I bought my folks one of those digital photo frames for Christmas. Dad always has his camera on him & Mum has a compact little number which she enjoys snapping on holiday. Whilst they have a computer, it's not the greatest thing to huddle around for a slide-show & printing is still a costly affair, so it seemed like a good idea.

They thought it was great too, but after setting it running a nasty dead pixel could be seen mid-screen! (Insert grumble here.)

On a side note, why is it that a dead pixel can either be off (black) or on (lit), but I've only ever seen pixels stuck "on"?! My computer monitor had one straight out of the box & it's a lovely shade of red & on this photo frame it's bright blue, so they tend to standout. It's also rather coincidental they never reside on the outer edge of the screen, but somewhere near the middle!

So, after waiting for the New Year heat wave to subside, I ventured back to the Target store where it was bought. I wasn't really expecting to join a queue of people doing the same with all sorts of items. It was actually longer than those at the checkouts & as such, more staff manning the returns than the sale counters!

The return was simple. The girl didn't care what was wrong with the product. She simply grabbed the docket & started processing the refund before she said "you don't want a replacement, do you?". I'm still not sure if that was a question or more of an advisory statement.

What caught my eye during the process was what other people were bringing back to the store. There was the standard kiddie toys which probably didn't survive Christmas morning, someone with shopping bags full of clothing & a lady with a box labeled as a table lamp. If the condition of the box matched what was in it, the lamp definitely wouldn't have been working!

In each occasion, the Target staff just processed the returns without batting an eyelid. They would just pickup the goods, literally drop them in a trolley (I'm assuming that's to guarantee they're buggered!) which would then be collected & wheeled to a bargain bin (with a small discount) at the back of the store. This happened at least three times while I was in line & I suspect that was one guy's job for the day.

Now, over this twenty or so minute exercise, more money was given back to customers than was received by Target through sales. I'm assuming this isn't a standard occurrence all year around, but I was surprised that there were no questions & checks involved in getting a refund. Target's recent catalogue had the photo frame I purchased a whole $50 cheaper for their post-Christmas sales, so in effect, by taking the frame back I was able to walk back into the store & buy the identical item & save 50 bucks!!

If the frame didn't have the fault, I probably wouldn't have been bothered to scam them, but I know my sister has done something similar when a sale has been announced & saved money in the process. Which begs the question, how many people do this regularly? All of a sudden the Christmas profit margin for Target is erased & it could probably be avoided if the staff checked the goods were faulty & asked a few questions to the scamming customer.

Of course, it might also help if they sold quality products. Maybe they expect a decent percentage of their goods to be returned, so it's not worth the effort checking for scammers.

In the end, the parents received a higher quality frame from a different store with a bigger discount, so it worked out pretty well!! Lesson learned.