WTF are you talking about? No, they don't. They put them back on the shelf to be sold to the next person.
And if we're talking about Wal-mart, they'll put it back on the shelf even if it's opened, damaged, and the box is literally coming apart.
As I said in the other thread: Large retailers (like Target and Walmart) allow returns without receipts because they like happy customers and want them to come back. They give a credit because you have to spend the credit in the store. This is not fraud, its not against the rules. These stores have policies like this for a reason. If they didn't want people to return things without a receipt, they wouldn't allow it in their policies.
"Returning" a product you never bought from the location to take in store credit, regardless of fraud etc., is a blatant abuse of the policies in place. You know what happens when policies get abused? They get revoked if it ends up killing the bottom line. Case in point: the whole discontinuing of rain checks for products at Toys R Us Canada because people were abusing the hell out of it. For that reason alone I'm against doing this kind of thing. I don't want to be the person who lost their receipt and suddenly the Target down the street changes it's policy because of abuse to the system, leaving me SOL. So go ahead and do it, but understand that no action is ever consequence free. Enough people do it, and it's gone.
Let's phrase it this way. So you're selling figures here or on Amazon, or eBay, wherever. You sell a really rare figure for a good chunk of change to a guy that then claims it was broken when he got it because he wants to replace the broken one he has for free. He goes through the refund process, sends you back the now broken figure and gets his money back with minimal fight because PayPal and eBay want happy customers. You can argue your case but will most likely lose. Oh well, just the cost of doing business right? Yes, while a few people returning things to stores that they didn't buy there isn't going to upset the apple cart, it's not just a few people doing it, and happy customers still come in second to share holders. So once the bottom line starts taking a consistent hit due to returns, those easy to exploit policies will die.
So... You are saying this because you have worked at EVERY major retailer and they told you how they do handle their returns? Just checking, and not using assumptions to be dismissive. Because we have this article: Here's What Happens To A Product After You Return It To The Store It says that items are often returned for redistribution before being sold again. And that by the time it can be sold again, some items end up being sold at reduced price. And it coincides with what I was told in regards to my first retail job. And this is not Walmart. Which I have seen enough authentic photos to know that buying returned items from them is not always a smart move.
I used to work for a company whose policy (for opened/used/broken/missing-parts products) was to literally destroy them and throw them out. The store returning or throwing out a product seems completely stupid (and I'm not defending it), but it is a thing that actually happens.
Walmart and Target both have carts behind the return counter where they place sealed items* in a cart based on department and at the end of each day the people working in those departments return them to the shelves. Its called "reshopping" and most stores do it for most items *obviously not for food, medicine, and some clothing items. And I'm willing to bet the un-sourced, very short article you posted was related to clothing stores, especially high end stores where they do need to inspect them for damage and wear. A toy, or a CD, or an unopened box of pencils or whatever is absolutely going back on the shelf in that same store.
Again, Walmart has this policy specifically to draw in customers. If little timmy gets 2 of the same Transformer for Christmas, mom's going to return one to Walmart for credit. Walmart wants Timmy's mom to do this. If they didn't want people like the person in the BBTS thread that started this disuccion to do it, they would simply change their policies. Walmart thinks the money they make off the BBTS thread guy is worth the "cost" of selling his toys to someone else.
All of the articles you listed involved actual theft, where the perpetrator either spent no cash of their own or committed fraud by altering/damaging/destroying the contents of the packaging. If an item is unopened and the store has a policy where they accept returns without a receipt, no harm's done. I don't and would not do this mostly because it seems to be a huge hassle and waste of time/money, but if someone wants to (return sealed toys purchased elsewhere); I have no problem with it. If the company has a problem with it they will change their policy.
Just thought I would point this out from the Wal-Mart return policy page: "To return or exchange items without a receipt, you are required to present a valid government issued photo ID. Information from the customer ID will be stored in a secured database of returns activity that Walmart uses to authorize returns." Not sure how would feel about Wal-Mart storing my information in a database.
... except it's not a return if you didn't get it there, now is it? Seriously, it's fraud. Not a huge deal, but it's a dick move and technically illegal. And the best part is that even if it doesn't hurt the retailer (or if you don't care), it may hurt other consumers. The one for whom that policy is actually in place to help. Because it's there for the consumers who bought it there but couldn't find the receipt or were given it, not for the guy trying to make a few extra bucks on the side.
But that's the point that Field94 was making...do we REALLY want a policy so abused that it gets revoked for legitimate returns that don't have the receipt (happens often at birthday parties, "Where did you buy this?" "Uhhhh, Target, I think...?")?
I thought the B&M stores stopped taking returns without receipts. I remember Target used to allow 3 returns a year w/o a receipt, but then stopped all together... unless they changed their policy again. TRU would return at the lowest ticketed price, but then stopped after an epidemic of fraudulent returns. Maybe it's just my local stores that stopped.
Big stores like Target automate their ordering. Every item has a 'trigger' number that is usually based on the previous 6 weeks of sales of that item and how many the system shows on hand. So when someone either buys new figures and returns a bunch of old ones (someone cleaned out the Titans Returns figures at my local Target and returned a bunch of Generations Rattrap and Minicon teams with their receipt)...so that Target has a sales history of ZERO. In the OP's scenario of returning the shelf warming figures the store could have a sales history in the negatives. What this means is that when the buyers, whose job it is to order new products at the corporate level, look at the sales figures it looks like Transformers simply aren't selling and orders get reduced, given less shelf space, or even discontinued. They.dont care that the inventory numbers are skewed by some collector who just had to have the hottest new thing even if it meant buying in bulk or a dealer who couldn't sell older toys at a show and returned them using a newer receipt. His job is on the line and if that means the 1 step changers are selling much better than deluxes than they order more 1 steps and less deluxes, making the problem even worse.
i want to say that my walmart limits returns/exchanges without reciepts to a 3 time a year limit because of the excessive abuse of these situations, and they are considering making it receipt only..... i don't even entertain the thought of "returning" something that you got at another store. i find it morally wrong. like eating grapes before you pay for it....
