in France did exactly the same thing - he wanted a refund for an iPhone he didnt buy from there. Madness.

Oh and the loads of people doing it thing... that's fraud.

Well that's why I asked. I didn't know if apple would do this. Like I said, you can buy other things like a book for a gift for someone from say Barnes and noble and that person could exchange it and a different book store no problem. Thanks for the info.