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Thread: Home Depot return policy change without notification

  1. #16
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    Thanks for the heads-up. Sounds like we should 1) save our receipts (or sign up for email receipts) if we think we might return something and 2) pay with searchable form of payment (e.g. debit or credit).
    I kind of get it - they have to deal with a fair amount of fraud in the returns process...

  2. #17
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    There is lots of fraud on returns without a receipt, particularly items supposedly paid in cash. One of the big box stores lost about $500,000 on returns of an expensive faucet that was actually a cheap faucet in the box of the expensive item paid in cash. The expensive ones were then sold without packaging to installers.

    I recently returned an extra rotary hammer core bit that I bought in 2002. Certainly didn't take a minute to come up with the receipt.

    Lowes and Home Depot commercial cards have your purchase history available without the receipt. I'm guessing they have the same with their consumer cards. I'm pretty sure Lowes has all purchase/return history available with their "My Lowes" membership that isn't tied to any payment method. You will have a bigger problem finding the exact same item after a time as they change all the time.

    I'm convinced at this point that being desperate enough to buy most hardware from big box stores doesn't work out. They have a few items like Spax, GRK, etc. but most is just garbage. Stocking up from a good supplier will save lots of grief, probably save money also.

  3. #18
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    i think most stores return policy is too liberal. We expect the lowest prices and not only great customer service, but also to have the retailer relieve us of our responsibility to do our homework, buy the right stuff, and live with our mistakes. That enabling raises the costs for everyone. Dave, who has more inventory than HD because I take the responsibility but don't always do the homework.

  4. #19
    A friend of mine works at HD, who thinks that the return policy hasn't changed- it's just that they've started enforcing it more strictly. The reason is that there's an epidemic of theft in big box stores, which has changed tactics. It seems that rather than risking being caught with big ticket items- which usually have security alarm tags inside the box, it's much easier to stuff small items (plumbing fittings, small hardware, etc) into pockets or backpacks. They then return them for store credit (obviously no receipt). When they get enough small ticket store credits, they use them together to buy an expensive tool, which they can sell on CL or ebay for cash.

    In that light, it seems the path HD has taken is preferable to alternatives, such as having to check bags when entering the store, or having all bags, pockets, and receipts checked when leaving the store. If you do like the privilege of buying extra items, just in case, then keeping the receipts, using a credit card, or having email receipts sent is a relatively small inconvenience.

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Donhowe View Post
    A friend of mine works at HD, who thinks that the return policy hasn't changed- it's just that they've started enforcing it more strictly. The reason is that there's an epidemic of theft in big box stores, which has changed tactics. It seems that rather than risking being caught with big ticket items- which usually have security alarm tags inside the box, it's much easier to stuff small items (plumbing fittings, small hardware, etc) into pockets or backpacks. They then return them for store credit (obviously no receipt). When they get enough small ticket store credits, they use them together to buy an expensive tool, which they can sell on CL or ebay for cash.

    In that light, it seems the path HD has taken is preferable to alternatives, such as having to check bags when entering the store, or having all bags, pockets, and receipts checked when leaving the store. If you do like the privilege of buying extra items, just in case, then keeping the receipts, using a credit card, or having email receipts sent is a relatively small inconvenience.
    Good grief. That sounds like more work than just earning money legitimately.

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim German View Post
    I wish HD/Lowes would be a bit more restrictive on their return policy. I'm tired of buying something only to find out that it was clearly a return and is broken or missing something important.
    I agree completely. We all end up paying extra to make up for the people that abuse the system.

    I usually check every boxed item and won't purchase it if there are signs that it has been opened before.

    Steve

  7. #22
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    I was just in Lowes a few minutes ago at the return counter. The guy in front of me was returning a floor air register for a heating system. The front face was bowed in. When the clerk asked if there was anything wrong with it he said no. It was obviously damaged and it was unlikely that it could be straightened to be like new. The clerk had no idea what it was or what it was supposed to look like. He had a receipt.
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  8. #23
    It's eye opening to stand in a long returns line and see what and how people return.

    It's enough to make me embarrassed to be in the line and take my 1/2 used box of screws back home and just eat the $4.50...

  9. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Kumm View Post
    i think most stores return policy is too liberal. We expect the lowest prices and not only great customer service, but also to have the retailer relieve us of our responsibility to do our homework, buy the right stuff, and live with our mistakes. That enabling raises the costs for everyone. Dave, who has more inventory than HD because I take the responsibility but don't always do the homework.
    I agree with you, David. Easy return policies keeps prices high for everyone.

    I have to take issue with the "great customer service" point, however. The last time someone at Lowe's actually took me to the item after I asked where it was, I nearly fainted. Once I loaded six sheets of plywood onto a cart while three "associates" stood around a fork lift, talked about their weekend plans and watched me.

  10. #25
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    I appreciate the liberal return policy of Menards and Lowes. Working on my building the past few months I buy tons of stuff, have tons of receipts, with all forms of payment, and some items go a month or more before knowing what I do and do not need. I end up with that loose bag or 3 of returns and I don't want to sort through 50+ receipts (real or digital) to find which one it was purchased under. Menards easily gives me the store credit and it is always at the lowest price in the last 30 days or so, I may even loose some money doing it but it sure makes it easy.

    These days customer service at these kind of stores keeps customers coming in. Treated like that would make me drive literally across the street to the next store selling the exact same items. Just another color receipt.

    Menards always asks if I would like help out to the truck with ply too - and a few times folks eagerly helped load it on the cart.
    Glad its my shop I am responsible for - I only have to make me happy.

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yonak Hawkins View Post
    I agree with you, David. Easy return policies keeps prices high for everyone.

    I have to take issue with the "great customer service" point, however. The last time someone at Lowe's actually took me to the item after I asked where it was, I nearly fainted. Once I loaded six sheets of plywood onto a cart while three "associates" stood around a fork lift, talked about their weekend plans and watched me.
    I agree. I didn't mean we get great service, just that we expect service even when we price shop. Put two similar stores together and the one with higher prices but great service will be the first to fail. Dave

  12. #27
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    It's about time they end that liberal returns foolishness. Biggest problem with it is people expect it in other facets of their lives where the sales and cost models are significantly different. I can remember one customer at my last bosses retail wood business ( he sold wood, ran a full service millwork/cabinet shop and flooring manufacturer). Guy buys a section of 16/4 mahogany for a mantle, they agreed to sell him a piece of a 16' section which was exceptional as the posted policy was "Whole boards only". And we then flattened/planed/dimensioned/sanded said giant chunk of wood once the gentleman realized that his carpenter did not have the resources to do so. So the board that HE picked had a slight dark brown mineral streak on one face....and one face of a mantle is nearly always invisible but that's beside the point. He tried to return said log "because it had a crack in it....", he got very upset that it could t be returned....kept saying "but Home Depot takes returns"....we told him to take it there and see what they would give him for it!

    i have a relative and several friends over he hears that have worked for the big retail hardware chains.....we always enjoy discussing the best "returns" stories at holidays. So many crooks in this world. But lately the problem is drug addicts that steal from one store and return to another no receipts, get store credit buy goods, fence these....we end up paying for their drugs in higher costs on everything. I don't owe them drugs. No receipt....get out! I buy everything on one card, get email receipts on big items, returns are simple still for legitimate customers.
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  13. #28
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    It's a different deal over here Mike if you're a large and regular customer - as in a contractor or something. Lots will put out stuff expressly on a sale or return basis. The quid pro quo though is the implication that (a) there's a decent volume of business involved, and (b) that you will at least give them first shot at keeping any ongoing business.

    More generally (and not to say that it wouldn't happen here (or that it doesn't)) - i struggle with the thought that the ability to return goods gets treated as a matter of right at times, or is just simply abused. Given that it's got to be very tough to adminsiter a returns policy in that environment any meaningful way. Next step must be a tightening of policy that will bite the more honest up the ass too.

    The flip side of that though is that there's box store chains operating here that operate equally predatory pricing policies. Their advertising continuously waffles about low prices, there's a few (usually end of line of marginally defective) loss leaders stacked up front by the way in, or they sell part of a system at a decent price - but mark up the stuff needed to complete it and everything else to a level to make your eyes water. (especially when you know what it costs through trade channels) Then add in the fact that on anything complex like fasteners the volume/fast moving items disappear and 3 years later might not have been replaced. Or they screw supplier prices down so tight that the product ends up being almost useless.

    I guess to your average tunnel visioned corporate accountant or purchasing officer one screw or tool is the same as another. Something is wrong though when these companies can build premises on perhaps 8 - 10 green field sites in what is a tiny market (Ireland), make the payments and presumably also pay dividends to shareholders. While leaving a trail of destroyed suppliers and local mom and pop stores that actually did know a bit about the product and the market behind them. That sort of rate of expansion should not be financially feasible. The trick seems to be to concentrate enough money and buying power to enable this sort of abuse.

    There's a very odd exception, but one core issue at the centre of both of these scenarios tends to be authoritarian hierarchies. Most floor staff by and large (there's the odd exception) have long since had any motivation or willingness to take responsibility for stuff hammered out of them. I've discussed this with a few. Everything that matters seems to get decided at corporate level and handed down by dictat, and there's typically a stressed out local manager who has no authority but who runs around feverishly trying to keep his ass clean.(despite not having the authority/control to do so)

    The very last thing this guy (or his bosses in corporate) wants to hear is of problems or improvement suggestions from floor staff - yet this is the life blood of any normal business.

    When things go pear shaped, then it's almost inevitably a case of knee jerk hiring another psychopathic boy wonder MD in corporate at an enormous salary who proceeds from his ivory tower/distorted perception of reality to wreak further destruction. Nobody wants to enage with reality, all want fixes described in one syllable...
    Last edited by ian maybury; 09-10-2015 at 1:19 PM.

  14. #29
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    Folks, I didn't mean I have a problem with the policy- it's nice to have available, but I don't take it for granted. Home Depot gets my patronage more than other stores as a result of it, as I consider it a perk to have available, but I in no way expect it in other business dealings. As Home Depot tightens the reigns on their return policy, I will still shop there but won't go out of my way to do so- if I can get to Lowes or OSH easier, I will do so. That's free market- when everyone is around the same price for goods, it comes down to service that defines where we shop. Since none of the big box stores have anything in the way of service as far as having knowledgable staff, the criterion for comparison comes down to tertiary perks, like a good return policy.

    I take issue with people buying things and returning them in opened or damaged packaging, or items that have been used. I will return excess items, but not if they were opened or used, unless they were defective. I do not buy and return things every week, and don't feel I abuse the system. I also am keenly aware of the number of crooks misusing the system, living not only in southern california, but a rather poor area of it.

    I take no issue with HD tightening the reins on non receipted returns, my problem is that they decided to make the change on a corporate level without notifying customers or staff. This is just stupid and is going to end in ticked off patrons expecting the status quo. If you are going to make a change like tightening up the policy, let people know and do it. It's not rocket science. I have no problem with the policy being tighter and will endeavor to keep better track of my receipts, or purchase with a card more often. I was just letting folks know this change has been set in motion without telling anyone.

    -Michael

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Greg R Bradley View Post
    There is lots of fraud on returns without a receipt, particularly items supposedly paid in cash. One of the big box stores lost about $500,000 on returns of an expensive faucet that was actually a cheap faucet in the box of the expensive item paid in cash. The expensive ones were then sold without packaging to installers.
    This reminded me of something that happened to me years ago.

    Being a computer geek I just had to have a scanner and the only (affordable) ones at the time were the hand held models you roll across the page, so this tells you about how long ago this was (these were in the $300-$400 range at that time)

    Finally decide to take the plunge so I go to the local Best Buy and they have one in stock, cool. We (I was with a friend) get it home, I tear into it and what do I find? An MSDOS book that fit real nicely into the space the scanner should have been. I was in shock, literally I think.

    My friend and I immediately head back the store, I'm in a panic. Why wouldn't they think I did it to get a free scanner?

    We locate the girl who checked me out and she did remember me. We both assured the manager that the package was shrink wrapped at checkout time (it was). I remember slightly overhearing a conversation between the store managers about this and it not being the first time something like this had happened.

    They refunded the money and I never did get that handheld scanner, a good thing I suppose since I'm still not sure what I was going to do with it, but I had to have it. The point is there will always be those who are not concerned about the effects of their actions on anyone but themselves, consequences be damned.

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