I once had a customer who wanted to return a chair she bought that had broken. She rolled up in a big RV or something, dragged the chair out of it and into the store.

“I saved my receipt,” she says. Great! I look at the receipt. It’s very old and faded, I have to squint to make out the date.

She bought this chair four years ago.

Our return policy on furniture was 30 days.

We weren’t assholes about it, if it was like 33 days or something we could usually get the manager to override it, but this was FOUR YEARS. The woman used this chair FOR FOUR YEARS and wanted a refund when it finally wore out. This was a cheap task chair too, only $39.99. Now, if I bought a forty dollar chair and used it for four years, I’d figure I got my money’s worth, right? Basically ten dollars a year to sit my ass in that chair. That’s a good deal.

Well, I explained to her that we couldn’t refund her for something she bought four years ago. She was very upset and demanded to speak with the manager. The manager comes out and tells her the same thing.

Karen is very mad. “But you have to give me a refund,” she wails. “I spent 80 dollars in gas driving it back here!”

Now, you do the math….even if we HAD refunded her, she STILL would have been forty bucks in the hole when she could have just bought another damn $40 chair!