Ready
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
I buy a lot of stuff from Costco, and I rarely return things even if they are defective or unsatisfactory. It's just not worth the time and hassle to me. I see a lot of people abusing the policy and I don't want to be like that.
But this week I had two pairs of sunglasses break on me, both purchased from Costco. In one case the frame cracked, and the other case the rubber coating on both stems just peeled off. The pairs were 12 and 18 months old. I still have sunglasses that I bought 20 years ago that are perfectly usable, so it seemed very odd to me that these would fail so soon.
So I brought them back to the Costco. I stood in the returns line only to find out that sunglasses have to be returned to the optical department. So then I brought them over to optical and asked to return them.
The woman looked at the first pair and said to me that I could easily glue these back together and they will be fine. So I asked her "do sunglasses have a different return policy than other Costco items"? She gave me a bit of a dirty look and told me that I should only expect to get 12-18 months of use out of sunglasses.
One of the pairs was almost $60, and I told her that I thought for $60 they really should last longer. She gave me another look and told me that $60 is nothing for sunglasses. I was really beginning to feel like I was being put in my place for a) paying so little for the sunglasses, and b) expecting them to last more than 12-18 months.
I stood firm and she eventually told me she would make a "one time" exception and took them back. But I left the store feeling really weird about Costco.
I went to the Big 5 Sporting Goods store where I've bought sunglasses for the past 30 years and bought two nice pairs of Serengetti's there. I guess I won't be buying sunglasses at Costco any more.
Has anyone else had a weird experience trying to return an item to Costco lately?
But this week I had two pairs of sunglasses break on me, both purchased from Costco. In one case the frame cracked, and the other case the rubber coating on both stems just peeled off. The pairs were 12 and 18 months old. I still have sunglasses that I bought 20 years ago that are perfectly usable, so it seemed very odd to me that these would fail so soon.
So I brought them back to the Costco. I stood in the returns line only to find out that sunglasses have to be returned to the optical department. So then I brought them over to optical and asked to return them.
The woman looked at the first pair and said to me that I could easily glue these back together and they will be fine. So I asked her "do sunglasses have a different return policy than other Costco items"? She gave me a bit of a dirty look and told me that I should only expect to get 12-18 months of use out of sunglasses.
One of the pairs was almost $60, and I told her that I thought for $60 they really should last longer. She gave me another look and told me that $60 is nothing for sunglasses. I was really beginning to feel like I was being put in my place for a) paying so little for the sunglasses, and b) expecting them to last more than 12-18 months.
I stood firm and she eventually told me she would make a "one time" exception and took them back. But I left the store feeling really weird about Costco.
I went to the Big 5 Sporting Goods store where I've bought sunglasses for the past 30 years and bought two nice pairs of Serengetti's there. I guess I won't be buying sunglasses at Costco any more.
Has anyone else had a weird experience trying to return an item to Costco lately?