Originally Posted by travelgoddess
Someone told me that they bought and returned like crazy at an REI store because they didn't really know what they need and because the sales people encouraged them to do so. After a while, they got a letter from REI telling them that may be they need assistance from sales people. Then a customer service rep at the store gave them a dirty look and said the store will soon not let them return anymore. Needless to say they stopped buying and returning and feel very much like a criminal.
My question is about the fllagging thing. Are they being flagged as a criminal or something less than that? Why? And will the store ever lift the flag? Or it's with attached to their account forever even after they only buy and not return?
We flagged customers like this at J.Crew when I worked there in college. We had a lot of housewives that would buy things at full-price and return them, only to buy them again later, deeply discounted. You'd see a lot of girls/women hording all the 4s and 6s (our most sold sizes) and then returning them and rebuying them (when they wouldn't be available on sale otherwise). The company put a lockdown on that.
These women were definitely abusing the system and playing off of sales associates with sales goals.
I don't think that they were being flagged as criminal so much as malicious shoppers who cut deeply into the bottomline.