Wardrobing

Soldato
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Step by step me as to why it wasn't

The “saleable condition” thing is clearly so people don’t bring back clothes they’ve slavered on/torn etc when trying them on for size/fit
Not telling you to be careful when wearing it in case you decide to return it at some point
The single use/being wasteful thing is just pish :p
 
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You assume they sold it. You assume that they don't have to be returned to the manufacturer.

Even if it's kept in store for resale, they've still got to have an employee reshelve it, even it's only a minutes job, it's still effectively a loss.

What about the labels? What if because you had it someone couldn't buy one and it wasn't sold because the window was missed.

The loss might only be pennies, but it will be a loss to the company in some form.
If my auntie had a dick, she'd be my uncle

And whether I wore it or not, all of your points apply to a normal return - and that's part of the sales contract (as is returning worn, so long as it's "in a saleable condition")!
Is it therefore morally wrong to make any return?
 
Soldato
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The “saleable condition” thing is clearly so people don’t bring back clothes they’ve slavered on/torn etc when trying them on for size/fit
Not telling you to be careful when wearing it in case you decide to return it at some point
That seems to be inferring conditions that are not laid out, tbh. Not a sensible way to interpret contracts.
 
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If my auntie had a dick, she'd be my uncle

And whether I wore it or not, all of your points apply to a normal return - and that's part of the sales contract (as is returning worn, so long as it's "in a saleable condition")!
Is it therefore morally wrong to make any return?

I couldn't give 2 hoots if you think it was morally wrong or not, I'm just pointing out that that you keep whittering on about there being no loss. Whether it's a normal return or not, there is a loss to the company.

However, a quick google on Primark's return policy: "the item must be in a saleable condition with all tags attached"

Did you wear it all day at work with the tags on?
 
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Did you wear it all day at work with the tags on?
No, I put them back on. Can't remember how they were attached, so I imagine they must have been tied on - I didn't set out to return it, so wouldn't have spent the time removing them carefully.

And the topic of the thread is about moral wrongness - and since returns and the associated costs are part of the sales contract, I don't see what your issue is there, if not moral.

Businesses offer returns as part of their inducement to purchase. It's there to make more money (many people don't bother returning stuff they don't want)
 
Soldato
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It was instore, so no postage.

But, as above, all of those apply to ordinary returns - are those also morally wrong?

I haven't claimed that it's morally wrong. I'm not interested in moralising, I'm interested in the thought process of those who do it.

As I said on the OP:

It's one of those situations that's down to personal opinion of what's acceptable
 
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If we're talking about cost, and particularly with environmental cost, what's better; that I buy a fancy dress hat and he buys a jumper and return them both, or we take the 'moral' high ground, keep them and throw them away/put them in a clothing recycling point in a few years after no more uses?

All the people here who think it's wrong also seem to be tarnishing everyone with the same brush. Returning something once where there was no alternative/you realised how useless or pointless the purchase was is very different to those who week in, week out, buy whole outfits for events etc and return them.

Like anyone here hasn't gone 35 in a 30 once. Yeah it's speeding but it's hardly in the same category as reckless driving.
 
Caporegime
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It shouldn't be too hard for online retailers to crack down on it, gotta be bit of a difference between a serial returner and say someone who's spending habits include ordering something then sending it back and orders the same thing in a different size and keeping it. Or indeed someone who orders a bunch of stuff and only returns one or two items.

This isn't just a problem with clothes either - there was a documentary about this years ago and included people using generous returns policies to essentially get free credit or free rental of electronic items - IIRC it was referred to as "D-Shopping" then?

Article has 3 guys and 3 women as examples.

GD : IS THIS A PREDOMINATELY FEMALE THING?

What does the choice of the journalist to use 3 examples from each gender have to do with whether this is a predominantly female thing?
 

TJM

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Posters on HotUKDeals order several high-end mobile phones from Amazon for a test drive and then return all but one. When the returns policy is eventually tightened, I'm sure the same sorts will be blaming corporate greed.
 
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I'm not interested in morals, that's not for me to dictate. You have quoted my opinion, and I stand by it 100%. An action like that is between a person and their conscience. Personally, I would not be prepared to abuse the system in that way.
The idea that it requires a reconciliation of conscience at all is, inherently, a suggestion that it is a moral issue. I don't wrestle with my conscience over my Xmas jumper return because I don't recognise that there is any wrongness in the action. I bought an item in good faith and returned it under the terms of the sales contract.

I've not done this in any other case, as far as I remember, but I would certainly do it again in a similar circumstance (I did buy a different xmas jumper the following year, from M&S, which I kept and still wear to this day, during the festive period).

Whether I would do it deliberately, I'm not sure. I might, I think, if a particularly relevant circumstance arose, but would only make the return if I felt that the item was still as good as new (i.e. I might take the risk on 'wardrobing', but wouldn't follow through with the return if my wearing it meant that I was returning something that was noticeably 'used').
 
Caporegime
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I think that's quite an important distinction from 'theft' :D

There's no loss, certainly in my case, so difficult to see where there's any 'moral' problem. And I adhered to the terms and conditions of sale - so it's not even a case under civil law, without the absurdity of considering the criminal idea of theft!

I think setting out to 'rent' clothing is perhaps different in a 'moral' sense (though personally I don't really care if people do it, tbh). But perhaps there's also a 'moral' issue with buying clothes for a one-off use: wasteful.

There is a loss though, returning goods does cost the retailer money. They have their terms and conditions and statutory obligations but if people take advantage of those/seek to exploit them then I think they'd be right to start banning people.

***********************************

slight diversion:

I do wonder how long it will be until some people start to moan more about access to private resources owned by companies etc.. for people who've previously demonstrated **** behaviour/abuse of those resources. I mean with electronic retailers it is quite easy to look at someone's history and ban them from a using a store again. Currently there is an issue with social media and people being banned from using certain platforms - the current pov among many is that this is fine as they're clearly bad people/"nazis" etc.. (though these bans and demonetisation have affected people on the left too).

It is already fine for shops to ban known repeat shoplifters, though this generally relies on individual shop workers and security personnel recognising them.

It is also fine for stores to limit access - for example some boutiques in London will require you to ring a door buzzer before being admitted, they don't want any old riff raff in there.

One thing that I am interested in seeing is how it pans out with the likes of amazon or other tech firms getting into retail - this is something politicians are already looking at in the US.

For example if you need to be a signed up member to use a physical store with various image recognition technology to automatically see what you put in your basket etc.. and automatically bill your account when you exit then shop lifting is basically eliminated in those stores aside from some edge cases - any scumbags simply aren't allowed in in the first place. If similar measures are eventually adopted by all supermarkets then repeat scumbags can't get into any of them, anywhere in the country. They're left to independent corner shops and food banks or whatever business wants to set up to cater to the high risk scumbag market.

That could easily prompt lots of bleating/people demanding that privately owned stores have to admit everyone even if they're known to be scumbags who have robbed from the business on multiple occasions...

I suspect that social media is going to be more heavily regulated at some point in terms of how easily they can ban/demonetise people and as technology progresses the ability of large stores to control who gets to come into their business and trade with them will become more heavily regulated too in terms of who can be banned from their premises and for how long etc..
 
Soldato
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It is theft at the base of the issue. Should be treated the same.

Maybe this is a unique business idea waiting to happen, company buys the latest fashion, loans it out to people who CBA to buy and keep the latest fashion items they obviously want to be seen in /for the 'Gram/. It stops wardrobing, it creates jobs and fills a gap in the market. You can hire wedding dresses, suits and other items, so why not the latest casual fashion too?
There's already plenty of places that do this online.

I'd never do it for clothes, it's pretty scummy. I would however like to take this opportunity to admit that I went on holiday, rented a lens for my camera and realised my polarising filter wouldn't fit said rental lens. Seen as you couldn't rent filters, I bought one for £30 from Amazon, took it on holiday and then returned it afterwards. Please go easy on me, but to be perfectly honest I think Amazon are over it :o
 
Soldato
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Seen as you couldn't rent filters, I bought one for £30 from Amazon, took it on holiday and then returned it afterwards. Please go easy on me, but to be perfectly honest I think Amazon are over it

It's an interesting little pitch, really. What you did was deliberate, and probably against their Ts&C's. Your quote above is not the first example of, for want of better words, "justification" based partly on the fact that it's a low value item and that the big company in question can absorb the loss.

It was dishonest, but where does it sit on the scale? People do dishonest things, that's life. There's probably a factor in the price to cover the cost, so it's spread across all customers.

Maybe people who refuse to entertain this, like myself, are being naïve?

The idea that it requires a reconciliation of conscience at all is, inherently, a suggestion that it is a moral issue

Indeed, but I refuse to make a moral judgement. Not yet, anyway. ;)
 
Soldato
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It's an interesting little pitch, really. What you did was deliberate, and probably against their Ts&C's. Your quote above is not the first example of, for want of better words, "justification" based partly on the fact that it's a low value item and that the big company in question can absorb the loss.
I'm not pitching it as being ok. I was probably being too sarcastic in my post. I knew it wasn't ok but buying a £30 to sit in a drawer for the rest of it's life seemed more of a waste than returning it. For an item like that it's probably not much difference between me returning to Amazon or reselling on ebay. But I know what was easier. And I'm sure people buy items similar to that, do a week's testing and send it back. It just so happened I took it on holiday for a week.

Doing it with clothes where it's a lot more 'personal' and people are actively removing and re-adding labels etc.. I think it's quite different.
 
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Doing it with clothes where it's a lot more 'personal' and people are actively removing and re-adding labels etc.. I think it's quite different.
And yet the clothes can go back on the shelf as new, but the filter can't....

BTW @String when I mentioned the cost of my Xmas jumper, it wasn't a justification of the return, but rather an aside as to my weighing up motivation for bothering to do it at all.
 
Soldato
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@Scam I agree with all of of that, FWIW.

Especially the last point you make, it's still a financial cost but when it's clothes it's personal. Unhygienic. That's what I was getting at with my "scummy" line earlier. I think that's where the line could be for a lot of people. It's not just the fact I wouldn't do it, it's also down to how I would feel if I was the person wearing the garment "second hand" having paid full price to get covered in someone else's sweat, hairs, skin... Ugh.
 
Soldato
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And yet the clothes can go back on the shelf as new, but the filter can't....
Um, no it's actually the complete opposite. Clothes can't go back 'as new' because they've been worn by someone else. The filter, if looked after will be exactly as new :confused:

Especially the last point you make, it's still a financial cost but when it's clothes it's personal. Unhygienic. That's what I was getting at with my "scummy" line earlier. I think that's where the line could be for a lot of people. It's not just the fact I wouldn't do it, it's also down to how I would feel if I was the person wearing the garment "second hand" having paid full price to get covered in someone else's sweat, hairs, skin... Ugh.
Exactly. It's all very unhygienic. There's a reason you can't return underwear, swim clothes and earrings etc.
 
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