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Article #809Re: Beware: CompUSA Hard Drive theft! Don't buy there!
From: Michael Williams
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 00:00
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 00:00
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In article <3756b7e4.13405616@news>, shootmeanote@hotmail.com.nospam wrote: >There have been reports that at some CompUSA stores, shrinkwrapping >returned merchandise and putting them back on the shelves is the norm. >There's always a possibility that some jerk returned the package with >an old drive substituted on purpose. The customer return staff >doesn't take but a quick look inside of the box most of the time, >without really verifying what the exact contents are. Fry's >Electronics does it all the time, but they usually put a sticker on >the reshrinkwrapped merchandise stating that it had previously been >returned by a customer. At least Fry's provides some sort of warning. I don't think I look more or less trustworthy than the next guy, but I cannot recall the last time I returned something and saw the clerk open the package and verify the contents of the box. I don't mean just open the box, I mean take out the contents and actually identify the product by model number. You can't do that for, say, an I/O card unless you actually take the card out of the wrapper and check the markings, but I have never seen this level of inspection. It has occurred to me how easy it would be for a thief to substitute something else and not have it detected on the return. It's one reason that I won't buy an opened box item (from Fry's or anywhere else) unless I can personally inspect all the contents before I purchase it (or decide that it's cheap enough to waste my money on). If the item is shrink-wrapped, I try to figure out whether it could have been re-wrapped by the store by examining the fit & finish of the wrapping. If it's different from all the other wrapped packages, I'll choose another box just to be safe. Am I the only one who is surprised that stores don't inspect returns more thoroughly? -- email: mikew 99 @ my-dejanews.com phone: 650 857-6939 WWW: www.bigfoot.com/~mikew99
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f5f89,51aab829ca848b2d X-Google-Attributes: gidf5f89,public X-Google-Thread: f70d1,51aab829ca848b2d X-Google-Attributes: gidf70d1,public X-Google-Thread: f4d7c,51aab829ca848b2d X-Google-Attributes: gidf4d7c,public X-Google-Thread: 113d7c,51aab829ca848b2d X-Google-Attributes: gid113d7c,public X-Google-Thread: 1002bf,51aab829ca848b2d X-Google-Attributes: gid1002bf,public From: mikew99@my-dejanews.com (Michael Williams) Subject: Re: Beware: CompUSA Hard Drive theft! Don't buy there! Date: 1999/06/03 Message-ID: <7j73fs$8cm$4@ocean.cup.hp.com> X-Deja-AN: 485458711 References: <37569810.7A767D11@inter.net.il> <375798af.4709303@news.erols.com> <3756b7e4.13405616@news> Organization: Hewlett Packard Cupertino Site Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,ba.market.computers,misc.forsale.computers.storage