Proof of Purchase required for exchange/store credit? (1 Viewer)

[the moops]

MIL bought me a hammock from REI for Father's Day. Already had the same one, so told her I would be exchanging it for something else. Cool. No problem.

She doesn't have the receipt handy, but I tell her no worries, I will just return it for store credit, cause I can always find a way to spend 100 bucks at REI.

Go there last night to return it. They tell me, that unless I have some proof of purchase, they cannot accept the return. Even for store credit.

WTF!!??

I thought every place had a "no receipt, store credit for lowest price" thing? Lady said that they could not be sure that I bought it from them, or that it was even bought at all. And that my best bet may be to "sell it on ebay or craigslist because I could get close to retail value for it". I got a little pissy when she somewhat accused me of possibly stealing the damn thing. Went off on a rant about how I have been a member there for like 20 years, and have spent several thousand dollars at their stores. And how I don't think it is quite so cool to accuse me of stealing a 100 ####### dollar hammock.

I got the manager over, and fortunately my MIL is also a member, so they had a record of her purchasing it a few weeks ago.

But what the ####.

 

[Ditkaless Wonders]

Before going into the reasons for their policy, which are sound, but potentially insulting, they should have looked up the account information. It is, after all, a membership place, and they ought to know they can pull up such information readily since it effects yearly rebates.

Sound policy but poor customer (member) service, to be certain.

 

[johnnycakes]

It ain't LL Bean, guy.

 

[BroadwayG]

At least they didn't make you build your own box to put it in.

 

[VA703]

find item online, see who else sells exact item. return there

I know target has a good return policy

 

[Bucky86]

I would've set up camp inside the store.

 

[proninja]

My wife used to do customer service for rei. People abused their old generous policy to the point they had to make changes like this.

Blame the people who returned all their dad's clothes he bought at rei after he died.

 

[James Daulton]

Gee, I wonder why they have that policy in the first place. I get that it's a membership place and they should have your purchase info, but to get all indignant like they accused you of stealing is a little stupid imho. I use the self scan checkout at the grocery store and don't flip out when I get audited every 10x or so.

 

[Fat Nick]

My wife used to do customer service for rei. People abused their old generous policy to the point they had to make changes like this.

Blame the people who returned all their dad's clothes he bought at rei after he died.

This. It's sad to see how much abuse there is of retail return policies. My roommate in college needed a scanner for a project. He went to the store, bought a $300 scanner, scanned what he needed, and returned it.

I don't blame stores at all for requiring receipts. I'm actually more surprised at stores that DON'T.

 

[arrow1]

At least they didn't make you build your own box to put it in.

 

[Bucks]

The proof of purchase is reasonable. The issue here is that they had access to the proof within their own system but didn't initially just check it. Instead they told him he should just fence his stolen goods on eBay.

 

[sbonomo]

MIL bought me a hammock from REI for Father's Day. Already had the same one, so told her I would be exchanging it for something else. Cool. No problem.

She doesn't have the receipt handy, but I tell her no worries, I will just return it for store credit, cause I can always find a way to spend 100 bucks at REI.

Go there last night to return it. They tell me, that unless I have some proof of purchase, they cannot accept the return. Even for store credit.

WTF!!??

I thought every place had a "no receipt, store credit for lowest price" thing? Lady said that they could not be sure that I bought it from them, or that it was even bought at all. And that my best bet may be to "sell it on ebay or craigslist because I could get close to retail value for it". I got a little pissy when she somewhat accused me of possibly stealing the damn thing. Went off on a rant about how I have been a member there for like 20 years, and have spent several thousand dollars at their stores. And how I don't think it is quite so cool to accuse me of stealing a 100 ####### dollar hammock.

I got the manager over, and fortunately my MIL is also a member, so they had a record of her purchasing it a few weeks ago.

But what the ####.

Does not seem unreasonable to me. Why don't you ask the MIL for the receipt or to take back for store credit. You are all adults so not that big of a deal right? How does REI know that you didn't steal it? Even if they look your MIL up how do they know that you didn't steal it from her?

eta: you can thank all the sucky people in this world (see fatnicks post) for making business this way.

 

[sbonomo]

The proof of purchase is reasonable. The issue here is that they had access to the proof within their own system but didn't initially just check it. Instead they told him he should just fence his stolen goods on eBay.

Assuming they don't have the same last name, how do they know that his MIL gave him the item as a gift?

 

[the moops]

The manager returned the money to me. MIL indeed does have a different last name.

I really just must not have returned anything anywhere recently cause that policy was foreign to me.

The first woman who "helped" me was a disgusting fat cow, so maybe that clouded my judgment.

 

[fdas2]

Did you throw pennies at anyone?

 

[James Daulton]

You really did steal the hammock, didn't you?

 

[AAABatteries]

Fairly standard. Do you think that if you were not a member they would have let you return it? Unfortunately there's lots of crooks and even more people willing to bend/break the rules for their own convenience/monetary gain.