Consumer abuse: milking FREE Xbox 360s off Tesco’s

How appropriate, you fight like a cow! - Image 1James Madison’s implications may have been right: men are NO angels. Telegraph (UK) reports that retailer Tesco is suspending its zealously generous refund for overcharging policy after certain customers abused it to filch off, among other things free Xbox 360 consoles.

Here’s how it worked (emphasis on past tense): if Tesco overcharged you for the product at the till – meaning the price at the counter is more than the price on the sticker, the customer could take the product home for free, in effect claiming a FULL refund for purchasing the console. In this case, the Xbox 360 SKU was overcharged (or mislabelled as cheaper) by £2.16

Here comes the abuse. You know we support customer rights, especially with service warranties and all, but this is just too much. “Self-styled consumer activists,” as the Telegraph described them, were posting information about which stores were overcharging which products. It’s not necessarily wrong to post such information (probably under freedom of speech and in the interests of full information to customers), but it seems to have inspired a bunch of people to take advantage of “being overcharged at the till” and help themselves to some freebies, while Tesco was none the wiser.

Yeah, the retailer may have gone overboard with its admittedly vulnerable policy, and it has changed it to something more sane (to refund you only double of the balance between the two prices). Objectively speaking, Tesco has suffered the consequences of its own policy, and the company has learned its lesson. On the other hand, as for those who decided to help themselves to a “legitimized” five-finger discount, we only have this to say: there’s a difference between a hands-down charitable deal and (forgive us for saying this) raping innocence.

How appropriate, you fight like a cow! - Image 1James Madison’s implications may have been right: men are NO angels. Telegraph (UK) reports that retailer Tesco is suspending its zealously generous refund for overcharging policy after certain customers abused it to filch off, among other things free Xbox 360 consoles.

Here’s how it worked (emphasis on past tense): if Tesco overcharged you for the product at the till – meaning the price at the counter is more than the price on the sticker, the customer could take the product home for free, in effect claiming a FULL refund for purchasing the console. In this case, the Xbox 360 SKU was overcharged (or mislabelled as cheaper) by £2.16

Here comes the abuse. You know we support customer rights, especially with service warranties and all, but this is just too much. “Self-styled consumer activists,” as the Telegraph described them, were posting information about which stores were overcharging which products. It’s not necessarily wrong to post such information (probably under freedom of speech and in the interests of full information to customers), but it seems to have inspired a bunch of people to take advantage of “being overcharged at the till” and help themselves to some freebies, while Tesco was none the wiser.

Yeah, the retailer may have gone overboard with its admittedly vulnerable policy, and it has changed it to something more sane (to refund you only double of the balance between the two prices). Objectively speaking, Tesco has suffered the consequences of its own policy, and the company has learned its lesson. On the other hand, as for those who decided to help themselves to a “legitimized” five-finger discount, we only have this to say: there’s a difference between a hands-down charitable deal and (forgive us for saying this) raping innocence.

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