Sarah Moon

Update, December 8:

I have continued to pursue this return and have hit nothing but brick walls. I was told via email by Target “Guest Services” to call their customer service line (which is, oddly, only open on weekdays) and that they would resolve it if I gave them my receipt number. Unfortunately, by “resolve” they meant that they’d tell me that they would not, under any circumstances, intervene with a local store.

Here are the highlights of this conversation with Target corporate:

• I was told that it was up to Amazon to refund my money and handle the return, despite that I had a valid, non-expired receipt and all the accessories;
• When I pointed out that since I had purchased the item from Target, and therefore they were the only ones who could handle my return, she told me it was not their problem and that I should ask Amazon for my money back;
• I asked for an explanation of the return process, given that the employee did not follow Target’s published return policy, the customer service rep told me that the published policy wasn’t the “entire policy;”
• She told that their associates in the stores have the final call on returns;
• I was informed that the return policy in the store, on the receipt and on the Web are not their actual return policy and that they “couldn’t possibly publish the entire return policy on the internet.” (She didn’t think I was funny when I pointed out that the internet was the perfect vehicle for publishing their actual return policy.)
• At this point, I asked for a manager who could help me with this issue further, and the “guest services” person refused to get a manager, stating (just as the person in-store had) that a manager would tell me the same thing;
• When I asked for their policy on electronics returns, the customer service person told me that she was not allowed to tell me this;
• She informed me that the associates have the right to inspect each return and reject it. When I told her that the associate did not even look at my item, that she rejected it as I walked up, the customer service person told me that the associate could do that and must have determined that it was not a returnable item;
• When I asked her to explain Target’s policy and what it was about me and my return that triggered an immediate rejection, the customer service person hung up on me.

This entire thing is bizarre. If you read the comments on the original post, you’ll see that someone else had the exact same experience. It is truly bizarre to me that Target seems to have a secret return policy that they will not share with customers. It seems that this really enables profiling and discrimination by their staff, especially if there is zero accountability, as the Target corporate customer service person told me. Frankly, I do not shop at big box stores very much (with the exception of Costco—which has fabulous customer service), as my local shops have all that I need. Since I already have Amazon Prime for movies, I’ll just shift my few big box purchases to Amazon, who’s always been great about returns. 

However, I am reporting this incident to the Oregon Attorney General’s Office and the Better Business Bureau. While neither of these agencies has much power, I think it is important to establish a paper trail on an official level.

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Original Post, November 26:

Today I attempted to return a defective Kindle Touch (it has an intermittent error in which the entire device crashes and I have to turn the device off and then do a hard reset to clear it—which means setting the Kindle up from scratch). Because this device has been such a source of frustration, I decided to simply return the defective item, and wait until the kinks have been worked out before trying the Touch again. Additionally, the store did not have any in stock (as a Target employee told immediately upon my walking up to the customer service desk).

A “customer service” staff person informed me that because I had opened my Kindle (the only way to determine if it worked, last I checked), I could not return it. (And, yes, before you ask, I had my receipt—I keep all my electronics receipts filed, because electronics are often buggy.) I was shocked, as I had never heard of a customer having to eat a $100 loss when a product is defective. When I pointed this out, the “customer service” person stated that, “We can’t give you a refund because we can’t sell it, since you opened it.” I responded that, “Well, you’d probably send it back to the manufacturer, since it’s defective—you wouldn’t want to sell it to another consumer anyway.” 

I asked her to show me where on my receipt or on a store policy it states that Target does not take returns (for a refund) on defective products. She stated, “This is a company-wide, corporate policy. We won’t give you a refund, but if we had them in stock, we could try [my emphasis added] an exchange.”

So, let me get this straight, according to this employee, this is the Target policy:

• Defective electronics can only be exchanged, not returned for a refund; 
• If you open a product, you cannot return it, despite that this is the only way to tell if said product, you know, works;
• Since that store was out of my product, and they couldn’t do an exchange (though, I’d already decided that I didn’t want an exchange) I have to eat $100.

Now, I looked up Target’s return policy, and that’s not how it reads. At all.

Gaping at her, I persisted, questioning the logic, yet she refused to get a manager above her, and refused to make my return. All she would offer is a phone number of corporate customer service.

Now, I immediately posted this experience to Twitter (because, sadly, that’s the only way to get customer service these days—by shaming the companies publicly) and my friend Maggie told me that she had returned the exact same product to a Target in L.A., opened, and they took it and refunded her $100, no questions asked.

This leads me to believe that there’s something fishy going on at the Target at Cascade Station in Portland. Has this Target had too many charge-backs? Are they taking too many returns and been told they need to limit them? Do idiots who don’t know how to do a return staff this particular store?

My suspicions are piqued even more, in light of the fact that the first customer service rep I talked to couldn’t do my return—he told me that the supervisor of the customer service desk that day had to hand all electronics returns.

The whole thing stinks of scamming and scumbaggery and Target has most definitely lost a customer in me and I will continue to persist in getting my refund, as well as an apology.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention, when she first rejected my return, she said it was because my personal information was on it—and claimed it was for my security. When I showed her that I’d deregistered it and wiped all info off of it, she changed her story to it being against corporate policy.