January 1, 2011 - watsac
Target’s 2010 Black Friday Return Policy can lose you money
If you were one of the fools that stood in line to purchase over $100 of merchandise from Target on Black Friday 2010 between 4am and 10am, then you probably received a “FREE” $10 Target Gift Card and should take note of the fine print on page 2 of the 2010 Target Black Friday ad. It states:
“If any portion of the qualifying purchase is returned, the refund value will be reduced by the pro-rated amount of the free Gift Card.”
This means you will lose money if you return anything on the same receipt that has the “FREE” $10 Gift Card on it. I know this because I just made such a return and just lost money doing it.
Here’s a simplified example: Let’s say you bought 5 items ($15, $20, $30, $35, $50) totaling $150. If you return the $30 item you will only receive a $28 refund because that $30 item represents 1/5 of your total purchase and your refund is therefore reduced by 1/5 of the “FREE” $10 Gift Card (or $2). To take it a step further, if you returned everything on the receipt, you would lose $10. If there was only 1 item on the receipt, you get back $10 less than what you paid for it.
This policy is very unique and makes absolutely no sense to the average customer. I suspect it was a highly paid Target bean counter that thought of it as a way to discourage customer returns. It adds 1 more technique to Target’s customer “rip off” arsenal and 1 more reason to never shop there again.
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I'm sorry, I'm no Target lover, but I don't think this is really valid. Target specified that you had to spend $100 to get $10 free. That's free money, that's not money out of your paycheck, so you're not really 'losing' it by going back on YOUR agreement to purchase $100 worth of merchandise. They don't ask you to return the card with the full $10, but instead take a few dollars off the price of the item you're returning. You still have that money, but it's on a target gift card. If it's that big of a deal then offer to give them back their $10 card so you can keep your $2.00 off the price of the item.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
I disagree with you. In theory they should deactivate the $10 card if they're going to do that, but if the card is truly free with purchase than there is no need for a decreased refund on the items purchased. What if somebody got the gift card and lost it without spending it? Then they really would be losing extra money to target for that lame policy. Retail gift cards are given out with two assumptions: 1. That the card will never be used or 2. If the card is used, at LEAST twice the amount of the gift card will be spent when it is used.
Use to work for target, that was the policy. If you got a "free" gift card, returned anything you didn't get the full amount you paid back. Unless, you returned everyyhing you bought AND the "free" gift. Total crap I know! Whenever, I'd do a return with the cards, I'd get kinda sick. Not, just because of the angry guests. I didn't like the ethics, though, if target didn't do so, they'd loose $ in the long run. So, I guesd it was pretty much a way to get people to shop there.us