hitmanjules

Let's say one hypothetically ordered a book from Amazon.com and read it once and left it on the shelf. One year later that book just sits there in mint condition, but not doing you any good. If you were to take it into a bookstore such as Borders or Barnes and Noble, without a reciept, would it hypothetically be possible to return it for store credit to purchase another book? I hypothetically wonder if they'd be able to see if such a book had been bought recently in their computer in front of them. Any Otters have any knowledge of this?

Forum Troll

It would depend on the manager at the time, and how much the book costs. Most stores would say no. When I worked at Sears in electronics people would return stuff all the time with no receipt. Store policy then was to collect their information and tell them that since they had no receipt, we would accept teh return, but they would have to wait 6-8 weeks for a refund check from corporate headquarters. We wouldn't give them store credit, just a receipt with a transaction number. Some of them got mad at us, but these people were usually trying to return a phone that said "Radio Shack" right on it.

Pointyskull

I imagine it depends on the book's condition. I've ordered a book or two from Amazon for gifts that ended up needing to be returned for one reason or another, and to make it easy on myself I just took 'em to Borders and got a credit.

Keeping it for a year is another story, perhaps.

DVD Polizei

UPC.

They change much more rapidly due to "expirational purchases".

Groucho

It's highly unethical, so I'm sure there are plenty of people here who will be able to help out on what retailer it's best to rip-off this way, and the best way to go about it.

Good luck!

ElementZ

The company I work for allows this with minimal hassle. Granted we don't sell books but customers who order online can take merchandise back to the store. If they have no receipt, they have to show photo ID and only receive the store credit of the current price.

sfsdfd

They'll probably accommodate you for the sake of good customer service.

However, relying on this constitutes an abuse of their good-faith customer-service intentions. If you'd wanted just to read the book, instead of owning it, then you should have gotten it at a library.
But books are a special case. With most products, people buy them in order to use them frequently, but with books and other media, people derive most of the value in the week following purchase (the first read-through.) That's why there is usually not a return policy on DVDs, software, and music CDs - if opened, you can usually only exchange it for another copy of the same item, and only if the first is demonstrably defective. Books are the same, so I would expect an official policy of not allowing returns on books.

- David Stein