Target Wedding Gift Returns

Since we've been back from our honeymoon and opened all our wedding gifts, we've had to endure the painful experience of dealing with Target and their horrible return policy on items without a gift receipt. We had quite a few doubles and triples of Target merchandise and, upon attempting to return them, came to the realization that we were going to have to keep some of these higher priced items. Target's newly revised policy is the following: they are only allowed to take back 2-3 items under $20 without a receipt from a person within a 12 month period. They require your driver's license so that you can be flagged in their system if you attempt to return further items beyond the maximum amount. Any items over $20 without a receipt cannot be taken back for any reason, even if these extra items are clearly listed on your registry. That's bad news for you if you get 2 TV's or vacuums without gift receipts. So what can we do? The Target sales rep suggested asking the person who gave you the gift for the receipt or for them to accompany you with the original credit card the item was purchased. Sounds a little rude and inconvenient to approach your gift giver like this don't you think? Thankfully, we only had a couple items over $20, and the rest of the items under $20 were all returned, although we did manage to reach our quota for this. I fully understand Target's return policy on items without a receipt to minimize fraud that I'm sure has taken place against them over the years, but this is indeed at the expense of the honest customers that actually shop there. Even when your registry clearly shows 2 or 3 items even though you requested 1, they will not take anything back. Period. Leaves a bad taste in your mouth. If anything, this makes me all the more sure to include gift receipts with all the future Target gifts that we give. And yes I did say future, because as bad as an experience this may be, I don't think this will stop me from doing my regular shopping at Target or convince me to frequent Wal-Mart more often. Target is still much nicer, cleaner, and less ghetto than most Wal-Marts...plus their regular sales, especially when stuff goes on clearance (which happens very often) is still way better than Wal-Mart's prices.

With Regards,
John E. Consumer