"My wife is in the hospital" returns

[bean]

Okay, so I was was at the service desk waiting to get a drawer today when someone came up asking if he could return a ton of stuff. His explanation was "My wife bought a bunch of stuff we didn't need right before she went into the hospital, I don't have the receipt, can I get store credit for this stuff?"

Store credit isn't a problem without a receipt - we're willing to do it. We'll give you a store gift card (valid at ANY store in the company in the US and Canada) with the balance.

Problem is.. it was $250 of stuff. EVERY item returned requires a return slip being sucked into the printer and having various things whispered into it by the dot matrix printer. He returned about 50 items. Even that's not a HUGE problem, the dept manager wound up getting anybody else needing returns/store credit on another register while this return transaction took place (it took over 30 minutes).

I would have sympathy for the guy, except it looks more like he just cleaned out his pantry and brought us a shitload of stuff.

Since the store was so busy, and we're so short handed, I wasn't able to get a drawer for quite awhile, so they asked me to run the returns - basically restocking them. I'm one of the few that actually check dates on products during returns too.

Some of them were FOUR FUCKING YEARS OUT OF DATE! They expired in 2005 - which means they probably were purchased in 2002-2003. About 1/4 - 1/3 of what he returned was horribly out of date - about 1/4 of the non-out-of-date stuff was so close to being out of date that we threw it out anyway (2-3 weeks within expiring). I found several items that we didn't even stock anymore, and had to throw those out too.

Argh....

[Teysa]

So this man scammed your store out of $250 worth of stuff and the person ringing the return through did not even notice any of the out of dates? I know it seems like the put the sell by dates on a different spot for every item, but he should have at least caught some of it.

[bainsidhe]

Yeah, I'm wondering also. You don't mention what he returned, but wouldn't some of that stuff come up as clearance? Whatever, sounds like your manager approved it

[WhiteRose]

"Oh cool....4 year old stuff I found in my mom's cellar....I think i'm gonna return it because my wife's in the hospital and i can get away with it!"

yeah, i know some people like that....

[BookstoreEscapee]

We had a woman in Store1 who did something like that with books. The vast majority of the books she tried to return, I told her no (sometimes more than once on the same book), because they clearly had been read numerous times. They looked more like they came from the library. And most of them, if we carried them at all, were bargain books.

I can't even count the number of times her husband was in the hospital. Apparently everyone and their brother gave him books to keep him occupied. ()

He also died a few times, at least. I can't imagine telling someone that my spouse (or anyone!) had died just to scam a store credit. I'm not a big believer in karma and such but still...

[bean]

Yeah, I'm wondering also. You don't mention what he returned, but wouldn't some of that stuff come up as clearance? Whatever, sounds like your manager approved it

We don't do clearance except on seasonal stuff. And the register doesn't say clearance or anything, it just shows the current price. He had no receipts, so he got store credit.

It was all dry grocery - tons of soups, stocks, canned veggies, etc. And one supplement that was almost out of date - body care trashed it because it would have gone out of date before the whole bottle could be used, even if purchased that day.

At least it was all dry stuff - we had one lady who returned SPOILED chicken and salmon in zip lock bags. Well, tried to. No receipt, no labels from the packages, just warm bags full of botulism.

[Food Lady]

My company slates any food returns for the damage pile. It all gets destroyed, at a loss.

[bean]

My company slates any food returns for the damage pile. It all gets destroyed, at a loss.

Anything refrigerated or easily opened gets trashed. Dry goods are usually returned to the shelf.

[AirHostess]

Even if his wife was in hospital why is that your problem?

[Jester]

I can't imagine telling someone that my spouse (or anyone!) had died just to scam a store credit.

Many people use that excuse for all kinds of reasons. When my Grandma died and I went into work to tell them (since I might have been flying off to New Jersey, but even if not, I was in no mental state to work), one of the low level managers said in an accusing tone, "Oh, really?" I fixed her with a death glare and said through clenched teeth, "What, do you want me to bring you her fucking corpse?" Last I heard out of that one.