Customer returned $800 in books after using them to stage a home for holidays | Hacker News Reader

Customer returned $800 in books after using them to stage a home for holidays

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49 pointsasicsp67 comments

In a similar vein, a couple of years ago someone tried to return A$10,000 of toilet paper and sanitiser, which they got stuck with when their profiteering venture was shutdown. The vendor refused to process the refund and the case lead to a change in refund policies for most Australian supermarkets.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-15/supermarket-shopper-t...

I had a friend working for Safeway in Seattle during the Pandemic. Safeway changed policy and refused to take returns of just toilet paper or hand sanitizer, because of the panic buying.

Wonder if that anti-collusion measure is still laxed. It says temporary but I'm not sure where to look to see if its undone now - can be debated whether we're still in some kind of "crisis" mode or not depending on what scale and where you're looking.

Still going, currently due to end on 31st of March 2023 [1]. The original authorisation [2] was until the 31st of March 2021, but has been extended multiple times. Might get extended again?

[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/update/accc-grants-authorisation-for...

[2] https://www.accc.gov.au/public-registers/authorisations-and-...

A colleague of mine worked Walmart returns desk back during her high school/university days. She said many people would buy all their Christmas decorations early December, then return them early January since Walmart had a very relaxed return policy.

When I was younger, a friend's dad used to run a millinery. We'd sometimes hang out there for half an hour after school and then his dad would take us home by car. I was always amused by that oddly specific sign next to the cash register saying something like "one week return policy, except for black or white hats". Every time I saw that sign my curiosity grew so one day I finally asked his das what was up with that specific exclusion. "Simple" he said. "White hats are for weddings, black hats for funerals. People would return them all the time, the day after the ceremony."

I used to do this with my kids growing up, buy matching size low quality winter shoes at beginning of winter, which can barely last through winter, get refund for broken shoes at the end of warranty, basically free renting if you are willing to risk shoes will get broken already during winter. Since I have 2 kids I don't care that much about it, if it gets broken great, can get money back and buy new shoes next time for same kid or use it for other kid, if it doesn't break, other kid can use them when they will grow up.

When I was in college, I had friends that would buy games for the computer and return them to Walmart when they finished them. TBH some of those games were a scam. You could finish them in six hours. I didn't feel sorry for Walmart in those cases.

From the scant information, it is very likely this was one of the influencer gigs.

People doing this should realize there is a very palpable network effect on everyone else not indulging. For the sake of own influencer livelihood, and just because it is within legality - they should not be throwing someone's life into a whirlpool for few more likes/views/clicks.

I feel sorry for the bookseller (and glad they've recouped) but imagine the alternative when this charitable act didn't happen. In addition to stocking, bookseller often take care of shipping return costs too. More so for rare/expensive books. It would have been catastrophic to the business.

“Influencers” are one of the great externalities of social media. The prospect of fame and wealth turns existing people’s narcissism and sociopathy up to 11 and the rest of us suffer.

> “Influencers” are one of the great externalities of social media. The prospect of fame and wealth turns existing people’s narcissism and sociopathy up to 11 and the rest of us suffer.

True, although it should be noted that the world of "influencers" is starting to shape into an industry of its own, moving beyond individual egos.

There are, for example, companies such as The Social Chain[1] whose (almost) sole role in life is influencer management, content production, "social-first distribution" and podcasting.

I agree that neither "influencers" or the "industry" surrounding them are something that need to exist. I doubt anyone would miss them if they were not there.

[1]https://socialchain.com/en

If not for social media, would their narcissism and sociopathy make the rest of us suffer in other ways?

Social media amplifies narcissists. I believe it also makes people more narcissistic (personal experience). Would love to see studies on that.

IIRC even McLuhan's theorizing from the middle of the 20th century touched on this kind of thing

I looked for details but could not find them in the OP or linked tweet.

Given the owner says of the books

> They were expensive (some wrapped) art and cook books

there is a possibility this $800 sale was for fewer than a dozen items. Maybe even fewer than 5 items.

A small number of items doesn’t excuse the unethical behavior of a buyer using a small business’s inventory as stage props, though it does put said behavior in perspective, so to speak.

In any case, it’s good empathetic readers purchased enough new books to offset the revenue shortfall.

"This person was an unusual case. They were expensive (some wrapped) art and cook books,"

An "exchange only" policy should be in place. And only for unopened items.

> An "exchange only" policy should be in place. And only for unopened items.

Your idea needs to have a meeting with Mr Reality.

a) The business world is competitive, you are competing with the likes of Amazon who have a no-nonsense returns policy. If you become known as a business with a troublesome returns process, then customers will simply vote with their feet.

b) People returning stuff after short-use is, like it or not, a fact of life in today's world. Ask anyone who sells fashion goods ... girls buy stuff for the Friday night party and return it on Monday. It happens and it's basically a cost of doing business. If the stock is any good, it will get sold anyway, just as nearly-new instead of new.

c) In an increasing number of jurisdictions, the law falls on the side of the buyer. For example in the EU, your "exchange only" policy would be an absolute non-starter (with very few exceptions, e.g. food items, healthcare items etc).

> c) In an increasing number of jurisdictions, the law falls on the side of the buyer. For example in the EU, your "exchange only" policy would be an absolute non-starter (with very few exceptions, e.g. food items, healthcare items etc).

With the exception of online purchases, that's only true for the return of non-faulty items. In Ireland, for example, you have no right to change your mind after the purchase and return the item just because you didn't like it (except for online purchases, which must allow 14 days for return).

Now, many shops will still allow you to return items within a certain time frame for your money back, but they would be well within their rights to operate an exchange-only or store-credit policy (and some do!).

However, if the item is faulty or not fit for purpose then the seller must offer you a replacement, repair, refund, or reduction in price. Whether or not you are entitled to choose which of these you get is dependent on how long since you bought the item, and whether or not the suggested repairs/replacement are reasonable.

> If the stock is any good, it will get sold anyway, just as nearly-new instead of new.

Not really. Most of it ends up in a dumpster unless these are really high-end items. Or in some liquidation warehouse if the quality is good enough. Otherwise, probably on a landfill in Ghana.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/30/business/online-shopping-...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/fast-fashion-turning-...

That's a really good reason why clothing stores should be exchange-only for returns. If you don't like it or it doesn't fit, you should be able to find something else in the store that fits that you do like.

Return fraud leading to perfectly good clothes being wasted is not only bad for the environment but likely leads to higher clothes prices for legitimate customers.

>b) People returning stuff after short-use is, like it or not, a fact of life in today's world. Ask anyone who sells fashion goods ... girls buy stuff for the Friday night party and return it on Monday. It happens and it's basically a cost of doing business. If the stock is any good, it will get sold anyway, just as nearly-new instead of new.

You get blacklisted very quickly if you do this.

Not to mention it's basically giving those people an interest free loan funded by the rest of us.

Perhaps if a business lost sales to "girls buy[ing] stuff for the Friday night party" they might gain them from people like me who see the prices as higher than I'd want to pay in the first place.

>You get blacklisted very quickly if you do this.

Maybe maybe not, but then you end up returning to point a) ... along comes Amazon with Prime Try Before You Buy

On the other hand, I've received items from Amazon before that were clearly previously opened and returned, sometimes with missing pieces, once the item was clearly defective. Due to this subpar experience I no longer order anything from Amazon since, personally, I'd rather not spend my time returning things and their slipshod policy almost guarantees I will have to.

I’ve reduced purchases on non-Amazon sites because they expect me to pay to ship a return back to them. Amazon not only pays all return costs they send someone to my door to pick up the return. Adding friction does lose customers.

It's amazing to me how much stuff people return. I have seen people buy a ton of stuff and return half of it on a regular basis. I guess it's a time filler for you/them. I don't run a store, so it doesn't affect me, but just seems like a huge waste of time.

I know several people who will buy something from multiple retailers so that they ensure that they get what they want when they want and return the "slow" items.

The part that these people are completely oblivious to is that they then have to wait for these packages, figure out what they are, print labels, and get them to a return location. This ends up being a cost in time akin to getting a workout in, reading a book, or taking a walk that day.

This is an exageration. It comes in the packaging, it's just tape, and most of these places, especially Walmart and Amazon, have counters in stores you might have wanted to go to anyway to return them without packaging them right anyway. When you do a Amazon return it gives you like a month to do it in

Having a shipping fee actually leads to less returns and frivolous purchases(not even accounting for wasted packaging+cost+labor)

Amazon is not doing this out of charity.They know suckers love friction less experience only to buy stuff they don't need and then forget to return it.

> they send someone to my door to pick up the return

Where is this? I have never seen this as an option.

Depends on the size of the package. If it's large enough that it cannot be dropped off they'll send a UPS van.

a) Most likely people who would ruin your business by returning stuff

b) Hence a policy to ward off this kind of clients. Why bother selling if you will have the item back - with the costs of restocking, processing, dumping or relisting, cleaning, etc?

c) I don't think so. Here in NZ and Australia very few places offer a return policy for change of mind - and most places are online outlets. IF you buy something on the street be prepared to have the option to exchange only.

This is one of the many reasons I do not miss working for a bookstore. A large percentage (but not the majority) of our customers were either grifters or thieves.

It seems like a surprising thing to steal. Don't shoplifters normally go for items which are easy to fence?

They sell them to other bookstores. Or try to, anyhow, and that is not necessarily a good idea, since (especially in the used and rare bookstore world) owners often know each other. I worked at a used bookstore and a friend of the owner who had their own store was robbed: a few days later, the thieves showed up with boxes of books taken from that store. Thankfully the owner of my store realized it right away and the thief was caught.

What other used bookstores? There is only two of those in the surrounding 300km where I live and they’re both struggling

Tweet thread (https://twitter.com/rebecgeo/status/1612509818505289749) went viral and a lot of people pitched in by buying books.

One guy I worked with was hired by the company, moved into an apartment near the office, and bought all of his furniture from Costco. I guess they have a very liberal return policy because when he another job and moved to a different state around a year later, he simply returned all of the furniture to Costco.

It's really sad they returned all those books instead of donating them. On another note, if you ever need to stuff up a book shelf, at least in my area, every local Goodwill has books for $1 a pop roughly. Hard cover is $3 regardless of what the books actual value is. I'm sure other stores like Salvation Army and Thrift stores have similar stock for cheap. You're better off spending insanely low amounts and just donating the books if you really don't want them.

I have personally found some gems at Good Will though.

In this case the purchaser clearly wanted their house to look snazzy over the summer. A load of 1960s paperback editions of things like "I'll Say She Does!" and "Trouble with Lichen" would probably not have done the job.

> Trouble with Lichen

Aw… I never get to meet anyone who appreciates John Wyndham. Anyone who looks at my bookcase and gives me the thumbs up for my old sci-fi paperbacks rather than last month's hardcover hit-cookbook is more than welcome.

Someday; I'm sure

Photographers do this quite often with just about anything you can return, though it seems very rude to do it to a small business.

You should see how the film industry used to return rental cars.

Rental cars are meant to be returned, no?

sorry could have added more detail - the old ruse was to pay for the rental insurance, wreck the car for the movie, and then return it

He's implying the rentals were abused beyond normal use.

When I was a poor student we would "hire" games consoles by buying them from Argos, returning them for a full refund within the 14 day(?) guarantee period, and then rinse and repeat. I seem to recall that the games themselves were not covered by the returns policy, so we ended up acquiring quite a collection of cartridges.

Not something I'm very proud of.

Back in 2002 or 2003 I stopped in at a hardware store in the Washington, DC, suburbs. A sign announced that there were no refunds on "emergency supplies". I asked, and this meant plastic sheeting and tape, because these were the days when the federal government was warning of possible terrorist attacks.

Is providing books, etc. for staging a business opportunity? There is already such services, no?

Normally yes. I worked at a large used bookstore that would do this: interior decorators, realtors, and film crews would either purchase or rent large numbers of books. Renting would be cheaper, of course, as long as the books returned in good condition (which they sometimes did not). The labor involved was often very great, since most of those books came from their proper spots on shelves and then had to be reshelved (although we kept some nice looking sets that were frequently used for this). What was needed often had certain parameters too (e.g., books with blue spines, only leather-bound volumes, or only a certain height).

What surprises me in this case is that the realtor actually cared about the content of books. The vast majority know that people won't actually look at the titles and just care about the ambiance created.

It exists (film/TV, real estate, etc), but I doubt the person in this article would have paid for that when they could just scam a bookstore instead.

Scam?

I think that's the right word for buying something that you intend to return after 'profiting' from having it on display for a while. A scam doesn't have to benefit you financially to be a scam.

Yes. Home staging is a fairly common business for cities to have. They'll provide all of the materials themselves and then take them back once the photography/open houses are complete.

This solution is free.

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