English: Some Mac's find their way to a trash can

English: Some Mac’s find their way to a trash can (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I need to talk about something that just completely mystifies me.

A buyer purchases something from you and then decides that they don’t like it. Say they purchased a tea cup and saucer set and, once it arrived, they decided that they didn’t like the shade of blue on the design (this actually happened to me once, for the record). OK, no problem, you say. You can return it for a full refund no questions asked.

And the buyer replies something like this:

I hated the color of the set so much that I immediately threw it in the trash because I couldn’t stand to look at it!

And, if you’re anything like me, your reaction to this is something like, “Whaaaaa?”

This isn’t just a antiques and collectibles thing. Go through the reviews on Amazon for a few minutes and you’ll see hundreds of reviews like these.

The language on this CD was so foul I threw it in the garbage. Disgusting!

or

This book was so terrible it went right into the trash!

I don’t want to believe that this is really a thing. That there are really people out there who would rather THROW A PERFECTLY GOOD ITEM IN THE TRASH rather than just return it. And yet the evidence is everywhere.

I don’t understand this mentality. At all. If you’re this buyer, you’re only screwing yourself over by trashing an item rather than returning it. Was the satisfaction of throwing it in the trash can really worth more than having your money back?

Even if you somehow can’t return an item it’s never been easier to just sell it yourself on Craigslist or eBay or wherever and recoup the money that way. Or freaking donate it! It just doesn’t make any sense to me why you’d throw it in the trash. What a waste!

A part of me wants to think this is just an idle threat people make to extenuate how much they hated the purchase. But, knowing how stupid the average person is, I suspect that they mean this literally and that makes me feel like I will never be able to relate to my fellow humans.

Now the buyer that tells you that they threw the item out but then still wants a refund? That’s a whole other story…

Have you ever encountered this from a buyer? Or have you, as a buyer, ever hated a purchase so much that you threw it out rather than return it?