I bought my wife a navigation system for Christmas @ Fry's Electronics. It was on sale, but they only had open boxes, and she wanted it badly, so I bought it. It sat for nearly a month, so we decided to return it, as now you can get a good navigation on your phone without a fear of someone breaking in your car because you left your device there. Anyway, they decided to open it in the store to check the contents. Come to find out - the charger is missing. So they didn't want to take it back, and sent me to an actual store that I bought it from. In that store I had the same problem, they didn't want to take it back because the charger was missing. I told them that I never broke the seal, but they kept arguing with me that I took the charger. Anyway, I had to call their manager, who was on their side, telling me that he can't take it without a charger. I wasn't gonna walk away like this, keeping a navigation system that is missing a charger...After about 20 minutes of arguing, he finally gave in and returned me my money credited back on the card. Bottom line: do NOT buy an open box item! Or if you absolutely have to, have them open it, and inspect the contents BEFORE you actually buy it. And yes, they can re-seal it for you with a factory seal...
that is BS, if the seal was sealed its on them............. im sure for every person who does not stand up for themselves thier is 20 that walk away and they just laugh and reap the profits. What happened to the customer is always right? Due to so much blatent fraud stand up people get caught up in the BS.
I know, i was being sarcastic. they can't be customer service oreinted anymore because so many companies are taking a loss due to shrink and fraud from customers. I managed a semi big box store for 7 years and saw it all. But alot of stores like Bestbuy, Target etc. have backed off some of thier hardline stances when it comes to returns. I know Khols is an exception to the rule when it comes to returns.
I've always worried about their open box items but felt better when recently returning a few items they went through the box part by part checking to make sure everything was there. But I still dug through to find the not opened boxes if I can find one. Now I'll insist on opening it before I buy it to inspect it. I returned one item with the original shrink wrap on it and they still opened it and went through each item in it. Guess it wouldn't be that hard for someone to reshrink wrap an item. Years ago I bought a scanner at WalMart, opened it and it was a lower model from the same company in the box. At the bottom of the box was a receipt from an online place for the lower model one with a local guys name and address on it. He had swapped the cheaper one he bought online and returned it as the expensive one. I knew a guy that worked at a Fred Meyer and a lady came in to return a VCR (yeah it was quite a while ago) and they opened the box to find just a couple bricks in it. She got all nervous said something about 'those darn kids' and ran out of the store.
