Just tried to take something back to Homebase that my girlfriend bought last week and swap it for something very similar (slightly different style, same price). They wouldn't, because I didn't have her credit card with me. I explained that I didn't want any money back, and just wanted to swap it for something of the same price, but they just couldn't grasp that concept.
I can see why they might insist on having the same card to give a cash refund, but surely it's not necessary for an almost like-for-like exchange? Why do we have to put up with this crap, which is presumably designed for the convenience of their IT department, rather than us customers?
True, but they advertise that they will be happy to refund or exchange goods if returned unused. They are of course, perfectly entitled to make life as awkward as they wish for anyone who returns or exchanges goods. But I'm also entitled to take my business elsewhere.
I can understand that they would want proof of purchase, to prevent scams where staff steal the easy stuff and then sell it on to people who exchange it for stuff they really want.
However I would have thought a receipt would be enough to stop this. Maybe you just got a confused staff member?
Well it is a sort of a procedure/IT thing. If you want to exchange goods what they actually "have" to do is give a refund, then a new purchase. When I've exchanged goods in the past I've always had a card refund voucher, then the card sale voucher for the repacement item, i.e. two seperate transactions. Dunno if this is Homebases doing or the credit card company, but if it helps in anyway to avoid theft or fraud then I'm all for it.
One rational possibility that seems obvious to me, is for the purpose of maintaining the accuracy of their stock levels. In other words, they will probably want to create a till credit for the returned item in order for the returned goods to be added back into their stock records, and for the replacement item to be deducted from the their stock records by means of a new sales record.
It further occurs to me that there might be very good reasons to tie their stock control system tightly with their sales records. Since the original transaction was with a credit card, it follows that correcting entries should be entered into the credit card records.
she bought it but you've had to do the bringing back
during the busy sales period of all times
have a think about that for a while . . .
I can see why they might insist on having the same card to give a cash refund, but surely it's not necessary for an almost like-for-like exchange? Why do we have to put up with this crap, which is presumably designed for the convenience of their IT department, rather than us customers?
There's no sense in that. If you return goods then the sale is reversed. You accept other goods instead of a refund and there is a sale. The stock records are correct and the sales records are correct. There's no need for any credit card transactions.
In which case they could charge the OP for the replacement goods and credit him back for the returned goods. All stock records huncky-dorey as would also be their credit card records.
There's no sense in that. If you return goods then the sale is reversed. You accept other goods instead of a refund and there is a sale. The stock records are correct and the sales records are correct. There's no need for any credit card transactions.
Unless, of course, the people who design their IT systems are a bunch of fuckwits who can't figure out how to do that. Surely that couldn't be true, could it? ;)
It's pretty obvious, if it is the refund processing staff who are doing the thieving and defrauding. All they need to do is find any receipt which a customer has forgotten to take, and then process a "refund" and pocket the cash. Forcing the refund to go to the customer's card makes that impossible unless the customer is in on the fraud.
In the case of a refund in goods rater than cash, the situation is similar. The staff fraudster gets goods instead, which he might either want for own use or to sell to a mate down th pub.
In both the above cases there would be no actual goods returned, and so the feasibility of this scheme could be clobbered if the store has an effective stock tracking system for returned goods.
I don't think he would have been. He wanted to exchange for alternative goods. Had the "refund" gone to his absent girlfriend's absent card, he would have wanted the money to come straight back out again to "pay" for the other goods. They could hardly have let him "buy" goods using a card which he didn't have and wasn't his. He would have had to pay for the replacement goods himself.
I wouldn't have thought so, not imposed by the banks. It's more a case of it being imposed by the practicalitites of the situation.
The receipt will typically show only the last 4 digits of the card number. This is good enough to verify that any card which *is* produced is almost certainly the appropriate one to use. But there is generally no record kept anywhere of the full card number, so the number would need to be produced by the customer. In principle this could be OK if the number passes a validity test and matches the few digits on the receipt, but the refund would need to be processed manually. A shop in which customers are normally present will be geared up to use the electronic system fed by an actual card.
Shops are increasingly unkeen to process card transactions manually. Oddly, whenever I hire wine glasses at Tesco (the hire is free but you need to pay a deposit) using a card, they *don't* process it electronically but use the manual vouchers with the roller imprint machine. Then they give you the voucher back (or rip it up for you) when you return the glasses, so they don't actually *process* the manual transaction as such either.
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