Ever been ripped off this way?

Not that in particular, a new DVD player I recently purchased had the batteries in the remote and protective plastic films removed. I returned it.

 

Once I bought a video graphics card in a sealed box, got home and found inside was empty.
Returned it to the store and luckily got a refund. They may have said I am lying.

 

I was in line at the Home Depot return a few years ago and the guy in front of me was returning a ceiling fan that he had bought the day before. When he opened the box, instead of the ceiling fan pictured on the outside of the box, it was a old, well used ceiling fan. Apparently, someone bought the ceiling fan, packed their old one in the box and returned it to the store where it was returned to stock.

 

I just got ripped off by Airgas. I exchanged an empty, very nice relatively new aluminum CO2 canister for a full "whatever on their lot" canister. They gave me a smaller rusted steel canister...so I had my doubts when I tried setting it up and seeing that the input gauge read very low. It wound up being just enough gas for one beer (charging it and serving it). I decided to try exchanging this quickly spent canister with a standard beer supply store. Sure enough, just by weight judgment, this canister seemed quite a bit heavier. And when I tried setting it up, it now reads in the appropriate gas range. I tried reading the fine print of my airgas receipt, but I didn't say anything about shortchanging a customer. If I made enough of a stink, then maybe they would refund me a little money....but I figure boycotting them and establishing a vendor that is reliable is better.

 

"wide spread" is a relative term. Theft occurs every day. The clerk at the Returns Desk probably got an earful about inspecting open boxes before accepting the return. Corners get cut when there is a line, the unpacking is a job, or the clerk isn't familiar with the product.

You've got a better chance of getting overcharged because there is a bad price in the computer when the item is scanned.

 

Before craigslist this was one of the big ebay scams. They would sell something like a laptop have all the pics and even the pic with the user name because they had it. Then ship a box weighing the same as the laptop to the recipient with signature required for delivery.

PayPal showed that the item was delivered, the weights matched, the package was about right. So usually they ruled in the sellers favour.

The use then return or return swap type thefts are more common than many might think. But a lot of retailers have gotten smart about it. Last time I actually returned something to a brick and mortar store was a video card that was DOA. They scanned the outside of the box that has the serial number and checked the serial number of the card itself to make sure they matched.

I buy everything online now, so no issues...

 

This scam has happened over here from time to time - usually by some bloke in a pub offering to sell you a cheap laptop (your alarm bells should ring at this point as it is unlikely the laptop is not stolen). He takes you to the back of his van where he has a few dozen laptop boxes, he opens one and shows you the nice shiny expensive computer and says he wants £150 for it. You give him the cash, he gives you one of the other boxes and then drives away. You open box and find it full of brake discs or something else heavy but of zero value. You've been scammed. You can call the cops but say what? You tried to buy a knock off computer from a man in a van?

As scams go it's so full of morals

 

One Christmas morning our son unwrapped a video game (purchased through a retail store) only to find a phone book inside, no game discs: some clown had likely purchased it, cut the package open neatly and made the switch, then returned it for refund. We got an exchange, no problems, but frustrating.

 

Several years ago when the Leap Pad was the toy every child had to have. These things were impossible to get. My local K-Mart had put out the word that all lay-a-ways that weren't picked up by a certain day would be put out for the general public to purchase. Sure enough there were several Leap Pads.

There was a gift wrapping station right in the store. I took the Leap Pad over there. We opened the box to install batteries before wrapping it only to find a dirty teddy bear.

The manager went straight to the back of the store. He found another Leap Pad which he replaced mine with and said that it was most likely employee theft in the storeroom.

 

My brother had that happen to him when he ordered a game through paypal. Poor kid was so disappointed when he opened that empty box.

 

This switch has happened to us - we buy HP toner cartridges at Office Depot. Got home with one, and found that it was used, packed in the inner plastic bubble stuff. The crook had obviously gone through the other end of the box. Since we are "regulars," O'Depot didn't give us any grief about the return, but they lose in the end. Now, I pay for the cartridge and open it at the store to be sure it's OEM!

 

My brother had that happen to him when he ordered a game through paypal. Poor kid was so disappointed when he opened that empty box.

 

I've never had this happen, but I've gotten defective merchandise occasionally, and returned it. Never had a problem. On eBay, I only buy from sellers with very high positive ratings, and never had a problem. I'm kind of surprised by the replies above. I wouldn't have thought it was so common. Guess I was wrong.

Stores make choices about how much labor it's worth to avoid what level of risk. Do they want to pay employees to spend ten minutes extra checking every returned item if there's a fraud once a year? Banks could reduce credit card fraud by spending more money on fraud prevention, but they balance the cost of prevention against the amount of loss they'd save by the measures. They find a balance that suits them, aiming for the lowest overall cost. Example: I had a couple of unauthorized charges a few years ago; they would have been prevented if the bank had required the merchant to supply the name of the card holder. But it was a high-volume merchant, and probably an accidentally transposed digit rather than intentional fraud, and requiring a higher level of authorization for all their transactions would cost them more in the long run than they lose by the occasional error from an otherwise trusted merchant. (After the second time, they issued me a new card and deauthorized the old number.)