Target Employees Lying about Copyright Law
I realize not many people will read this here, but I want to vent for a minute.
On 06/02, my wife purchased the DVD movie "Never Been Kissed" from Target in Woodinville. Saturday night we tried to watch it, and discovered after trying it in multiple DVD players that it was defective. Today we brought the DVD and the receipt back to Target in order to exchange the disc for a working copy.
Unfortunately, there were no copies in stock, and despite the fact that I had a defective product with a receipt, the employee in returns told me that Target would not refund my purchase.
Okay, so they have a stupid policy. But that's not why I need to vent. In order to explain why they wouldn't take back the DVD, the employee in returns fed me a complete LIE, attributing it to "copyright law." When I asked for a manager, they repeated the same lie. When asked "what law specifically will not allow you to refund my money for this defective DVD," the best answer either of them could come up with was "copyright law."
I did some searching online and found that the same lie about copyright law being spread by Target employees across the country.
There is no provision in copyright law prohibiting Target from accepting returns on defective DVDs. If there were, Costco would be in pretty big trouble, since they will gladly refund my money on a defective DVD.
If Target wants to have an anti-customer policy like this then fine, whatever, I just won't buy DVDs from Target any more, and I suppose I'll consider the $7.50 to be the price of learning the lesson about Target's horrible policy.
But what really bugs me is that the corporate policy appears to extend beyond just refusing a refund for defective merchandise, and feeding a complete lie to employees, that is then repeated unquestioningly to customers. That seems like exceedingly poor customer service to me.
I like Target on the whole, but this is a pretty sleazy move, IMO.
On 06/02, my wife purchased the DVD movie "Never Been Kissed" from Target in Woodinville. Saturday night we tried to watch it, and discovered after trying it in multiple DVD players that it was defective. Today we brought the DVD and the receipt back to Target in order to exchange the disc for a working copy.
Unfortunately, there were no copies in stock, and despite the fact that I had a defective product with a receipt, the employee in returns told me that Target would not refund my purchase.
Okay, so they have a stupid policy. But that's not why I need to vent. In order to explain why they wouldn't take back the DVD, the employee in returns fed me a complete LIE, attributing it to "copyright law." When I asked for a manager, they repeated the same lie. When asked "what law specifically will not allow you to refund my money for this defective DVD," the best answer either of them could come up with was "copyright law."
I did some searching online and found that the same lie about copyright law being spread by Target employees across the country.
There is no provision in copyright law prohibiting Target from accepting returns on defective DVDs. If there were, Costco would be in pretty big trouble, since they will gladly refund my money on a defective DVD.
If Target wants to have an anti-customer policy like this then fine, whatever, I just won't buy DVDs from Target any more, and I suppose I'll consider the $7.50 to be the price of learning the lesson about Target's horrible policy.
But what really bugs me is that the corporate policy appears to extend beyond just refusing a refund for defective merchandise, and feeding a complete lie to employees, that is then repeated unquestioningly to customers. That seems like exceedingly poor customer service to me.
I like Target on the whole, but this is a pretty sleazy move, IMO.
Comments
Write down the names of the people you interact with. Make sure they see you do this.
If you don't get a satisfactory solution the write corporate and include the details.
Most of us just eat it and never shop there again...who has time to bitch and whine about $7.50?
Most companies will fix the problem at that point. Or at least they'll fix it for you. If they don't, then don't shop there anymore.
Also, Never Been Kissed? They're doing you a favor, brah.
I suspect this may be an issue where their training material for new employees is being misunderstood or misrepresented and it's propagating down the chain. The 'manager' you talked to could have been a dept lead with less than 2 years on the job. It sounds like the errant policy has infected other stores, so it may be worth a quick letter/e-mail/phone call to their customer service.
* I.E. people buying a movie, copying it a bunch of times for friends, then returning the movie and buying another...
Except, even that description of the policy is actually dishonest. As you noted at the bottom, the policy is really to prevent the return of items which the consumer has already derived full use out of. If no DVD/CD copying technology exists, but it became common to buy a DVD, watch it, and return it a week later (like renting, but free), I know they would have instated an identical policy.
I heard that similar policies have been enacted on some women's clothing. The problem was quite similar, someone would "buy" a prom dress, wear it once, and return it the next week. I don't really know the details there though, since men rewear their clothing multiple times.
Quite right.
I know multiple women who have done (and still do) this. Buy an expensive dress, wear it to one event, return it because it doesn't "fit right" or whatever. Fairly easy to get away with as long as you don't do it all the time at the same store(s), and don't get it too dirty.
I don't think it's an issue with prom dresses because most of those have explicit no return clauses, just like wedding dresses. I could be wrong, it's been a while since anyone I knew went to prom.
Law is screwy sometimes so who knows. I think it used to be that books had to have their covers ripped off to be sold at a lower price, maybe because they were damaged goods and no were constrained by some fair price law.