<p>This summer I worked at Nordstrom.
My first day on the job I was dropped off by my brother at the same time a girl about my age parked her brand new Audi. This girl was my first customer; she spent more or less a thousand dollars in designer clothing. My boss was there to help me if I need it. When she saw my face, smiling asked me if I was working on Monday and I replied yes.
-Remember that face was all that she said.
Monday morning, that girl came returning everything she bought. My boss again smiling -working on Friday? she asked
Friday morning, I saw that girl again; this time she was buying a $1200 gown. My boss was smiling.
Im working on Monday too, I said.
Monday the gown came back.
First time I met a very unethical person.</p>
<p>Wow. So the tags were still attached? Would the store have taken the clothes back if the tags had been taken off?</p>
<p>Too bad the store can’t keep a “blacklist” of people like this and just refuse to sell to them.</p>
<p>One of my sisters worked in retail for a long time, and she knew that people did this. It was too much trouble for the store to sort out return policies, so they would take most things people tried to return. I haven’t heard of one person coming back so regularly, though. Someday she’ll spill something on a $1200 gown. Just keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Actually, several stores do “blacklist” chronic returners by refusing to refund/credit accounts.</p>
<p>I have friends who work in “returns” for LL Bean. They have long been known for a policy of accepting your returns for any reason at any time. People return jeans and boots they have owned and worn for 20 years (!) because the “zipper didn’t last” or the boots “wore out” and they are unsatisfied.</p>
<p>Finally, LL Bean has quietly altered its policy for abusers only. They watch for the folks who haunt garage sales, buy items for 50 cents and return them for full current value retail. It’s an art and science with specialists handling these fraud-mongers.</p>
<p>Gap Stores, where I was once an executive, also had to rein in their “no questions asked” return policy. I also was an executive for a different type of retailer (FAO Schwarz) where I got a peek into Loss Prevention issues of a major retailer (Loss Preventions deals with shoplifting, employee theft, fraudulent returns…).</p>
<p>Nordstroms obviously either wants to retain its excellent customer service profile, of which this type of no-questions-asked return policy is a part; or it would cost more to start the special return fraud department than it’s worth. Or… if the salesperson chose to alert the Loss Prevention department to this shopper, action might be taken. I don’t know which.</p>
<p>Years ago we had neighbor friends and the wife and I became pretty close. She needed a jacket to wear to a party one weekend, and I had one that fit the bill. She tried it on and liked it OK, but said she was going to look at the mall anyway (she must not have liked it that much!). Anyway, she purchased a $300+ jacket, wore it to the event, and then returned it the next day. I was appalled. A double whammy- she hated my jacket so much that she committed fraud rather than wear it!</p>
<p>But the OP has hit on the truly troubling issue here.</p>
<p>Principles. Values. And the lack thereof in this very young woman.</p>
<p>Personally, I would like to see a Nordstroms call this shopper on her behavior. For her sake, possibly. Getting away with it feeds the behavior. Getting caught at least has the potential to allow her to see herself for who she is.</p>
<p>Not to mention that we are all paying for her party attire. The prices we pay at the grocery store, at Nordstroms… all have to include the losses engendered by her and other thieves.</p>
<p>Maybe if people let Nordstroms know that they don’t appreciate paying for clothing that other people have worn and will no longer shop there until they change their policy…</p>
<p>I wonder if it would really be worth it to keep up appearances by purchasing expensive clothing only to return it if her friends caught her in the act. I suppose to some people the impression you create is far more important than the person you really are.</p>
<p>I don’t know how people could do that; we all have to pay higher prices to cover the stores’ losses. I wonder if that girl’s parents do the same.</p>
<p>I had a similar experience with charitable work. The woman in charge of the group going to build houses for Habitat for Humanity, charged every kid and adult $150 to buy the meals while doing the work. One parent approached her very angry telling her she was a thief, and I thought that $150 for a week of meals wasn’t that much but I found out later that all the food was provided for local churches and she deducted from her taxes all the amount paid for the volunteers as her own contribution to Habitat and she did that for many years. She also deducted what she paid to rent the bus and charged everybody enough to cover all the cost and more.
Some people don’t have moral values at all.</p>
<p>I would assume that her mother and friends do the same thing, to some degree.</p>
<p>I don’t like any effort to get things for free that shouldn’t be free. I remember going out to dinner with a group of girls who I didn’t know that well once. The waiter spilled a glass of water on or near our table. I don’t think it got on anyone. Once he left one of the girls said that normally she would try to get the meal for free if she could, and the other girls said that their families would have done the same! Thankfully they were probably too scared to try it on their own without Mommy there to do the dirty work. We were about 15. It’s small things sometimes that reflect on someone’s principles.</p>
<p>Another, similar thing I hate is when people get handicapped plates but don’t really need them. A family friend (well, the family friend’s wife…) convinced some agency that she needed one which she obviously doesn’t. She always offers to take it along if we’re going someplace where it would be tough to park. :rolleyes: My mother always needs to kindly refuse without making her opinion on the practice obvious.</p>
<p>I agree the young woman described in the first post lacks principles. But isn’t something else working here? The fact that she said “remember this face” indicates that she wanted the worker to know she was doing this and getting away with it. It argues for something much deeper, some psychological need to be recognized for her successful lack of morals. I think the girl not only lacks principles - I think she may verge on having some type of sociopathy also.</p>
<p>An editorial from my local paper regarding a value changing over time. I wonder if some of the lack of ethics mentioned above started with the changes noted in this article, regarding community attachment to places of business. </p>
<p><a href=“captimes.com | The Capital Times: Madison WI News”>captimes.com | The Capital Times: Madison WI News;
<p>Many people returns merchandise without tags all the time, but I’ve never seen before a case like this. </p>
<p>About voluntary work, many take advantage to reduce their taxes. Last year I went with one of my friends to a camp for autistic children, my mom drove us both ways during four weeks. At the graduation party, her mom said that we should volunteer at that camp again because last year deductions from the trips there made her paid fewer taxes.</p>
<p>hayden, I think it was the manager who said “remember that face”, not the girl herself.</p>
<p>This story doesn’t surprise me at all. I can think of many stories of dishonest and unethical people. When I was in college, my mom worked part-time in a small department store where it happened ALL the time, especially around prom time! There are dishonest people everywhere, and always have been. I worked for a grocery store when in high school, and the butchers used to go through the cash line of a cashier who was a friend of theirs, buying all kinds of meat priced incorrectly for about 10 cents a pound. When in law school, my H got a summer job loading and unloading trains. He was instructed the first day by the full-timers (all unionized) not to work so hard because he was going to make them look bad. How many of us don’t know people who offer to pay cash for a service done at their home, so as to avoid taxes? If you’re given more change than is due you, do you return it? Do you ‘steal’ the little bath products in hotels when you stay there? </p>
<p>I think a lot of stores have changed their return policies partly as a result of incidents like the one the OP mentioned. For years, though, many big chains accepted returns with no questions asked. I have a friend who works part-time at Sears every Christmas season. One day a woman brought a big trash bag full of kids clothes in, all of which had been ‘dyed’ the same color because she’d washed one shirt with them and the color ran. She expected Sears to refund her the cost of all the clothes that were purchased there, and they did! If that isn’t insane, I don’t know what is. My friend said that they don’t actually pay much attention to returns like this because in the big scheme of things, it’s a small number. Of far greater concern is the huge amount of money they lose on an annual basis on thefts by employees!</p>
<p>Many years ago my husband worked at Macy’s. There was a customer that regularily came in to buy an expensive oriental rug on Fri, then returned it on Mon. One Monday my husband couldn’t help himself, he said to the customer, “was it a nice party?” We, as consumers, all share the cost of these returns. I do resent some electronic stores’ 15% restocking fee, but maybe some of those retail stores want to think about imposing that fee.</p>
<p>Trapper: What happens to the garments that have been returned? Is there any question they’ve been worn? Will an unsuspecting customer buy the $1200 gown for their own function?</p>
<p>Nordstrom’s return policy is very forgiving, so as long as the tags are on the items, the management can’t refuse the return.</p>
<p>But if I were that manager, and there was a regular recurring pattern to this young woman’s Friday purchases and Monday returns, I would try to discourage it. The manager could arrange it with the salespeople that she (or one particular asst manager) is personally called over every time to handle this same girl’s returns and they can make her wait while they handle other sales. Waiting is a huge drag to a me-first kind of person like this. It’s also easier to return stuff all the time if you’re dealing with different sales people every time you do it. </p>
<p>The person handling the return can pointedly ask if the clothes were worn anywhere other than being tried on at home and then take a looong time carefully inspecting each garment for damage before putting through the refund. I might even have a log book at hand and tediously write down every item number with her identification and the return date next to it and if the customer asks, simply tell her that she (the manager) is keeping a record of the items being returned. </p>
<p>A long wait and inconvenience might discourage this particular offender.</p>
<p>alwaysamom, I think you’re right. But the post even on re-reading is not entirely clear. But my reading was wrong. (I guess I assumed that the boss wouldn’t have had to ask if the poster were working on Monday.)</p>
<p>I had a casual friends’ lunch with some women, and one of them insisted on paying for everyone’s lunch with her credit card. She said that she and her husband, a wealthy physician, list all the lunches and dinners that they eat at restaurants as business expenses under his medical office. She said that they just lump all their personal expenses into the business and take a tax write-off. I said I couldn’t accept her kind hospitality and gave her cash. That’s just petty theft as far as I was concerned.</p>
<p>I agree, Hayden. What about everyone else in their practice?</p>