In a similar vein, a couple of years ago someone tried to return A$10,000 of toilet paper and sanitiser, which they got stuck with when their profiteering venture was shutdown. The vendor refused to process the refund and the case lead to a change in refund policies for most Australian supermarkets.<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-15/supermarket-shopper-tries-to-return-coronavirus-hoardings/12149548" rel="nofollow">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-15/supermarket-shopper-t...</a>
A colleague of mine worked Walmart returns desk back during her high school/university days. She said many people would buy all their Christmas decorations early December, then return them early January since Walmart had a very relaxed return policy.
From the scant information, it is very likely this was one of the influencer gigs.<p>People doing this should realize there is a very palpable network effect on everyone else not indulging. For the sake of own influencer livelihood, and just because it is within legality - they should not be throwing someone's life into a whirlpool for few more likes/views/clicks.<p>I feel sorry for the bookseller (and glad they've recouped) but imagine the alternative when this charitable act didn't happen. In addition to stocking, bookseller often take care of shipping return costs too. More so for rare/expensive books. It would have been catastrophic to the business.
I looked for details but could not find them in the OP or linked tweet.<p>Given the owner says of the books<p>> They were expensive (some wrapped) art and cook books<p>there is a possibility this $800 sale was for fewer than a dozen items. Maybe even fewer than 5 items.<p>A small number of items doesn’t excuse the unethical behavior of a buyer using a small business’s inventory as stage props, though it does put said behavior in perspective, so to speak.<p>In any case, it’s good empathetic readers purchased enough new books to offset the revenue shortfall.
"This person was an unusual case. They were expensive (some wrapped) art and cook books,"<p>An "exchange only" policy should be in place. And only for unopened items.
This is one of the many reasons I do not miss working for a bookstore. A large percentage (but not the majority) of our customers were either grifters or thieves.
Tweet thread (<a href="https://twitter.com/rebecgeo/status/1612509818505289749" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/rebecgeo/status/1612509818505289749</a>) went viral and a lot of people pitched in by buying books.
One guy I worked with was hired by the company, moved into an apartment near the office, and bought all of his furniture from Costco. I guess they have a very liberal return policy because when he another job and moved to a different state around a year later, he simply returned all of the furniture to Costco.
It's really sad they returned all those books instead of donating them. On another note, if you ever need to stuff up a book shelf, at least in my area, every local Goodwill has books for $1 a pop roughly. Hard cover is $3 regardless of what the books actual value is. I'm sure other stores like Salvation Army and Thrift stores have similar stock for cheap. You're better off spending insanely low amounts and just donating the books if you really don't want them.<p>I have personally found some gems at Good Will though.
Photographers do this quite often with just about anything you can return, though it seems very rude to do it to a small business.<p>You should see how the film industry used to return rental cars.
When I was a poor student we would "hire" games consoles by buying them from Argos, returning them for a full refund within the 14 day(?) guarantee period, and then rinse and repeat. I seem to recall that the games themselves were not covered by the returns policy, so we ended up acquiring quite a collection of cartridges.<p>Not something I'm very proud of.
Back in 2002 or 2003 I stopped in at a hardware store in the Washington, DC, suburbs. A sign announced that there were no refunds on "emergency supplies". I asked, and this meant plastic sheeting and tape, because these were the days when the federal government was warning of possible terrorist attacks.