And it’s about damned time!
When I first began to become the rugged outdoorsman that I’ve become (along about the time they cancelled Miami Vice and ABC aired the Moonlighting episode that jumped the shark (Season 3, Episode 14, “I Am Curious… Maddie” … if your show is built on sexual tension between co-stars NEVER LET THEM SLEEP TOGETHER!)), I discovered REI. It wasn’t the most convenient store, with none being located close to me, but it was HUGE and it had everything I could ever need. Which, at the time, was mostly hiking shoes.
An interloper shoed up in the way of Adventure 16 over that was close to me in Newport so I started giving them all of my money, but then REI moved to an even bigger store in Tustin, and scared A16 back to San Diego.
One of the most awesome (as a customer) benefits of membership at REI was their return policy; if you bought something from REI, you could return in any time. Forever. As a guy with lots of Sears Craftsman tools, this was a policy I could appreciate.
Unfortunately for me, REI carries nothing but quality equipment. So I’ve only rarely had to return something that broke or started to unravel – and it was usually within a month of purchase. So buying something and then returning it a decade later never occurred to me. I did like that REI stood behind their stuff even when the manufacturers had long since changed product lines or had gone out of business. That shows a certain amount of professionalism. But, as with everything, if there’s a loophole, someone is going to exploit it.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The basement at the flagship store of REI Inc., the privately held sporting goods chain based in Seattle, is like an evidence locker for how the outdoorsy retailer earned an endearing nickname: Return Everything Inc.
Hundreds of returned items are stacked in bins, hanging on racks and lining shelves. Tags detail the customer complaints: “suddenly not waterproof” on a frayed, blue, men’s rain jacket from a previous decade; “don’t fit well” on a pair of thick, black, women’s clogs so well-worn that their original design has faded.
At another REI store, a customer recently returned a pair of women’s sandals, designed for hiking and wading in rivers.
The problem? According to the tag, “not sexy enough.”
For as long as anybody can remember, REI, which was founded in 1938 and has 130 stores in 32 states, has offered a no-questions-asked return policy, even giving customers cash in exchange for heavily used merchandise. Several years ago, a customer in Washington state successfully returned an REI snow suit he bought to climb Mount Rainier in 1970.
In June, though, the chain announced it would henceforth take back items only within a year of purchase.
While customers still can return a product for any reason during that year—and items with defects can be returned for the life of the product—the new policy aims to keep customers from using purchases for years and then exchanging it like a dress you bought on Friday just to wear Saturday night and then return.
The crackdown is a blow to those hikers, kayakers and climbers who secretly—or not so secretly—used the policy as an ATM. Some shoppers have bragged on message boards about using REI money for rent and college tuition.
And those people are the problem, as REI says the policy change was the result of a large number of returns from a “small group of members.” That cluster of REI’s clientele is now facing the ire of the majority.
Goodbye to a great service, all because a few bad apples exploited the system and ruined it for everyone. Oddly, this mirrors the situation in our national parks and other outdoor areas; most people take responsibility for their actions, but a few jackasses throw trash around, start forest fires, deface national monuments, and ruin the experience for others.
Why can’t everyone take responsibility for their actions, and act like adults when it comes to the outdoors and companies like REI? If you’re going to act like a fucktard, do it in your own home.
You can read the whole WSJ article HERE.