New Yorker - seconhand or what?

Complaints Corner
1
Hi everyone!

I bought a jacket from New Yorker 3 months ago. Last week something happen to the zip so today I went to return it. Everything passed fine.

I was with a friend and we spent sometime in the shop. When we were leaving I saw how the salesgirl is selling the jacket, that I just return to another lady!!! We were really surprised. This woman went out from the shop and we told her the all story. I was wearing it for 3 months. They sell it for her as a new and because of the problem with the zip with discount. She was so disappointed, so we are. She said that they informed her that she can not return it because it is with a defect.

2
The lady bought it willingly - with the defect - so no problem. Probably she also was informed it had been returned - so it was actualy "2nd hand", and how much reduction did she receive? Or did she pay the same price as you did?

If she was unaware that it had a defect, or that it had been returned, then the shop was in the wrong. But I doubt it. No shop would risk their reputation to that extent, surely?

Some people don`t mind buying a defect, and having it repaired.

Some folk enjoy getting a discount - for whatever reason.

3
She said that she was not informed that the jacket was returned. Then she took it out of the bag an she saw the marks that the jacket has from the moments when I was sitting on it.

She had 20% off

4
Yes, it happened like this! I been there too. It just left me kinda shocked. For sure i will not buy anymore anything there, if they deal like this with the costumers... Crazy.. She, the lady who bought the coat said, they didn't tell her it was used, only it had a broken zip! I understand new yorker ist not a high quality shop, but... come on!

5
Do you two know each other?

Did you return the jacket together?

6
yes! We been together there. Im the "girlfriend".

7

For what it's worth, I think there must be some very grey lines surrounding the rights to re-sell a product.

What you guys gals experienced does seem way out of line though.

I had assumed that a 'returns' policy involved returning an unused product, and a defective product would be returned to the manufacturer.

3 months after purchase is hardly a return, and a 20% discount for a defective product is plain criminal - disclosing to the client or not.

On the other hand, it's not like anyone else ever questions how long the item of clothing was in the shops before, so why would this matter now if you like it?

.... if the shop keeper advises that the product is defective, then it is still a case of "buyer beware", and she was duly notified.

Personally, I wouldn't like to conduct business in a retail shop that behaves this way, so it's good to know, legal or otherwise.

.... I don't buy ladies clothes, so it hardly affects me either way.

8
So you bought something, that was used by 3 months, and they allowed you to return it, with a full refund, with no problem.

And now YOU have a problem with the store for re selling the item you had a full refund on, because of why?

9
I think becasue it's a little bit unethical, rather than illegal.

Usually they will be compensated for the defective product, but with only a 20% discount they will still make more of a profit than if they just return the item.

(store mark up percentage is perhaps quite high)

From a consumer point of view, it's not comforting to know that 'they' prefer to make the quick buck rather than supply a quality product.

..... this being said, they did say that the product was defective.

Had the new person have known that the product was returned as a defective product, this might have swayed the customers decision. But who knows.

10
I don't want somebody to sell me something used, pretending that the item is new. In that case a jacket used for 3 months.

11
Yeah true. I was arguing from the standpoint if the item looked in the as purchased in condition, then what should be the issue? I know I can't return a pair of shows that look worn, never. But, if they look new, then they will accept it, and of course re sell it. I don't see an ethics problem with that.

If she brought in a worn piece of clothing, and it looked new as well, what is the problem? I personally do not work in retail. But I have no idea how many people have purchased the clothes I have at my home, and returned them, who knows how many times. If the clothes I buy are in a condition I appreciate after inspecting them in the store, what is the difference?

I mean, I buy 2nd hand clothes as well, sometimes, they are more money then they originally cost in the first place(vintage). Same with furniture, same with a bed. If it's clean, in good condition, and something I like, I am not put off that I was able to find it, and buy it.

12
Maybe I'm missing something here.

If I see a piece of clothing marked down because of a defect, I assume that this is exactly what's happened. It's only marked down because the shop is aware of a defect, which in turn is because a previous customer has returned the item as defective. How else would the shop have known about it? Goodness knows shop assistants don't have time to stand there and zip and unzip every article of clothing before it gets hung on the rack.

13
When you buy an item of clothing off the rack nowadays it has a whole load of labels clipped into it, not to mention the security plate which has to be removed at the cash desk.

The question is, did the person who bought the defective jacket buy it without the labels/security device on it or were the OP and his girlfriend in the shop so long that it had new labels, etc attached in that time?

Effectively the store sold a second hand item as a new item with a fault and offered a 20% discount.

14
But that's my point, apart from special factory outlets most shops don't sell "new items with faults", ever. They couldn't if they wanted to, because they don't have the manpower to inspect each individual garment as it arrives. So the only way they'll know there's a fault is if a previous customer has told them about it, possibly after just trying it on (say if the zipper broke on the very first pull) but most often by returning the item.

Whether security labels are still attached or reattached is irrelevant. If you see an item marked down with a fault, that's in all probability an already-returned item . Which is why it's being sold as-is: no guarantee, no further returns, take it or leave it.

15
Actually most of the faulty products are found before they are sold. The store can return it to the manufacture or depending of their internal politic, sell it marked as defect.

I think it is very unethical to sell a well worn product who broke while used to someone else with a 20% off for the "defect" without mentioning it has been used for 3 months.

I wouldn't buy anything on the forum at this price nor in a store. I do buy lots of second hands stuff but I know full well it is second hand and the price will be according to this.

16
Does it matter though, whether it broke after one pull in the changing room, or after one day, or after three months? To me a broken zipper's a broken zipper, and I can either live with it or I can't.

We also don't know that it was "well worn" just because somebody owned it for three months, they might have worn it less in those three months than someone else who owned the same jacket for a week. We're not talking antiques here: the condition of the item should be what counts, not a paper trail of who owned it and how long. In this case, the jacket was apparently still in quite good condition (if the store was happy to take it back, and if the second customer was happy to buy it) so presumably hadn't been worn all that much. I don't see the problem.

17
For me it does indeed.

If I buy an item that I believe is new with a defect, knowing I can fix it, I am willing to pay a bit less for it. But if someone had been wearing it for months and it is sold to me thinking it is new with only a defect, I would be pissed off.

18
But why would you think it was new? Reviewing the OP's posts, the store didn't tell you (the second buyer) it was new, that's simply your own assumption. What the store did tell you is that it's being sold as-is: take it or leave it, but no guarantee. The fact that their usual guarantee and their usual returns policy won't apply any more should be a giant red flag - to me at least.

So in those circumstances, you'd still assume it was new, I'd assume it was probably not new; that seems to be where we diverge.

Let's back up a couple of steps. Here are three scenarios for you, I'm interested in your reasoning on this:

A1) A customer returns an item saying she didn't wear it (maybe it was the wrong size, or an unwanted gift) - and sure enough, the item still looks brand new. Is it ethical for the store to put that item back on the shelf and sell it again as new without telling anybody, or must they tell the next buyer that it is pre-owned?

A2) A customer returns an item without saying whether she wore it or not or for how long. There are no signs of wear; the item still looks brand new. Can the store put this item back on the shelf and sell it as new, or do they have an ethical responsibility to tell the next buyer that it is pre-owned?

B) A customer returns an item, with a defect but no other signs of wear. The store points out the defect to the next buyer, but do they also have an ethical responsibility to say that it is pre-owned?

If your answers to any of these three are different, why? And in any of these cases, does it matter whether the customer owned it for an hour, a day, a week, or a month? How long does the customer have to own it before that fact, not just the item's still-like-new condition, becomes ethically relevant?

19
Sorry, I wholeheartedly disagree with you here, MathNut.

Your questions focus on whether ownership is transferred, but that's not what's relevant. What's relevant is use , and Swiss law (and that of most civilized nations) states plainly that items sold must be new and not defective, unless labeled otherwise. If a store marks something down because of a defect (and yes, this gets caught in the stores on new items all the time, either from employees restocking or because a customer points it out), there is nonetheless no reason to expect it to be used. (Swiss case law also says that it's not considered "use" to open a box to inspect an item, so you can order something by mail, open the box, look at it, and still have it count as unused.)

So basically, unless you go to a Brockenhaus or a used car dealer, items sold without being marked as "used" must be new. Any store doing anything to the contrary is breaking the law.

(N.b.: Swiss law provides no provision for non-defective returns whatsoever. If a merchant chooses to allow it, it is as a courtesy and thus may be encumbered with whatever conditions the merchant wants. What a merchant may not do, for unused goods, is to eliminate the warranty. They can -- if they tell you before the purchase -- reduce your options for remedy, e.g. "attempt repair first" or "no refund, replacement only". But ONLY if they told you in advance. Such a restriction printed on the back of the receipt means nothing, because you don't see it in advance. A sign by the register does count, though.)

Having worked (non-clothing) retail, you sometimes have to guess if a customer is lying when returning "unused" goods. There were definitely instances where a customer told me something was unused and I could plainly see that it wasn't, but it being within the return period, I had no reason to deny the return -- I just processed it as a used return in the computer. (That also meant it didn't go back on the shelf.) When in doubt, I did it as a used return, because you didn't want used stuff to get sold, as happened to the customer after the OP.

What I don't understand is why the shopkeeper would resell it. In chain stores, defective merchandise normally gets either written off as damaged, or goes back to the manufacturer -- either way, normally not something that dings the manager.

I've heard that some clothing stores categorically do not resell returned clothing. They write it off (easy to do when the cost of goods is 5% of what you're selling it for...) and either trash it or donate it.

This is of course why clothing has tags on it that wildly exceed what is necessary to hold a price tag: They put artificially large and uncomfortable tags on them to force you to remove the tags to wear it, creating a relatively reliable way of proving that you didn't wear the clothes.

20
Can't argue with the law then - but in that case, all I can say is that this particular law seems to be pretty routinely broken in Zurich. I have seen clothes with minor wear offered for sale without comment in high street chains here, frequently enough that I assumed it was those shops' standard practice to resell their returns whenever possible.