Customers at a Los Angeles, California Costco were astounded when a woman demanded her money back for a dead Christmas tree. Social media users have been sharing similar stories of outrageous attempts to score a refund.
“I can’t make this stuff up,” wrote Scott Bentley in a Facebook post. “Woman in line at Costco, totally nonchalant, to return her Christmas tree ‘because it is dead’ on January 4. “If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe that someone had so little moral values or lack of conscience.”
“She did a get a refund. Not happy though. It was questioned. Verified purchase on her account and she was shammed (sic) to a small degree. She didn’t seem to mind that I took photo and said ‘are you serious?!’”
It is a novel idea, considering the streets of New York and London become a Christmas tree graveyard at the end of each festive season.
When a WWLP reporter posted about the Christmas tree refund on social media, users responded with similar tales of outlandish items returned for refunds.
One poster recounted customers returning items to Sam's Club: "Guy returned an eight-year-old garden hose with his receipt, woman brought in a projection TV exchanging it for a flat screen because she kept her receipts for it, and one couple brought back a urine stained mattress."
“Oh and a woman brought back 2 huge boxes of Popsicles with only 1 left in each box, claiming her kids didn’t like them anymore... All people got their money back or exchanged for something bigger and better,” the user wrote.
Costco Wholesale Corporation, trading as Costco, is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only warehouse clubs. As of 2015, Costco guarantees almost all of its products with a full refund.