I’ve seen some people try and return some crazy things in my career, but this one surprised even me.   A lady returned her Christmas tree to Costco weeks after Christmas and requested (and was given!!) a refund because it died.   Did she expect it to live until next Christmas?

    Obviously she was brazen enough to take advantage of Costco’s lenient “no questions asked” return policy, although if I was Costco I’d be putting an asterisk on that one regarding Christmas trees because once this gets around there will probably be an onslaught of returns next January.   Some people are saying the woman must be desperate for money, but how desperate can she be if she could afford to buy a Christmas tree in the first place?  She’s certainly not homeless.

I remember years ago when Target first came to California and they also had a “no questions asked” returns policy.  They had an expensive stereo system which sold for about $200 on an endcap, and people would pick one up, take it to the returns desk and request (and were given) a refund.  At some point they did sales tracking and discovered that they had refunded far more than they had actually sold!!  Apparently the police department in one city sent them a letter advising them to change their policy because it was encouraging theft and eventually they modified it.

I know that large companies have the attitude of “Let the refund abusers do their thing, it’s a small percentage of our sales etc.” but they’ve probably never been at the returns desk when someone asked to return a used diaper. There definitely needs to be some discretion allowed at the store level.  Just sayin’.