While we've certainly seen a few items get returned without, shall we say,
everything in tact, this example just might take the cake. Details are fairly light, but the long and short of it is that some sly customer managed to return an Xbox 360 and get a full refund, but the most critical components weren't repackaged. Reportedly, the store decided to allow the refund just this once without thoroughly checking the innards, and sure enough, the decision came back to bite 'em. Packed within was a gutted console (stuffed with a used textbook, no less), a bunch of totally random cabling and an official Xbox 360 headset. Needless to say, the store got
burned torched, but if the culprit received his / her refund as a credit card charge-back and / or was caught on camera, we've all ideas the retailer will get what it's owed one way or another.
[Via
Digg]
posted Nov 22nd 2007 3:49PM
very bad behaviour but .. classic!!
The perfect crime!
The textbook wasn't Ethics, was it?
I known people who would buy a item gut it go to another store buy the same item go to their car and put the gutted item in the new box and return it within ten minutes of buying it
What does that achieve? Why would you need to buy a second item? Couldn't you just put the gutted one back in its own box?
what a noob... didn't he think that retailers can just track you back down if you an credit card?
They said if he used a credit card which I highly doubt and if they have him on camera he/she just don't have to go back to that store
I read some more into the incident, which now I think the store clerk and the thief are probably in this together... I mean, no return/CS rep is THAT stupid/lazy right? Sigh...
Yes, they are that lazy. I return crap to Wall*mart all the time and they never check it.
I had a friend pull something like that, but not as bad. His console was banned from Xbox live, so he bought a 360, swapped the insides and kept the HDD (it was an elite, he had a Pro), returned it.
He got away with it I guess. I mean, they didnt catch him then, and its been about 6 months since.
Its called cash and not giving your info to them. Also It is easy to do this kind of crap. You can even open the box from the bottom by undoing the folds take the xbox and put Dog Crap wraped in aluminum foil and put it back like you never opened it and return it for cash. If they give you store credit. You quickly use that to buy 2 giftcards and sell it to someone or on ebay.( you might loose a little money but what the heck). Its easy and people do this stuff all the time. The CA are not dumb.
this is funny, although a textbook? put something funny man like a clown that pops out when you open it. jeeez.
yeah, csr's can be that lazy/dumb. i used to work at a big box, and we would get all kinds of stuff returned. people used to buy bike helmets and return the visor for a full refund. if you have the balls to ask, you can return virtually anything.
There is not legal recourse here. The employee should have checked the box... plain and simple. By accepting the return and issuing the refund, the clerk accepted whatever was in the box. They may have thought it was an XBox 360, but it obviously wasn't. Too bad for Wal-Mart... legally, there is nothing they can do.
I am not sure if you have Argos in the States, but it is basically a shop which has a catalogue, sells lots of stuff.
I bought a router from them as it was cheap. I got it home without checking it, and the box was unsealed, all the cables were missing, and the thing didn't work. Someone had clearly just returned it and it was put back up for sale. At the same time I returned to the shop to complain about it, someone was returning a TV they just didn't want (he said I don't like this tv, but that it worked fine) without even having the original box, and they actually gave a refund.
If is quite shocking what some shop assistants will refund.
What an idiot! LOL!
I surely hope he gets pwned - and the article posted here. THAT will be classic.
@Fred
the time issue when you place the gutted item in the second box and return it within 10 min more than likely the clerk will not check it now keep in mind you still have the first gutted items' box you could either sell the intact one to someone or place the intact item in the first box and return it to the first store
best...post...ever
brilliant banter!!
You're giving me ideas. >:D
too bad they cant do anything to this guy. even if / when they find out who it is, they cant touch him.
if it goes to court, the question of "who's to say the store associates did it" will come up. i have a couple of friends who work at best buy / circuit city and theyve had their fair share of "return items" filled with things other than the purchased product (book ends, rocks, old computers, etc)
yeah, so unfortunately, this guy will be off the hook =(
I bought a PC (dont exactly remember where) 2 years ago.So I get the new PC have it unboxed and all set up when BAM lightning hits my house.(Lightning doesnt make a noise,that was for dramatic effect.
The PC was bricked.
So I brought it back in the box,into the shop,tell the clerk that it "just didnt work" and played dumb...he goes out the back,brings out a brand new one,carries it out to my car.I asked him did he want to see my receipt or anything (he hadnt asked) and he said "no you better keep it in case something happens to it"....so id reckon these sorta things are more commonplace than you'd expect.
ever heard of thunder? yeah, that's the sound of lightning
Light travels faster than sound, and it's doubly noticeable when it comes to lightning...
Light and sound are moving at the same relative speeds, at least perceptible by a person, when its close enough to hit your house. Now if your house was hit by lightening 12 miles away that would be a different matter but 12 miles ain't going to happen.
Chris is wrong though. You can have lightening without thunder. I don't know what they term is for it but I've seen it before. Its spooky as hell. Think it might be ball lightening or something like that.
You can have lightening without thunder, and you can have lightning without hearing the thunder... but if you get a power surge from lightning, you're going to hear the thunder.
well i'm not wrong because thunder is the sound of lightning. ball lightning is a rare form that is not understood. as stated, you can have lightning without thunder, but only because you're too far away to hear it. the sound comes from the shockwave caused by the temp and pressure spike that occurs due to a lightning strike.
The guy who said light and sound travel at the same relative speed is a complete moron. Light travels 300,000km/s, sound travels at about 16km/s. You can definitely see lightning before you hear thunder, you can see an explosion, even a very close one, before the sound hits you. Good God! Don't they teach anything at all in school anymore?
Oban if you are going to call someone else a moron, make sure your own facts are straight. The speed of sound in air is about 0.3km/s (1200km/h), not 16km/s (57600km/h).
If lightning were to strike close by, the brain wouldn't be able to recognize the μs gap between the lightning and the thunder, so the "relative" velocity over such a short distance would be near-equal.
Wow, you people are weird.
(Even) In Soviet Russia..
..if you look outside during a lightning storm and see lightning, you can be sure that the thunder will follow soon after.
My mate worked in DIY store a few years back (B&Q for us brits) and I was told of a story where a guy was returning a toolbox of tools and asked for a refund instead of an exchange. The girl serving did exactly that without checking the box. When the guy had left, the manager happened to walk over and perform a routine check. In the toolbox? No tools. Just ROCKS. Cheeky beggar had kept the tools.
That guy sure is a toolbox.
Intact is one word.
Returning it without tact would be the owner using a shotgun in order to extract a refund.
best example ever to highlight a grammar mistake...
Well i can say that i have returned 3 faulty xbox 360s to best buy with my replacement plan and the clerk has not made me pay for a new warranty and i have kept the hdd everytime without question.
Happened to me at Target. Bought an HP ink cartridge that had an old ink cartridge from 2004 stuffed inside. Box had no defects so I'm thinking someone took the cartridge, carefully resealed it, and returned it back. The store doesn't know any better if it looks like a sealed box. Damn bastards.
Ben Heck is obviously getting stingy!
well he had to get some money back, that laptop cost him loads to build!!
It probably runs cooler now.
Wow didn't realise there were so many theifs in the world! :O
theifs no. Asshats...yes. Very much yes.
thieves ;)
Thank you :). My spelling isn't the best, sorry...
Back in the day my brother swapped a japanese nintendo 64 by purchasing a local one and taking advantage of the relaxed returns policy at a store. He gave all the fake details and got a brand spanking new console.
Riveting story.
At least this one is guaranteed not to have a RROD (Red Ring of Death)
a store was showcasing a 360 that had the RROD
I actually bought a 360 from a store which had it on display suffering from the RROD issue. They let me look at the serial number, I called Microsoft right there to make sure it hadn't been registered and was eligible for repairs and then struck a deal with the store to sell it to me for a couple of hundred dollars off.
I immediately took it out of the store, called Microsoft who emailed me the packing slip to send it in for free repairs, mailed it off the next day and a week later I received back a fully-working system with a year's warranty left (which then got upped to 3 years). So it's worth a shot to haggle with the stores on these!
I can only say this much: I went to buy my 360 around halloween and I got a nice scare: A broken launch 360 in a new premium box. Bought from Target near where I live, someone just returned thier original and got the money for it. Sadly, it happens all the time especially with a broken system liek the 360.
It looks like the place is a costco and from my own experiences working their... this happens alot... we have the return tags with their member number so they will just put a block on his account that says something like "Do not accept returns without fully checking members items or call...(the store it happened at)" and most of the time these guys come back and try it again and get caught.
For all of you that think this kind of action is "classic", I hope you learn a lesson one day by having someone rip you off. This type of behavior is reprehensible.
1) Store offers fair return policy.
2) dropkick decides to take advantage of store's fairness
3) cost-cutting and/or mere incompetence and/or lazyness at the store let the loser win.
It it reprehensible, but the store is partly to blame for letting it happen. It's not enough to be fair for people to register guilt for their actions. Too many want something for nothing, and not only that, wear it like a badge of honour.
i bet that thing can defiantly not play doom now.
How does a machine "defiantly not play doom"?
"I defy you! I won't play doom!"?
exactly.
Seems obvious to me. Nobody who have the balls to walk into a store and try and return that based on the assumption that the box would not be checked. Well maybe, but very doubtful. What was the plan if an employee did check? Turn and run? So here's two possibilities. The employee who made the return was in on it. The person returning was their friend, and they probably thought it would go back to factory without being checked again in the back. Or, The customer returned the 360 intact. An employee made the switch again thinking the box would be returned to factory without it being checked again. One way or the other, this is the work of a crooked employee, not a crooked customer.
Even without a credit card (as of course if you're ballsy enough to try this, you're likely smart enough to pay cash at one store and return it to another store, out of state if you can) if they have security footage of the day, which of course they do, they could easily narrow down the hunt to a very small group of people, if not the one person.
How many 360's get returned in a given day? A few? How many refunded in cash? 1 or 2? There's your guy. Correlate the interior security video to the exterior camera video and you likely have the make and model of the idiot's car - possibly the plate.
All good reasons not to bother doing this to save yourself what, a couple hundred bucks? If you're going to commit a crime, go big or go home.
Pretty good advice, but a little unexpected coming from a guy using the moniker of a belgian childrens' comic hero.
Actually, Tintin (the character you speak of) is known as quite the detective and logical thinker. So it shouldn't be so suprising.
And I'd rather take on the moniker of a children's comic book character than a dog's chew toy. ;)
Bet I could return one to my local walmart like that and NO ONE would have a clue.
Bleh I wish I could return one new without a receipt!
I bought the Halo Xbox thinking it would be LIMITED EDITION so I can sell it on eBay for loads.
Well guess what? It's a shitty system that no one wants to buy for more than retail price.
I bring it to a walmart hoping I could return it without receipt (I didn't buy it at walmart), and have it put on a gift card (like they usually do) but they wouldn't take a Console return without a receipt. I didn't argue. So I left and sold it on ebay for less than what I bought it for with tax.
sucks. :(
Anything to screw the 360 over is a good thing. A buddy of mine had 3 ring of death systems. The first after a year. The second after some weeks. And third one out of the box. One he actually purchased. Two were given as gifts. He called up the 360 repair line. They sent boxes out for all systems. Weeks later they called him up asking for receipts for the systems otherwise they would not be fixed.
Who the eff gives a receipt with a gift? Now he has one working 360 and 2 faulty ones being sent back to him. Go figure. I support your efforts to screw them over for the little guy.
what does that have to do with a gutted 360.... You Fail...
I bought a sofa from IKEA and had my mom take it home for me. But she drove too fast, so parts of the not assembled sofa flew off the trailer we had it on. So we had to go back and lie.
No problem. All the trashed sofa parts was replaced in a heartbeat. Thanks IKEA for taking back roadkill furniture.
Ikea are always good with missing parts and what not.
The only problem is that 1. Nobody ever goes over security footage. 2. There is no way they would prosecute,its not worth it for 300$. I work at a future shop and we record security footage over old security tapes. We also dont bother prosecuting shoplifters unless its over $1000 cause its not worth the time or money. There is no way anything would happen to this guy. This doesent happen at my store cause the tech room is right beside the customer service counter and the girls get me to check stuff cause I am the return Nazi.
Hope this guy was smart enough to put gloves on when he did this or they will have his finger prints.
No cop is going to dust a $300 or whatever kid's toy for prints. Heck, they could care less if your $1500 mountain bike gets stolen.
Yea and maybe that is why people think they can do stuff like that.
I suspect he'll just be caught via credit card records or something
Don't be so sure... I've returned alot of items (legally) over the years and not once has anyone ever powered on the item to see if it worked (or didn't work) - they open the box, look to see that the item is there and process the refund. The fact that he returned the core was the smartest thing he did because just glancing in the box makes it look like the item is in there.
This time of year you'll see more and more stories like this - with the crazy return lines everywhere the stores just want to get them out as quickly as they can - they aren't going to go through every item, take it out of the box, power it on, etc - they'll flip the box open, see if something is there and process the refund.
What a dumbass. If he returned this to ANY store besides a mom and pop electronic store, his face is on camera. I hope they bust the guy and fine him three times the cost of an xbox 360.
Yeah apparently some stores are really relaxed with their return policy. This past Friday I bought a new TV and I couldn't get the box to fit into the car so the guys loading it were really nice and unboxed it for me and put it in the back seat. They told me that if anything happened to the TV on the way home or while setting it up to just bring it back to the store and tell them it came like that out of the box.
What an a-hole. I have returned stuff all the time and they have refused it because the manual was missing (which was not in there in the first place). This asshat gets away with this crap. They'll catch him on camera though.