alt Hacker NewsI'm not sure where you're based, but don't you have consumer protections that allow you to return goods you regret buying? I know that even in places with good return regulations, there are exceptions, but where I live, I could buy a monitor from Amazon to try it out, and if I don't like it, just return it within the 30 days and buy another one. I assumed it was like this in most of the western world? Maybe I'm a bit naive.
I know a bunch of people who do this for cloth shopping (which isn't a great idea considering everything else except themselves, obviously), where they don't know exactly what size will fit them, so they buy the same dress in 2-3 sizes, try them out at home then return the ones that didn't fit.
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I'm fairly certain such regulations don't exist anywhere. They would be far too easy to exploit, raising the cost of doing business and exposing them to outright fraud. Regulations meant to protect consumers usually protect them from dishonst business practices.
The type of return you're talking about is usually intended to encourage people to make a purchase and to protect the reputation of a business. Yet the moment they detect abuse, abuse being return patterns that are atypical or that will end up costing the business more money in the long run, you can be sure they will stop honouring their return policy.
>I could buy a monitor from Amazon to try it out, and if I don't like it, just return it within the 30 days and buy another one. I assumed it was like this in most of the western world? Maybe I'm a bit naive.
1. While many places have no questions asked return policies, many also have more stringent return conditions, such as not allowing exchange for dissatisfaction. For tech retailers, where the margins are low and the goods value is high, I often find they're worse than with clothes, for instance.
2. I did some cursory searching and it doesn't look like even EU guarantees the right to return for satisfaction reasons. The closest is the 14 day right of withdraw for distance purchases, but that can be waived and doesn't cover in-store purchases.
3. Even when returns are theoretically allowed, there are many ways for retailers to make it a hassle, such as not covering return shipping, which for a monitor could be a sizeable amount of money.