• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Buying a TV while Black

P.J. Denyer said:
There's a lot of variation in SUVs to be fair, I can fit a full size under counter kitchen appliance in the back of my Mk2 RAV4 without removing or folding the back seats, you'd struggle to get a single full size suitcase in the back of my wife's 3 door Grand Vitara despite the fact that it's footprint is as large, if not larger.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the amount of crap people pack around in their vehicles. It's possible that they couldn't fit a TV in the back until they made some room by removing items from their portable garage.
 
theprestige said:
It seems to me that all of those things are potentially issues, even under the Sam's Club policy.
Click to expand...

Lack of receipt wouldn't be an issue. The policies you link to said quite clearly that while a receipt is requested, it isn't required.

Store credit wouldn't be an issue, the policies you linked to said quite clearly that refunds were issues as cash or credit to the purchasing card, not store credit.

Edited by Agatha: 
Edited to remove a breach of rule 12
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cavemonster said:
Lack of receipt wouldn't be an issue. The policies you link to said quite clearly that while a receipt is requested, it isn't required.
Click to expand...

It says they'll do their best without one, not that there won't be issues. Based on my experience, and the many experiences reported by others, their best is going to vary depending on the nature of the item being returned. It's also likely to vary depending on the expectations of the customer.
 
theprestige said:
It says they'll do their best without one, not that there won't be issues. Based on my experience, and the many experiences reported by others, their best is going to vary depending on the nature of the item being returned. It's also likely to vary depending on the expectations of the customer.
Click to expand...

k.
 
theprestige said:
But okay, whatever. We can still question why what happened in that video happened in that video. Why did it happen? Do you know?
Click to expand...

Looks to me like he got angry but not violent or threatening, and the police decided this was sufficient justification to escalate the level of confrontation. It looks like classic "I am a cop and you will respect my authoritah!" behavior. Whether it would have happened if he'd been white is a question we can only speculate about. What I find interesting is that the family's lawyer is only pressing charges against the city concerning the injuries to his mother. My interpretation of this is that they don't see any prospect of finding a jury that could possibly find a police officer at fault for brutality against a tall, fit-looking black man, even though there's not even a vague indication that he was committing any crime or presenting a reasonable threat of committing one, but that maybe beating the crap out of a small 68-year-old woman is just a little bit beyond the pale. Again, I'm only speculating, and if other posters can offer examples of white shoppers being treated similarly I'd be glad to reconsider.

Dave
 
smartcooky said:
Remember, this happened in America, land of the free and home of the brave -

- where a white cop can harass and detain a black man for picking up trash outside his home;

- where a white cop can walk into a black man's apartment and gun him down while he is sitting on his sofa eating ice-cream

- where white cops can bust into wrong house (and by "wrong", I mean 10 miles away from the one they were looking for), looking for a black suspect they already had in custody and shot the black woman owner eight times in her bed, killing her

- where two white rednecks (one an ex-Cop) can gun down and kill black jogger in cold blood, and it takes a leaked video months later, and a public outcry before law enforcement are shamed into taking action.

So, what the **** ever gave you the idea that a cop even needs a good reason to intervene when a black man is having an argument in a shop - he's ******* black isn't he? Hell yeah!!! That is the only ******* reason he thinks he needs!!
Click to expand...

Not familiar with two of your examples, but of the other two (Guyger and McMichaels), one is in prison for murder and the other two under arrest for same and awaiting trial. So the police pretty clearly can't do what you claim they can.

Also, in a nation of a third of a billion people, there are going to be occasional outliers of hateful injustice. Please don't insult all of us with that wide brush of yours.
 
Dave Rogers said:
My interpretation of this is that they don't see any prospect of finding a jury that could possibly find a police officer at fault for brutality against a tall, fit-looking black man, even though there's not even a vague indication that he was committing any crime or presenting a reasonable threat of committing one, but that maybe beating the crap out of a small 68-year-old woman is just a little bit beyond the pale. Again, I'm only speculating, and if other posters can offer examples of white shoppers being treated similarly I'd be glad to reconside.
Click to expand...

Sounds like your mind is pretty well made up.
 
Stout said:
I used to work for a department store that had one of those no questions asked return policies. Employees were told to issue a slight challenge like "This brand isn't and has never been sold by this store" and if the customer didn't leave then either issure a refund based on the price tag, or make them an offer.

One big scam was in fragrances. A customer buys ( or steals ) a plastic wrapped bod with a bottle of perfume in it, somehow opens the plastic wrapper. takes out the box and bottle, removes the bottle and replaces it with something of similar weight as the bottle, usually a rock, reseals the plastic wrapper and returns the box with the rock in it for a full refund.

Sales associates wouldn't examine the wrapping and issue a full refund. Later someone else some back with the actual bottle of perfume and returns it saying " I tried it for a week and I hate it, sorry I threw out the box" and gets a refund.

Stealing things and returning them was par for the course.

Then there was the buy an expensive item of clothing, wear it for a while then return it for a refund with the insistence that" No, it's never been worn" scam.

Thieves and scammers knew how store security worked and store security knew that thieves and scammers knew how store security worked so there was this constant dance with both groups trying to stay one step ahead of each other.

Got a really obvious thief scoping the place out ? Don't pay too that person because they're a distraction for the real thief whose no too far behind. Sometimes store security would act and look like thieves so the real thieves would relax and ply their trade confident that the other thief will have store securities attention.
Click to expand...

I remember similar scams from when I was in retail. We had this one couple that always came in and never bought anything. And surrounding that couple, a lot of stuff went missing (ex. clothes they tried on). One time and employee returning from lunch spotted them getting into a car that was full of merchandise, and a few times people saw strange bulges on their backs underneath their clothes, etc.

Eventually one of my coworkers was promoted to manager in a store in her home state, two states over. She reported that the same couple often visited her store with the same behavior.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
I remember similar scams from when I was in retail. We had this one couple that always came in and never bought anything. And surrounding that couple, a lot of stuff went missing (ex. clothes they tried on). One time and employee returning from lunch spotted them getting into a car that was full of merchandise, and a few times people saw strange bulges on their backs underneath their clothes, etc.

Eventually one of my coworkers was promoted to manager in a store in her home state, two states over. She reported that the same couple often visited her store with the same behavior.
Click to expand...

You do remember, don't you, that the TV that the Grays brought back was returned to them by the police and they weren't accused of any crime? Now, again, this is just speculation, but with the city facing a lawsuit for police brutality, I would expect them to do all they could to bring some kind of charges against one or other of the Grays. The fact that they haven't done so suggests that there wasn't any charge they could bring, and that further suggests that the Grays weren't involved in some nefarious scam but were just bringing back an item they'd legally purchased for a refund under the terms and conditions under which they purchased it.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
You do remember, don't you, that the TV that the Grays brought back was returned to them by the police and they weren't accused of any crime?
Click to expand...

Just a couple of posts ago you said they were "accused by a police officer of committing a crime that had occurred only in that officer's imagination".

And even that is a questionable statement, since the articles I have seen suggested that an employee thought they may have been trying to steal the TV.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
Just a couple of posts ago you said they were "accused by a police officer of committing a crime that had occurred only in that officer's imagination".
Click to expand...

Fair point. Substitute "charged with".

sir drinks-a-lot said:
And even that is a questionable statement, since the articles I have seen suggested that an employee thought they may have been trying to steal the TV.
Click to expand...

OK, some people imagine that it may have happened in the employee's imagination too. There are some very imaginative people involved.

Dave
 
Stout said:
I used to work for a department store that had one of those no questions asked return policies. Employees were told to issue a slight challenge like "This brand isn't and has never been sold by this store" and if the customer didn't leave then either issure a refund based on the price tag, or make them an offer.

One big scam was in fragrances. A customer buys ( or steals ) a plastic wrapped bod with a bottle of perfume in it, somehow opens the plastic wrapper. takes out the box and bottle, removes the bottle and replaces it with something of similar weight as the bottle, usually a rock, reseals the plastic wrapper and returns the box with the rock in it for a full refund.

Sales associates wouldn't examine the wrapping and issue a full refund. Later someone else some back with the actual bottle of perfume and returns it saying " I tried it for a week and I hate it, sorry I threw out the box" and gets a refund.

Stealing things and returning them was par for the course.

Then there was the buy an expensive item of clothing, wear it for a while then return it for a refund with the insistence that" No, it's never been worn" scam.

Thieves and scammers knew how store security worked and store security knew that thieves and scammers knew how store security worked so there was this constant dance with both groups trying to stay one step ahead of each other.

Got a really obvious thief scoping the place out ? Don't pay too that person because they're a distraction for the real thief whose no too far behind. Sometimes store security would act and look like thieves so the real thieves would relax and ply their trade confident that the other thief will have store securities attention.
Click to expand...

sir drinks-a-lot said:
I remember similar scams from when I was in retail. We had this one couple that always came in and never bought anything. And surrounding that couple, a lot of stuff went missing (ex. clothes they tried on). One time and employee returning from lunch spotted them getting into a car that was full of merchandise, and a few times people saw strange bulges on their backs underneath their clothes, etc.

Eventually one of my coworkers was promoted to manager in a store in her home state, two states over. She reported that the same couple often visited her store with the same behavior.
Click to expand...

I sometimes forget just how crappy some people are. It always amazes me.

I stole a few candy bars and such when I was like 13, and I legit am still haunted by guilt about it to this day.
 
Awful lot of anecdotes about shoplifting scams in thread about a man who did not, in fact, shoplift.
 
I may have missed something in this thread, but I keep seeing speculation and reading stories about return scams (some of which are undoubtedly germane to the issue of return scams), but does anyone here actually know for a fact whether or not the people in question had documentation or receipts for the TV when they returned it? Not the usual speculation about what sometimes happens, or what they expect happened, or some dirt about their past, etc., but actual knowledge of what transaction was occurring?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom