Reminder - gift reciepts will not give you the value of the purchase back when return

[leahjade]

I always thought gift receipts were silly anyway. If you return the item, you'll see what the person spent on the gift card anyway.

 

[maxiesmom]

I always thought gift receipts were silly anyway. If you return the item, you'll see what the person spent on the gift card anyway.

But they keep everyone from claiming Grandma paid full price for all of their Christmas gifts.

 

[kimsuenew]

We have had GR from Toys R Us, Macy's, and Kohls and have never had an issue like the OP presents (we are in Ohio). Now TRU is a "touchy one" if something is bought during a BOGOF or B2GOF promo or something, as one thing will ring up as $0.00 cost, therefore having no value when returned (we had this with both a movie and a video game).

I give GR (when I remember to get them ) often but only give the real receipt if I did not have a GR, or the person asks me for it.

 

[Leajess99]

The way a gift reciept works at most stores, when an item is returned, will give you 'sale' price in value back. So mom buys an 80$ sweater that goes on sale to 15$ Dec 26 and darling daughter doesnt like moms tastes, gets a 15$ store credit to use.

You are much better off giving the store receipt for any item you purchased as a gift to someone exchanging the item.
QUOTE]

This is NOT the case at Target. We have always gotten the price paid for the item by using the gift receipt even when the item has been clearanced out.

 

[Leajess99]

This weekend I confirmed with the following stores their gift reciept return policy -

Kohls
JcPenny
PacSun
Sears
and
Macys

They count on most people doing an equal exchange or not questioning the price. I put out the warning, you can disagree - I give the real reciept now. Learned this the hard way a few years back and have been on alert since. Just keep both so if you return something with the gift reciept and they dont want to credit the price paid, you have the real thing to revert too.

Again, I encourage everyone to just be aware. I only speak from my own experience. Perhaps state laws can come into play too.

Maybe it is just your local store because the Pennys and Kohls here do not do it this way. You get back what was paid for the item. I buy a lot of my daughters' clothes from Pennys since they have plus size (my 10 year old is NOT big by any means but the plus size shirts fit her so much better and she hates anything that could be tight) shirts. I have gotten some really good deals at our Pennys as well to include $35 jeans for $1.97.

At Kohls we have bought tennis shoes and gifts for others and no one I know has had an issue with not getting back what they paid.

 

[TaraPA]

I agree with everything you said but the bolded part. If you have no receipt, you will receive the lowest price the item has ever been. They will not give you MORE than what was paid for it, just because the current price is higher. So if the item was purchased at full retail price, but was on sale two weeks ago for 50% off, w/o a receipt you will receive the sale price. Otherwise people could buy stuff on sale, then return it for full price and make money.

I'm in retail management & we always give CURRENT selling price for a credit without a receipt. We have no way of knowing what the lowest selling price was for an item, our system does not retain that info. So in theory, yes you can make a profit on returning sale merchandise once it goes back to full price. However we only give store credit without a receipt, so you'd have to spend it on our merchandise anyway.

Our gift receipt policy is to credit back (in store credit only, never cash or return on a CC) the actual sales price which has been encoded on the gift receipt, not the current price or lowest sale price. I've never heard of that & I've been in retail for 20 years. I just returned an item last week from before Christmas to Kohls with a gift receipt & got the full purchase price.

 

[LaurenLC]

This weekend I confirmed with the following stores their gift reciept return policy -

Kohls
JcPenny
PacSun
Sears
and
Macys

They count on most people doing an equal exchange or not questioning the price. I put out the warning, you can disagree - I give the real reciept now. Learned this the hard way a few years back and have been on alert since. Just keep both so if you return something with the gift reciept and they dont want to credit the price paid, you have the real thing to revert too.

Again, I encourage everyone to just be aware. I only speak from my own experience. Perhaps state laws can come into play too.

I am an executive for one of the stores listed and I can tell you that this is not the case. Doesn't matter what state you live in, a gift receipt will give you a refund (store credit) in the amount that the person paid.....
Garbage like this does not helping the retail industry at all.

 

[LaurenLC]

Also wanted to say, people's problem with gift receipts are that people don't want to belive that someone would buy them a gift on, heaven forbid, sale! I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "But my mother in law never buys stuff on sale."... Well guess what, she does now!

 

[The Disney Bunch]

I will be honest - I find it hard to believe that the OP could have CONFIRMED that these MAJOR stores are counting on people not knowing what the price was that was paid on a gift receipt & that they try to give back only the last sale price - Do you really think they are going to confirm this to a customer? Come on! I have NEVER had this happen to me - I have only used a gift receipt a few times but each time, I have received the full price that was paid originally. I find this a bit hard to believe and would love to see more proof of how she/he confirmed this. You know they are not going to admit to something that basically is fraud.