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?
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People are so wasteful it is disgusting!!! My thoughts exactly, why fill the landfill when there are other people who could use it and maybe can not even afford to buy it themselves. I have a thrift store and it sickens me how much I hear about things after they are in the landfill. “Oh ya I had an entire house full of furniture and all kinds of things, but I needed to be out of my house in a week and so I just took everything to the dump.” or “the people that moved out left all their belongings and I had to haul 9 loads to the dump.” I own a storage facility and I hire a couple guys at $22 an hour to load up the abandoned units and take them to the dump” Ugh it is so frustrating, People, people, you could put it out on the curb for free and save yourself the money of dumping it and it would be gone in an hour, or call your local thrift store and they will come pick it up. Almost anything is reusable!!!! Don’t just fill up the landfills. I recently just missed out on a deal where they were preparing some houses to burn, the owners had passed and were hoarders and had a 3 story house and two small houses all in a row. they lived in one and used the others for storage plus 2 sheds and a garage all stuffed full. The company hired to clean it out just started pilling everything in the back yard and smashing it with heavy equipment, until they had so much stuff to move out they decided to call a local thrift store to clean out the rest. (novel thought hunh?) they crushed all kinds of things: patio furniture, table saws, tools etc. What a waste. Then the store that picked up the rest left behind all the clothes cause he doesn’t deal in clothes. I got to go inside the house cause I was trying to salvage some of the few things left. There was a ton of vintage clothes a lot still with tags (can you believe it) like from the 40s- 60’s. I was so thrilled, but he told me I had to wait for a day his workers would be there for safety reasons, well he didn’t call me back and so I checked again and they were all gone. Every closet in every house was stuffed full of these clothes. They had no clue they just threw away maybe $100,000 worth of vintage clothes. I still think about it every day and it makes me sick!!! Not to mention all the antiques they destroyed. Now there are still things left but the city has taken over and I can’t get the stuff. They left things in that were burnable, so thre is still some old dressers, old crates and apple boxes, old large boards stacked in the attic and all the doors are cool heavy solid wood doors. I so wish I could get the stuff but it is all going to be burned 🙁 So much for my short comment! So donate, don’t throw away people!
My parents live on a very high traffic street so whenever we have something huge that we don’t want but I don’t think I can sell, we just leave it up at the top of their driveway. Nothing has ever lasted up there more than an hour or two, someone always snags it. I’d always rather let someone else enjoy it if I don’t need it. Throwing it out is just so stupid for a million reasons!
And the situation you describe makes me update just reading about it, I can’t imaging living it!
Yes, if it is that bad I will throw it away.
I have also bought items for the sole purpose of throwing it away. I figure that if I paid for it, it is mine to do whatever I want with it.
OK, I’ve got to have follow up info on this one. What, besides trash bags, have you bought specifically to throw away?