-MIKE- wrote:
DGDevin wrote:
-MIKE- wrote:

Rationalize it all you want, it's theft.

If you recover money taken from you under false pretences, are you
a
thief?


That's more rationalization.
There are means in place to handle things like that.
You never heard that two wrongs don't make a right.


Your option is to not buy junk.

What if you don't know it's junk? What if it's priced, packaged
and
promoted as quality goods but is actually junk *and both the mfg.
and the seller know so*--what then? We bought an Onkyo home
theater
system some years back, when it began screwing up we went online
and
discovered other folks having the same problems, alas we all seemed
to discover the situation at the same time. Onkyo's warranty
depots
were unable to fix the systems so they stalled until the warranties
ran out, they went right on selling the same model. At that point
it occured to us that the store which put the system on sale might
have done so for a reason--bingo, as one of their staff confirmed
they knew the system was a dud and they wanted to unload them.


Class actions suit. One of those legal means.


No, we didn't steal something from the store in revenge, but
needless to say we'll never buy another Onkyo product. However if
there had been a way to return the system, say by smudging the date
on the receipt, I'd sure have thought about it.


Then you would've decided your integrity was for sale for the price
of a home theater system.


But that involves being an informed
consumer... which is what is happening in here... in this thread.

That assumes it is possible for the consumer to be informed, and
that isn't always the case. The first batch of consumers to
discover that a product is no good serve as a warning for those who
come later, but those first folks still got ripped off.


Covered above.


In any case, in my experience, Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot will all
take back "a product that fails in an unreasonable period of time
(but outside the store's return policy)."

I just went through this with a big electronics chain over some
defective inkjet cartridges. They realized they'd been selling a
poorly-made brand of cartridges so they dropped them because of
many
returns. But now they won't accept any more returns on the grounds
that they no longer sell that brand. No, I didn't steal anything
there either, but if I could have thought of a way to return the
cartridges without them realizing what I was doing I might have
done
so and not lost any sleep over the "theft."


Then you would've decided your integrity was for sale for the price
of
some inkjet cartridges.


We have the option of being honest about it, or run the risk of
having a misdemeanor charge on our record. For most people,
however,
the misdemeanor never enters into the equation as a deterrent. For
most, the simple fact is the price of their integrity much higher
than $8.99.

Very fine speech, when you decide to come down off that horse I
think
there's still some beer in the fridge.


It's hardly a high horse, and you're embarrassing yourself by saying
it is.
In how deep a hole must one stand in order that seeing petty theft
as
wrong, looks like being on a high horse.


BTW, I've only done something like this once.


So have I.
And it was just as wrong as when you did it or when anyone else does
it.


I bought a halogen lamp at
HD, it seemed to work okay so after awhile I got rid of the box and
the receipt, which caused the lamp to immediately die. HD wouldn't
take it back without a receipt of course, so I bought another one,
put the defective one in the new box and returned it with the new
receipt (they gave me another lamp). HD lost nothing, they
returned
the lamp to the mfg. for credit just as they would have if I'd kept
the first box and receipt. So now I have two lamps that work, both
of which I paid for. If I stole anything I'd like to know just
what
that was. These days I keep receipts religiously *and* original
packaging which drives my wife crazy, but it's allowed us to return
some defective items that otherwise wouldn't have been accepted,
live and learn.


It's too bad they wouldn't take it back.
The HD's here will put it on a gift card if it's something they
still
sell.

But that's still more rationalizing.
If it was after the amount of days stated in their return policy, it
was wrong.
If it was during the manufacturers warranty, you had another
recourse.
If you lose the receipt, it's your problem. But you said you
learned
that.

Mike, have you ever started a class action suit? If not, give it a
try and get back to us on how you do with it. You probably won't be
quite so much the self-righteous prick after having that experience.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)