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Zellers and free money.
Seriously, sometimes I am confused by our consumer society and the corporate lack of logic. Unlike the EBgames style however, this was in my favour.
I received for christmas a very nice present in the form of "Live free or Die Hard" on dvd. Great, I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately said gift was a Full Screen version as the gift came from a non-technological, non-geek type person. Yes Virginia, they do exist.
So I was hopeful I would find a story prepared to exchange the full screen version for a wide screen version. Shouldn't be too hard as the DVD was still in shrink wrap. I mentioned this problem to AJD suggesting Future Shop or Wal Mart she said "or Zellers," as they would have no problem doing it.
As it happened I was driving past Bells Corners Zellers today so I went in. All I wanted was to hand them the "Live free or Die Hard" Full Screen version and have them hand me the "Live free or Die Hard" Wide Screen version. No more, no less.
So I went in to customer service and explained the problem. They scanned the Full Screen dvd to check that they carried it and it came up $25.99. No problem, go and get the version I want.
I found it, wide screen, unrated edition.
Back to customer service where they scanned the new dvd at $9.97. Crap, now what?
"Umm, I'm sorry sir, you are going to have to take the difference on a gift card."
Wait, my wide screen dvd and free money? Free money!
"Okey dokey, sure, that would be fine."
So. Zellers and free money. I had no receipt and no idea what store in Orillia the dvd was purchased in. Is there even a Zellers in Orillia? Who knows, who cares! They gave me free money!
It was an odd occurrence of consumerism and for once, in my favour.
For an example of a "not in my favour" consumerism, they gave me the wrong amount of free money. The wrong amount of free money!
Instead of providing me the difference in price between the two dvds they had rung in the $9.97 plus tax price of the new dvd and put that on the card instead.
They gave me the wrong amount of free money!!
So.... armed with with the receipt showing $11.37 (the wrong amount), my gift card, and a copy of "Live free or Die Hard" wide screen and unrated, no original purchase receipt, and no idea where the original dvd was purchased, I turned back to... my car and drove off rapidly before logic whacked the Customer Service Reps upside the head as I so much wanted to do during the whole conversation while they were giving me free money!!
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Lets see where my logic fails.
Ice - purchases any piece of crap for $35.99 at (oh lets pick on BestBuy)
1 week later Ice does indeed see that this is crap and decides to return the item
Ice notices the item is now reduced to $18.99
Ice now expect only $18.99 back from BestBuy.
Makes sense to me, I'm sure I would have gotten the full price back if I had of paid $3.99 for the 2 year extended no hassle crapatee. (well full price minus the $3.99)
To be honest confusing exchange policy like Zellers likely actually works out for them somehow.
1. If you retain your receipt, you get the full $35.99 plus tax back.
2. You fall within many stores' "price protection" policy, where you get the difference back if you keep the item.
3. If you lost your receipt and were smart (I know, that's an oxymoron, but so is Ice), you would find out what the going rate is at several stores before deciding where to "return" it.
I know that's not exactly what happened to Blackwalt, but he had no alternative. he just lucked out on his choice of store. Some people we know (who shall remain nameless) have been known to take FREE games that came bundled with a console and "return" them to a local store for full retail value. That's just not cool.
to the proper authorities:
Revenue Canada
They will consider that free money as added income and will want to see it reflected in your tax report. Expect to receive a bill for $2.35 from them.
Technically they owe him another $6.89.
Lucky move, going to Zellers. Who would have expected a price difference between WS and FS? Although sadly, I know for a fact there are folks out there who make a point of researching such things. :-/