I knew of a way to get $15-20 in store credit for $.01. It was very widely abused and people would literally have thousands of dollars in store electronic gift cards.
Yes, $15-20 in store credit for ONE CENT by abusing return policies. Of course this was years ago and every retailer whose return policy would allow you to do this has been gone for more than 5 years.
Do not underestimate the cost of return abuse to a retailer. Every retailer I’ve seen that didn’t clamp down on this, and we’re talking multiple big box retailers, is bankrupt.
Comp USA, Circuit City, Media Play were all great... once.
People still do this with high value coupons.
Say the item is 15 bucks but has a 10 dollar store coupon. You buy the item with the coupon and wait a few days.
Then you go back and return said item.
They can’t give you your coupon back, so they refund the full price.
I was at a store that had a huge target on it (if you know what I mean) repairing some equipment and watched it happen. The clerks knew it. They knew the guy.. Said he’s gotten 1000’s back that way.
I was told that no one in the store has the ability to stop it because it’s company policy.
I doubt the store with the huge target on it really cared all that much as the coupon was probably sent in to the manufacturer for payment anyways.
With registers that can spit out coupons at the check out you would think it could reprint the original coupon and give that back to the customer.
I’d bet they are working on that as we speak.