Would you do this?

[Bedlam]

I worked for the ultimate scammer.
One day when I went to work, he had filled about 30 of those black plastic plant pots , and he said watch this he took them back to home depot, said that the plants hadn't grown and they scanned and scanned. Gave him couple hundred dollars refund.
Used part of a gallon of UGL paint and refilled with water and cleaned the can returned.
Used part of a roll of the rubber roof membrane and then returned it as unopened.
it goes on and on. Thats why I'm no longer with him.

 

[Taylortractornut]

My brother worked for Lowes when he was in nursing school. They had a bonus program for catching scammers. It was a percentage of the goods involved. A popular thing was to buy an item and keept the recipt or find one in the trash or one in the parking lot. Then go in and get a cart and getthe Item seemed to be alot of pressure washers was the most popular. Then catch the greeter or service desk people busy and act like they rooled in off the street and get a refund on the machine. Alot of time if they didnt have a receipt they got store credit for the item.
Matt caught several even confronted a man about bringing in a well worn string trimmer back. I think it was a homelite that he told them he had purchased it 2 months before and it had quit running. He wanted them to send it back for repair on their dime. The man had kinda intimidated the little girl that was on returns that day, but Matt had worked they a long time by then and knew that they had quit selling them almost 2 years earlier. The man left mad when he had seen that he wasnt getting anywhere with him.
Later he had a lady actually a pair of older ladies that were involved with a church and a restaurant. He caught onto some fishy behavior thatthey were doing but being friendly he originally over looked it the first time but the second he really caught on a little late but he caught them. Policy on that if they caught them bringing in like they had brought it in from the street they could void them store credit and call the law, and the catcher gets the bonus. Matt was on returns one day and he noticed the one lady came in by herself. he was watchinf for the other one then this one lad had come in there that was a new one. She had seen Matt helping a lady with her flower knowledge and the scammer picked up on that. while matt was watchine the door the Scammer and her buddy asked him a boat load of questions and really got him disttracted. The lady came in with a cart undetected and got to the pressure washer Isle and had one picked up. She came up front with it ad out from the entrance of the store and acted like she came in through the merchandise monitors. Matt had to give her store credit for the item. He told me he thought to himself Da*&*n they pulled one on me. He called security and told them what had happened and they looked back on the film. He had given them store credit on a 1500 dollar PW. Matt and the manager got together and thought how to not let them walk out with free stuff. They unofficially cancelled the 1500 dollar store credit. Matt saw them comethrough one of the cash registers with on cart with a stove and the other cart with a dryer and another with a small grill.

Matt could tell by the facial expressions and the the three women pointing back at him the kinda laughed and went on about there business. They later had been seen at Tupelo and Corinth and another lowes ever 2 weeks they made a round, each time one lady out of the three did the distraction and the other 2 would steal.
Also a Contractor that had been working for Tiffin Motorhomes for years had lost a good gravy train when they got greedy. All material is purchased throught another family owned store. THe contractor spent part of the winter building a new guard shack, when they were done wit hte job the contractor had them pick up all the short peices of moulding and put it back in the boxes and take it back for credit. They might have gotten away with it but it had been ordered by a person that had been in the gaurd shack and liked the moulding. Since it was special ordered the store thought it was a good time to resell it. They were shocked when the new customer broght back a box and a half of cut off moulding.

 

[tallyho8]

I can't return anything with a receipt 6 months later to my Home Depot. They started using disappearing ink on their receipts. It completely fades out after 6 months. It really makes it hard for me to account for my spending when I do my income taxes.

 

[Big Bri]

When we went about 6 months ago the line cutting is what got me, people would cut saying that they had family up the line. I put my hands on both bars and wouldn't let them go by. . . my wife thought that it was going to get ugly and asked me to stop. i complained, to the staff, was told that they can't watch everyone. We will not be going back, what was to be a fun week was more of a heart ake

Years ago I bought a back pack sprayer. I had to take it back THREE times to get one that had all of the parts. One of them still had water or some other liquid in it. People just used them and returned them.

When we moved I bought an appliance mover. It was cheap and I move enough heavy stuff to make buying one worth it. You could tell from the units they had on the floor that they had been used. Bought. Then used to help someone move and returned.

I bought a power paint sprayer. It did not work and returned it. I know the lady at HD thought we had just used it for a job and returned it. We returned it since it did not work. I hope they did not box it back up and resale the junk....

More years ago than I care to admit I worked in a retail electronic store. Does anyone remember equalizers? The company had an older model that was no longer sold and a new one that was put on sale. I had a lady show up with a receipt and a new unit to return. I opened the box and can you guess what I found? Yep, the old unit. She had bought the new one, put the old one in the box and was trying to return it.

Pathetic.

I do think there is a moral decay in the country. My surprising point of comparison is Disney World. I have been going there since it opened and I was a child. Now that our kids are old enough to go we have been taking them over the last few years. We last went in the late 90's before we had kids. Then there was about a 10 year period when we had not been to Disney.

The levels of rudeness and scamming I see nowadays I never saw in all of my time there in the past. Simple little silly stuff. People cutting in lines. Rude behavior. I just did not see this in the past. And people don't let their kids walk. They use strollers for old kids. Never seen so many strollers in my life. And we wonder why people are overweight.

There is a special little treat at the Magic Kingdom regarding Tom Sawyers Island. First thing in the morning they put out five of Tom's paint brushes for the kids to find. You pretty much have to be on the first raft on the boat to get one of the brushes. If you get a brush then you get a free fast pass to get on one of the rides. Not a big deal but something fun to do for young kids. And for old kids as well! We waited in line and were on the first raft to the island. You could tell other people were doing what we were doing. We saw one little girl that had found THREE paint brushes. And then went looking for more. Her parents showed no consideration towards other families that were hoping their kids would find a brush. It was all about making sure that their little princess go everything.

One of our kids finds a brush! Woo Hoo! That makes four found. But then our other child starts crying because they want to find a brush as well. So we keep looking and surprisingly find one. I'm not happy about it since some other kids should really find it....

So I talk to our oldest and she agreed that it would be a good idea to find a family with kids and hand them them paint brush. So we did. The fun is in the finding. Getting a fast pass is nice but so what. The family we gave the brush to did not know about the brushes so we told them. Not a word of thanks from them.

We got to where you turn in the brushes to get your ride pass. The family that had found three then ran into a problem. There were 10-12 of them in the party. They heard that you only get ONE pass for the part even though they had three brushes. So they pretended that they were TWO parties so they could get two fast passes to get on a ride.

Its just pathetic. And what did they teach their kids?

Then there are people that will use a video or still camera with a flash on a ride when they are told not too. The light from the view screen or flash ruins it for everyone else but they just don't care.

The level of consideration for others has declined.

Later,
Dan

 

[Big Bri]

i also want to post something that might make some of you mad. i own a retail store and reading how some of you return items that you have had for 6 months or longer . . . for that matter 3 months and longer should think of what you are doing to that store. you put a real strain on that store, most stores will reorder inventory after an item is sold, by returning that item that you have had that long puts a huge strain on a store to replinish other stock (now we are over stocked on the item you returned and can't buy other stock that we are low on due to buying back your item) also with some items pricing can change weekly, when you buy lumber at one price and there is a price drop, that store in now buying back you lumber at a loss. All i'm saying is if you buy something and don't need it return it asap, and if you keep it for a while just keep it or sell it on your own.
any way that just my opinion

 

[Bedlam]

Wow the disappearing ink trick sounds like fraud to me. I would personally request a different receipt from them each time. That is downright deceit for sure . Lots of receipts have to live beyond that sate for tax purposes.

 

[Taylortractornut]

One thing that caused me to hate Autozone with a passion was something I went through in highschool. I had a slick little 84 S10 pickup. The day after I painted it and was going to school the head gasket broke and flooded the motor. It killed a main bearing before I knew any thing was wrong. I went to Autozone and bought a new engine. I had it set in and it knocked immediatley. I called te Auto zone the man wouldnt come out to the shop so I had it towed they took it back. We pulled the pan on it and it had 2 spun bearings. They decided o talk me into buying a block. All my other other stuff was still in good shape. I got the block home we opened it and number six was egg shaped, it had been machined but the 2 sides were still egged past the bore.
and one of the cylinders was cracked through. They said they had a time with folks coring in bad engines.
I can understand not taking something back after a long period of time I think lowes here and the local lumber yard if you bring back material and theres been a price change if its not defective they give you the reduced price of the item. I know Wallyworld wouldnt restock a bad return they had a discount store or if it was damaged they would send out to a warehouse when it got full they sent to a private landfill and watch it destroyed.

 

[jimmyj]

The disappearing ink may just be because they are using thermal receipts. Thermal paper ink fades away pretty quickly.

I work in retail and the police actually gave us heck for being "too liberal" with our return policies. It seems the "druggies" and "losers" spread the word around about where they can find easy marks.

 

[dmccarty]

Many years ago, animal behavior scientists purposely put too many rats in a cage - really crowded them in. They found the more crowded the rats were, the more they started biting each other. There is a parallel here .......

And that is a fitting comparison to Disney World!

The number of people packed into the parks is stressful. Adults and children get over stimulated by the parks. Its new to many of them, they are trying figure out how to get from here to there which can be stressful. Then people think they can see all of one of the parks in one day so they try to see everything which is impossible. But it makes them hurry which adds to the stress.

I think to see MOST of everything at WDW would require a month stay.

We go to Disney to eat. We get to the parks before they open to beat the crowds. The kids are still young enough so that they get tired lunch time so we had back to the resort to rest and go to the pool. We try to just cruise through the parks only wanting to ride on a few E Ticket rides. It really takes the stress off. Some of the best experiences we have had at Disney have been taking the time to talk to the Cast Members. We have had interesting talks with the gardeners and bus managers. But so many people are hurrying through the place which just gets them stressed which then often leads to rudeness.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

When we went about 6 months ago the line cutting is what got me, people would cut saying that they had family up the line. I put my hands on both bars and wouldn't let them go by. . . my wife thought that it was going to get ugly and asked me to stop. i complained, to the staff, was told that they can't watch everyone. We will not be going back, what was to be a fun week was more of a heart ake

If you went at spring break time the parks that is one of the busiest times. It can be madness. There are also Brazilian Tour Groups that have a bad reputation for cutting lines as well as rude behavior.

We where there the last to springs and its madness. The drive up/down I95 was stop and go. A real mess. We hit the parks before they open and since we stay at the Disney resorts we take advantage of the early park openings. We were at Magic Kingdom at 0700. We are used to getting up early anyway and getting to the parks at sunrise allows us to miss much of the crowd madness. We rode several of the high demand rides 2-3 times over and over. Get on the ride. Walk off. Walk back on. By lunch time the crowds hit, we get hungry and go back to the resort.

Cutting lines I just don't remember it as a kid but today it happens. Especially at parades and firework shows. Some of the cutting is with kids who have to go to the bathroom. But some of it is when the party splits up. Which I don't agree with. I'll accept that someone might have to run to the bathroom, especially a child and when the line is long. But there is just too much of it. I have heard of Cast Members going after cutters but it really depends on the CM.

One thing we do to safe time, is that we get to a park at rope drop and I will go off to get Fast Passes while the family heads to another ride that is not so in demand. We went to EPCOT and the family headed to Test Track while I went with the Thundering Herd to get Fast Passes at Soar'n. The family was supposed to wait outside Test Track until I showed up but the crowd was so bad getting Fast Passes that it took me more time than we though. 15 minutes instead of 5. I finally get to Test Track and my Mom said my wifey and kids went on the ride! I tried to catch up to them but they were too far ahead and I was not going to cut. Surprisingly the cell phone worked in the building and I told her to let the line go past her until my spot in the line made it to her.

The people around me in the line thanked me for my courtesy. Its sad that courtesy is just not that common anymore.

Later,
Dan