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Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

I feel bad about returns sometimes; I bought something from Walmart, and the product had no issues at all, but I had misread how it would mount to my bike, and wouldn't work. I didn't notice until I had opened the box - I carefully repacked it and returned it.

It was still perfectly fine, they complained not at all.

The next day, there it is on the clearance aisle for $10 off. I felt bad.

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On other hand I would be somewhat annoyed as customer if it had ended up with new items back in the shelve. You never know if something is missing or slightly broken.

I bought a carpet cleaner "new" from target via curb pickup. It was clearly used (presumably once), there was water in the plumbing, the bottle of cleaner was opened, and the cord was not machine wrapped. Never used curbside pickup after that. I did keep the machine though, for better or for worse.

I would have at least gone in and complained and get a discount (I have a similar carpet cleaner I got from the Walmart clearance aisle, best $30 or whatever I ever spent there).

They really don't care. I returned something once and the lady behind the counter asked what the reason for returning it was. I said, "my wife told me to get that ugly thing out of the house." She nodded, scanned it and gave me the refund.

Yeah, they only ask the question to see if it should go back on the shelf, back into clearance, or into the auction, or trash.

A completely un-opened non-food item goes on the shelf, an opened item goes into clearance, and most everything else is auctioned or trashed. If you say it was broken, it goes into trash but I daresay they ding the manufacturer.

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