Best and Worst Return Policies

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Best and Worst Return Policies – As customers, we’ve all had personal experience with some of the best and worst return policies in the retail world.

I truly believe that customer service is everything! I can’t stand narrow, rigid return policies and customer service representatives that won’t budge on anything. To me, when a company is willing to accept your return on an item and even facilitate it, it means they are confident in their products and business. I would much rather continue doing business with a company like that than one which makes returning products difficult.

Best and Worst Return Policies

Let’s take a look at some of the good/bad return policies out there!

Best Return Policies -

Kohl’s: No time limit and if you’ve lost your receipt they’ll allow you to exchange your item for something of equal value in the store.

LL Bean: LL Bean will accept any item you’ve purchased from them at any time in any condition without a receipt. Their mentality:

ADVERTISMENT: CONTENT CONTINUED BELOW

“I do not consider a sale complete until goods are worn out and customer is still satisfied. – L.L. Bean, 1916.”

Macy’s: Customers are allowed to return items for a full refund for up to 180 days. Jewelry is the one exception and customers only have 30 days to return any jewelry items.

Worst Return Policies -

There are plenty of terrible return policies out there– I’m sure most of us have experienced one at some time in our life. I know I’ve had plenty of experience dealing with unreasonable customer service representatives and ridiculously short return policy periods. There are definitely some companies which are worse than others and I think the following are examples:

As mentioned in a US News article Target has one of the worst return policies ever. I think they sum it up well:

“Target wins for the worst return policy ever. Not only is it complicated, it actually limits the amount of money customers can receive in refunds to $70 per year, and that’s with a valid receipt, within 90 days of purchase. Returns above that limit are paid by store credit only. No returns are given without receipt, unless they can find the purchase through a credit card lookup. What’s worse, it doesn’t matter what you paid for an item. If the price has gone down since you bought it, the store will only return the current price of the item.”

Another company which is supposed to have a terrible return policy is Buy.com. According to About.com their motto is “go ahead return something. We dare you.” This is what they say about their return policy:

“There are eight steps for requesting a return merchandise authorization (RMA) number. After that, there’s another detailed set of instructions for the return. Failure to follow each step and rule results in the return being rejected, and the item shipped back to you at your expense. With this rejection, you also forfeit your right to receive a refund or exchange on that item at any time in the future.”

I personally have had some bad experiences with Best Buy because their return policy varies so much depending on the item. Some items have longer return policies than others.