Over the years, I've purchased several thousand dollars worth of products from ThinkGeek. This year, I purchased a light effect item, the LaserPod Galaxies, and it stopped working after about two weeks. It was a holiday gift. I filled out the RMA form online, and left specific instructions that this was a return in exchange for the same product. The result of this is the following:
1. The return/exchange was processed as a return/credit, thus crediting my account the actual purchase price of the product. ($69.99)
2. No shipping charges were credited.
3. Upon contacting the company, they provided me a discount code to offset the shipping costs, to simply re-purchase the item.
4. Upon attempting to re-purchase the EXACT SAME item, I found that it was priced $30 above the original price, now $99.99
5. Customer service was unwilling to send me a new product, since they had "made me whole" by refunding the price of the defective item. No matter it was returned due to defect, and now priced $30 above. They also said that the notes field in which I had stated the details of the exchange (instead of a credit) were not used, unless there was some kind of problem with the order. This was not detailed anywhere on the form.
6.in making them aware that I was due some kind of shipping refund as well, they credited my account $1, adding insult to injury.
So, they basically sold me a defective product, "botched" the return, jacked the price, and then failed to remedy the situation by providing an acceptable discount so that I could re-purchase the defective product at the original price
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Overall, they were very short-sighted, since after many years and thousands of dollars, I'll never buy another thing there again. Not to mention that this smells of a purposeful action, though that's only my opinion, since they knew they'd get me for another $30 when I went to re-purchase. I'd not be surprised if the return "policy" for items that have increased in price is not to exchange them, but only to credit the account. Pretty shameful for a company to take such tactics, and all because THEIR product was defective.
If you do a search for "geek toys" you'll find other website with similar products. I did re-purchase the item, but at a different website. And, just in case there's any rebuttal on this, there was no "confusion" regarding the version of the product I needed to re-buy. There are two versions of this item, one is called the "Galaxies" and the other the "Supernova." The Supernova version of the product is much larger and more powerful, and costs about $180; the Galaxy version is the one I purchased, and the exact one I tried to re-buy. Originally it was $69.99, and the new price was $99.99
Very disappointing; for the sake of $30 or so, they lost a customer for life. I guess they've gotten too big for their own good. Very unfortunate.
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