Every time I think I've seen the most brazen thing a customer has done in an attempt to get his or her way, someone has to come along and say "You think that's nuts? Hold my beer." Customers have been insisting on the impossible ever since consumerism became a thing. We want things but we don't want to pay for them. For some of us, we accept the cost of what we want and either forego it or work to be able to afford it. For others, the only acceptable response in a situation like that is to steal it. There is, however, an area in between those two that those who know commonly refer to as return fraud.
Return fraud has many different guises, but in the end it all amounts to the same thing. The cost of an item is somehow refunded to the person demanding it, despite any apparent flaw in the standard returns process. An easy comparison would be someone ordering food at a restaurant, eating most of it, and then complaining to a manager until the meal was comped. It's a little different in retail, but the principle is the same. A conveniently missing receipt for an item that someone walked in, picked up off the shelf, and then took to a returns desk. A box filled with rocks and dirt instead of what it was supposed to be. A thousand-dollar security system replaced with a cheap DVD player and some painted Styrofoam cups. A TV replaced with a boat anchor. A fridge that has very obviously not been purchased within the return period. A stove with shattered glass. A new paint sprayer that had obviously been used, but was "purchased like that" a week prior. When you work retail long enough, you see all kinds of things.
One of my favorites is an older woman who attempted to return a copy of Windows. Hearken back to early 2010, only six or seven months after Windows 7 had released, and it was still very much a new, desirable, expensive product. Her receipt claimed she'd purchased Windows 7, but in her hands was a very old, very used copy of Windows 98. It was in a slim, clear basic DVD case; the kind you can buy yourself to put home made movies into. Now, please note I said Windows 98. Not Windows 98 Second Edition, which replaced the standard Windows 98 in May of 1999. We're talking original disk release, here. So this disk was around twelve years old, and she was trying to convince us it had come inside her Windows 7 box. The box she conveniently didn't have with her.
No matter how many times we told her it simply wasn't possible for Microsoft to have packaged something they no longer manufacture into her box, she refused to believe it. It took several hours and four different managers telling her there was no way we would accept it for a return before she finally seemed to get the message. Now, I'm not saying companies can't make packaging errors. I have a Power of the Force Greedo figure with a Storm Trooper hologram instead of a Greedo hologram hanging up on my wall. I love the thing. It makes me laugh every time I see it.
This lady, though, just would not get it. She was determined to get her money back and still keep the program she'd purchased. She wanted Windows for free, and we weren't willing to give it to her. Finally she left in a huff, yelling about how she was going to call Microsoft and report us to the Better Business Bureau. Unfortunately, I see people like this all the time. She was obviously a fraud, and was hoping we'd cave if she raised a stink, because consumers have learned being loud and obnoxious is the best way to get stuff for free. Unfortunately, because of people like this, manufacturers and retailers have a hard time rectifying those errors that do slip in sometimes.
No, it was obvious she was making it up. The only thing that would have been less possible was if she'd put in a disk for a Mac OS instead of Windows.