I understand the obvious that they won't let me buy something with a credit card and then return it for cash or check, but why if I bought in one Visa and then coming to return, they demand the same visa card? Why would it matter to them if I gave them a different Visa card? or even Amex/Discover, they could make money with higher fees refund from the cc companies...
What if I canceled the card in between the time of purchase and the time of return?

It is the only way they can assure that the money is returned specifically to the person or persons who bought the item in the first place. Not all cards belonging to a particular person have the same set of authorized users. There could be cases where the purchase was made by an authorized user of one card with one person who has primary responsibility and the other card has a different person with primary responsibility.

Let's say a child is an authorized user on both a mother's and father's card and the parents are divorced. If the child buys something on the mother's card and returns it and gets credit on the father's card, the store is, in essence, transferring the funds from the mother to the father.

To put it simply, it is part of the merchant agreement. I believe the rationale is that the bank that "sponsors" the Visa / MC gets a fee when you charge but they do not refund the fees when you do a return. So if you return to a different Visa / MC the bank that "sponsors" the returning card takes a hit in that they need to do the transaction but never received a fee.

As for returning on a closed CC, I think most CC will accept credits long after the card is closed.

To avoid people buying things with a cash back Visa/MC credit card and having it refunded to a Visa/MC debit card with the result being a free cash advance and free credit card rewards.

Not all merchants care.

I bought some items at the local HW store and when unneeded, my wife returned them and they put the refund on her card - one completely unconnected to me or mine

Noooo! That would never be attempted.

The most warped example of this for FTers would probably be the case of those of us (Yes, I was one of the idiots) who used Citi Thank You Points to get an airline ticket (paid for by Citi with their credit card), had to cancel the ticket for one reason or another and had to deal with the fact that the refund balance for the ticket went not back to the flyer but directly back to the credit card that Citi used to pay for the ticket in the first place. Result: no ticket, no refund money and all those Thank You points wasted. Definitely my all-time biggest travel (travail?) downer.

Travfail

Many large retailers will refund it to the card used to purchase even if you don't have the receipt as a loss-prevention tactic. I used to work at banana republic and we would do it all the time. No receipt? Fine, we'll look it up. Swipe the CC and locate the digital record of the transaction.

The reason is that for a high volume retailer, customers will (quite regularly, as in at least once a day) bring in merchandise that was stolen and try and return it for cash. They'll claim they lost the receipt. Oh, okay, do you have the card it was purchased with? No? Then all you can get is a gift card (or exchange credit) for the most recent, marked-down price of the item. Savvy criminals are fine with that because they can take a $100 gift card and sell it for $50 cash, which is still a profit for them.

The bottom line is that if merchants allowed refunds to be transfered to ANY credit card, it would open a HUGE window for thieves and criminals and they would take it in a heartbeat. It's sad, but their criminal acts have made things less convenient for everyone else...

Have you ever contacted Citi on this? Actually Citi was willing to refund you points (not the value of your ticket). Several blunders have been reported during the final devaluation of TYP and surprisingly Citi was willing to work with those folks and refund them their points - though believe it or not, the refund process was entirely manual - an employee at the VP level kept a spreadsheet and manually matched the refunds to Citi credit card versus people's claims... I heard this from an FTer who had to go through this but he did get his points back.

Loss Prevention. Standard procedures by many big retailers.

Because if they didn't, I would stroll into my local jeweler (I live in the Palm Beach area, if that helps) and buy a few Patek Philippe Nautilus watches (at 35K each) on my SPG card (call it 150K bucks). I would then walk out of the store and get something to eat.

Leaving the mall, I would return to the watch store and return all of them, asking that the return credit be applied to my bank ATM card.

Volia, 150K miles in 1 hour. Feel free to stroll on down to the Louis/Gucci (or any other high dollar label) and repeat indefinitely. You could probably get a million miles in one day (if you had the credit limit to support it) and get it all refunded to your bank card.

This would also serve as a "no cost" cash advance. Buy a thousand dollars of crap on your CC. Return it, credit the return to your bank card. Stroll down to the bank and withdraw 1000 bucks.. Volia, free cash advance (with points earned, thank you very much) against the card you originally used.

If anyone ever finds a store that will actually allow you to do this (refund to a different card), keep it to yourself! I think that the FT community would put the store out of business pretty quickly with the buy/refund technique; it's like the coin gig, only easier and faster (you can flip your entire credit limit in one day, and probably with just one transaction at a jewelery store).

It's easy to know when it's a debit or credit cards, no?

You know what could be cool?
If you had several cards ending with the same 4 numbers, many time all they say is "can i have your visa ending at 1234?" especially if one was the bank debit card...

*begin rant*

I realize the necessity for having returns go back on the same card. However, for legitimate situations (yes, I know the clerks usually don't take the time to try and differentiate) where a husband is returning something on his AmEX that the wife bought on her AmEx....Doesn't EVERYbody know that AmEx issues separate accounts numbers for the same account? I mean, the receipt has her FULL NAME which includes our LAST name for heaven's sake!!! I've even pointed this out on occasion only to be instantaneously reminded of their steadfast policy to credit back to the same card ending in 9000 or what have you!! Sometimes, they end up giving a GC or they VERY reluctantly credit back to my card. Sheesh!

*end rant*

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread

Peace!!