The crazy things people return at Sam’s Club

Introduction

I’ve spent waaaaay too much time at the Sam’s Club customer service desk lately due to obvious reasons.  I’m guessing I’ve spent at least 10 hours over the last 2 months.  While I’m there, I like to chit-chat with the employees for a) to kill the awkward silence and b) for my own amusement.  I usually start by asking them how long they’ve worked there; the answer is usually “only a few months” or “years and years.”  There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground tenure.  Anyway, I then move on to the best ice breaker, “What kind of crazy returns have you gotten?”  Here were the answers:

 

  • Half eaten cake – “I didn’t like it.”  You’d think they should have known after 1 slice.
  • All but one slice of cake – “I didn’t like it.”  See above.
  • Grapes from last month – I actually witnessed this first hand
  • A fishing pole – “Because I didn’t catch any fish”
  • Grill from last year
  • A TV box with rocks – Hopefully Sam’s went after the person
  • An EMPTY jar of oysters – “They made me sick.”  After the refund, the customer went into the store and bought another jar.
  • An invisible $5 watermelon – Customer only brought back the receipt saying he didn’t like the watermelon.  After a few cashiers caught on, they banned them from returning items.

Another interesting thing I found out was that Sam’s actually had a 200% money back guarantee on produce that ended only last year.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was abused.

13 comments on “The crazy things people return at Sam’s Club

  1. Yeah, so I returned a 3 year old mattress to them not long ago. True story.

    Bought a memory foam mattress online and it was great, loved it. Changing the sheet one day I found the top layer of foam had pulled in from the edge on two sides, one corner, however you want say it. Like 4 feet long, maybe pulled in three inches like the top 3 inch layer had come loose. Could not return King size mattress online, so schlepped it into the store. (I called first to make sure it was okay, said no issue at all)

    I ordered the replacement (same exact mattress) online and waited for it to arrive first so I’d not be out a mattress. Once it got to my house I took the old one in and they gave me a full refund! Best part? I paid $80 more for the mattress three years ago. So I got a brand new mattress and made $80. Still love the mattress.

    Sure looked funny in the returns area that is for sure. They had a little trouble getting the return to process and a manager came over and told them “Don’t worry about it, they will figure that code out later in the office, just take care of the customer and get him his money back!” We laughed and joked the whole time with them, it was actually a good time. I had to borrow a truck to even get the dumb thing to the store!

  2. For those of us that are dense, why are you spending so much time in Sam’s Club? Feel free to PM me on FT if you prefer to be discrete (same handle)

    1. I asked about that at Sam’s. They have a hard policy on no liquor or gift card returns. Not sure about Costco.

  3. I saw a women return week old cottage cheese and a melon at Kroger once….they smacked one of those Mgr’s special stickers on it. I think she got like $3 back – I couldn’t believe it. Never buy the discounted food!!!

      1. If it is packaged stuff I don’t think it would be a problem but I wouldn’t buy any perishables marked just in case.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *