Argos and secondhand goods sold as new

Doc_N

As I thought - this seems to be pretty standard practice with Argos. Mistakes happen, yes, but this is looking more and more like a deliberate policy than an occasional 'mistake'.

Argos are doing pretty badly at the moment, so the temptation to dress up secondhand stock as new must be real. A bit of a short-sighted policy, though, if it drives yet more customers away because they (like me) no longer trust the brand. Tarnished brands tend to go the way of MFI and Woolworths.

arcon5

This is the downside of stores offering a no quibbles return policy.

Plain_Lazy

I don't buy a lot from Argos but when I do I always open it in the shop (or in the case of a larger item) in the car. I've had several items which I found to be broken on opening. A slow cooker etc had a massive chip out of the crock pot. Saves getting home and having to turn right round again and take the item back. Annoying though. Arcon is right the system is easy for crooks to abuse.

sillygoose

Depends how you rate something 'used' Argos have a big Ebay outlet that sells a lot of stuff that is bought back as reconditioned (I have had some good deals from this).

Also I think Argos have a policy of getting something out for you to have a look at on the counter if you need to so the packaging may get disturbed quite often.

But a lot of peoples experiences sound inexcusable.

Red_Cat

Happened to me with Curry's. I bought landline phone from them and when I got it home, the phone was dusty, enough for you to put your finger through and leave a trail. Alsom there was no packaging inside apart from the box it came in.

I took it straight back and they offered me £2 off the price as they didn't have another one in stock. I politely told them to sod off, and haven't shopped in a Curry's or PC World since.

Esoog

The shops would probably argue a return isn't pre-owned and they were returned for reasons such as "changed mind" etc. :cool: Ie never been used so is perfectly acceptable to sell again as new.

jamespir

I not noticed this but it dpes annoy me when i say buy an item that is one make you get given another

z1985m

trukdiver wrote: »

This used to be normal practice in places like Argos, Littlewoods etc. More recently, I bought a car vacuum cleaner from Argos that had obviously been used before. I opened it up before using it and there was dirt in it.

Littlewoods used to examine all their returns and grade them. If they were OK, they repackaged them and sold them again. That was a long time ago though. These days, they'd be described as "refurbished".

I wonder what happens at other shops when people return things that don't fit etc? Do they put them back out?

i work in clothes retail. when something gets brought back as a return it just goes back onto a hanger and back onto the shop floor

i was surprised by this to be honest, i always had in my head that returns got sent away somewhere......... wishfull thinking!

seeing people trying things on in fitting rooms is also off putting

OneYorkshireLass

My dad always plans two trips to Argos - one trip to go and buy the item, and the next trip a day later to take it back ...

scopey

That's not right to get re-conditioned or even second-hand products unless clearly stated. Surely there has to be a much bigger reduction.

However, Argos get (let's assume) 10% returns, where the customer has opened the packaging then taken it back. They do need to get rid of these. Maybe they should have an "Argos Returns" shop.