Subject:
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Re: Construction toys non-returnable?!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.shopping
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Date:
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Fri, 23 Aug 2002 17:05:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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340 times
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Well, first let me say that I agree with you. I think the store should
accept it back if it was defective in any way.
That said, I have somewhat of an explanation of these policies (misguided as
they are). I was in my local TRU a year or so ago, and I had a conversation
with the lady who stocks the Lego & construction isle. I got the impression
that she might even be the buyer for the store, or one of the managers.
Anyway, I was asking if they planned to discount the damaged Star Wars UCS
sets that were on display at the store. She said they weren't ever going to
sell them as long as they carried that item. Then she pointed up to a
secret shelf where she had about 6 pristine UCS boxes. She told me if I
wanted to buy, she would give me the good box. I wondered why she wouldn't
want to get rid of the crappy box. She told me that since these items were
consistently damaged (rude people busting open the box, and stealing stuff),
she was leaving the damaged one as the display model.
Also, she told me one interesting fact. Lego doesn't accepts returns from
merchants. So, if the store is accepting returns on damaged merchandise,
they essentially are eating the cost. I don't know how this relates to
industry practice in general, but my impression was always that retailers
were sending back items that i returned to the manufacturer. (Assuming if
it was because of damage or some other such problem with the item.) Well,
in Lego's case, I was wrong.
-Alfred
In lugnet.market.shopping, Richard Marchetti writes:
> Hey Y'all:
>
> Twice in as many months I have purchased sets at Wal-mart and TRU that had
> been opened and retaped at the stores. One sees that the item has been
> opened, but if it's the last item of it's kind one might be persuaded to
> purchase it anyway -- who cares about the box if the product is still all
> there, right? And the good faith assumption is that the store made at least
> a cursory check to make sure the stuff was all there.
>
> But twice now I was burned on this good faith assumption -- I began to build
> only to realize that items were indeed missing. So I returned the sets for
> refund.
>
> But here's the deal: both stores have told me that they have policies
> against receiving Lego, Mega Bloks, and the like for return -- at Wal-mart
> they seemed to have a blanket refusal in place, while at TRU they had a set
> cost limit that factored in. Wal-mart tried to tell me this nonsense this
> very afternoon at lunch. I asserted myself and insisted that my purchase
> was based on the good faith assumption that item was complete and that I
> felt absolutely within my rights to insist on a refund for an incomplete
> item purchased at full retail cost. I suggested that if they could not
> stand behind the product 100% to be complete then they should either
> clearance the item "as is" or remove the item from stock (I mean, these
> items were no longer factory sealed, right?) -- but that in no case was I at
> fault for purchasing the item in good faith as complete. In this instance
> they agreed to an exchange.
>
> Has this happened to anyone else? It seems that Lego and other construction
> toys are being singled out as non-returnable. I have my doubts that they
> can legally do this while accepting other products with almost no questions
> asked. Of course, as a regular buyer of these kinds of products I was
> annoyed that my buyer satisfaction was being singled out as unimportant. I
> almost lost my temper, but in the main I remained civil yet insistent -- and
> finally got my way. Is there some crazy assumption on the part of retail
> chains that it's okay to screw children (the more average buyer of these
> kinds of toys) out of their money? Can you imagine the heartbreak of some
> young person trying to make the transaction I made today, and being told
> that their incomplete toy was non-returnable? What gives?
>
> Target, by contrast, has almost never given me grief over a return of any
> kind -- be it toys, a gift return, linens, receipt, no reciept, what have you...
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -- Hop-Frog
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Construction toys non-returnable?!
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| Hey Y'all: Twice in as many months I have purchased sets at Wal-mart and TRU that had been opened and retaped at the stores. One sees that the item has been opened, but if it's the last item of it's kind one might be persuaded to purchase it anyway (...) (22 years ago, 23-Aug-02, to lugnet.market.shopping)
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