Best Buy Restock Fee

I got this email forwarded today and it turns out that I knew first-hand that it was true. For extreme thoroughness, I verified it on snopes.com: Best Buy Restock Fee.

The lady at the refund desk said, there is a 15% restock fee, for items returned. I said no one told me that. I said how much would that be. She said it goes by the price of the item. It will be $45.00 Dollars for you. I said, all your going to do is walk over and place it back on the self! Then charge me $45.00 of my money for restocking!! She said that's the store policy. I said if more people were aware of it they would not buy anything here! If I bought a $2000.00 computer or TV and returned it I would be charged $300.00 dollars restock fee!! She said yes, 15%.

Having been on the other end of this exact conversation with a customer WHILE WORKING AT BEST BUY, I'd have to say that I agree with the merchant. All of these policies are to protect Best Buy from scammers, which would surprise you to know happens all the damn time.

On more than one occasion during the time I worked at Office Depot, a customer would buy an electronics product with cash and return the carefully resealed box with a brick or something heavy inside it to make it seem like the item.

On one extremely busy pre-holiday shopping season day, a customer tried to return something for cash at Best Buy. But the item in question was over $200 and they would not give us their address to mail them a check. A few minutes after they left the store yelling, we learned they had actually stole the merchandise from Circuit City. We do not believe they were captured by authorities that day. That person is still out free as far as I know. Honestly, there are more laws protecting the clients and customers than there are protecting merchants. I've learned this from the last few years listening to stories from ecommerce merchants. Purchase something from ANY online store using your American Express card. Then wait until after it arrives, and call Amex and have the charges reversed (cite fraud or whatever). You get your money back and the merchant has NO recourse. Except, of course, to stop accepting American Express.