MikeWhy wrote:

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

That depends how you do it. OJ, for example, went about it all wrong.

That was delayed karma, those slow-grinding wheels finally caught up with
him.

Your option is to not buy junk.

What if you don't know it's junk? What if it's priced, packaged and
...

What if? The original premise was to buy it, use it, burn it out, and
swap it for the same item.

Yes, but that's not what I described doing, In one case I was knowingly sold
junk which the seller and mfg. then declined to do anything about until the
warranty was up at which point they figured they were in the clear. Burning
out a product and then trying to scam a replacement is an entirely different
matter. Mike figures the guys wearing out gear and taking it back as new
are doing the same thing I did when I returned a virtually unused item that
failed in weeks by buying a second and using that receipt, that strikes me
as apples and oranges.