Penalized for Paying Cash at Best Buy

I agree. I'm going thru the same thing. Still waiting for my refund
check to arrive. The reason I paid cash was so I could get it back
immediately if I returned the windows 8 tablet that I purchased.
Anything over 500 they do this. But if they can refund people all day
who payed 450 then that shows they DO have the cash on hand. But they
want to trap u into exchanging it for something else instead of
getting your money back. I won't be shopping there again either. And
yes, they should give u the check right then and there if that need be
for safety.

The same thing is still happening in 2012. I returned a computer
purchased with cash after having it for less than a week. Now I have
to wait for a check to be mailed in 7-10 days.

Most stores would be happy if customers purchased with cash as credit
card companies charge retailers 3% of the charge amount. Best Buy's
return policy for things bought with cash is just another sign of why
the organization is failing to sustain growth in the electronics
market place! Why they don't offer discounts and incentives for
people to buy with cash is an opportunity waiting to happen in today's
competitive market. They could better compete with e-stores, which
require credit to buy things. Come on Best Buy CEO - Hubert Joly,
think outside of your box store for a change!

Sadly you become the latest example of paying for the bad guys.

There are people that scout a store for robberies by testing how much
they have in their tills.

Anything over 100 dollars in cash was refunded in a check where I
Work. You do get cash back, just not as fast as you wanted it. My old
job was also 100 dollars. I think 250 dollars is pretty generous.

We are not allowed to get cash out of the safe, because the safe is
not for returns, it's for change. Most of the money in there is rolled
coins and one dollar bills. If I gave you that, then I haven't got any
change for my 13 registers that are used every day.

I have to say I agree with the OP on this one. Obviously the cashier
probably does not have this amount of money in their register, but it
shouldnt be a problem for somebody to open up the store's safe and
retrieve the money needed to gice the customer a refund.

That's their policy. Deal with it, or shop elsewhere.

I understand your complaint, but I would bet a good deal that no
cashier in that store has $550 in their till to refund you. And if
they did, they would not have enough cash in their till to give out
change to other customers after you.

Your complaint is valid, but you have to understand that no cashier
has that much cash in their register, it's not their fault.

Just deal with the fact that you are getting your money back, just a
little later than you would like.

At least they didn't give you a gift card.

A lot of people have mentioned just how much cash best buy brings
in... I'm not sure how true that is, normally when I'm in there I see
most people paying with a card or check (personally, I wouldn't want
to carry over $500 in cash, that is just asking for trouble).
That aside, can't speak to best buy's policy, but when I worked in
retail we had a policy that once the till hit $200 we were to drop
anything over that into the Reno box, which could only be opened by
the stores bookkeeper in the morning when she counted the cash from
the previous night for that days deposit. So in less the stores
bookkeeper happened to be there, anything over $200 would be
impossible to return in cash... in all likelyhood we wouldn't have
allowed over $100 because we still needed change.

Now, I will agree with the OP that the cashier should have informed
him of the policy, and not knowing about what their policy on cash on
hand in the tills I can't say whether or not the policy is right or
wrong, but certainly I can understand it.

If you presented a receipt I would expect you would get cash back.
Case closed.

5 or more people decide to return large ticket items on the same day,
each wanting cash. Just how much do you expect a business to have on
hand? There's a reason for the limit and the only thing I see wrong
in this situation is the original poster wasn't told of the
limit/cashier wasn't aware of it.

Cash may be legal tender but there are limits to what is possible.
(for example) If you're trying to use a large bill at a small business
and you're their first transaction of the day, legal tender or not, if
they don't have the change to give you it's you that needs to find a
different way to pay.

And don't be so suspicious of cash. I personally refuse to run up
credit on luxury items as a credit card should only be for emergencies
or what you can afford to pay off at the end of the month. (If more
people thought that way we wouldn't have so many up to their ears in
ridiculous credit card debt)

I agree- cash is legal tender, and the original form of money. Anybody
can pay cash for anything, so if you return it, I don't see why you
should have to wait for cash.

I buy everything, even cars in cash.

well.. I don't mean EVERYONE.. but the "suspicious" looking people...
ya know what i mean?

I agree with the two previous posters: You should have been given
your $550 back, on the spot.

However, even with cash in hand, I would recommend using a credit card
to purchase something like a computer -- you typically get purchase
protection, and I bet the credit card would have been credited more
promptly than the cash would be dispensed.

Question for people, though: I would have expected BB to charge a
restocking fee in this case. Did they not do it because the box was
unopened?

Refund method
Refund will be in the same form as original purchase. Exceptions:
Cash, debit or check purchases over $250 will be refunded in the form
of a mail check within 10 business days of return.

Mary this is their refund policy. Looks like the csshier just
misinformed you.

I just looked it up online to see what they said about returns.

They probably have this on the receipts or up in the store.

I still would not like this either as I have stated elsewhere. I
always check return rules when I buy. In this case I would of pulled
out a credit card.

Credit cards are really best...some extend warranties and you always
have that dispute right!

I am with you on this one Mary W.

You pay cash and everything looks good with the return they should
give you your money back on the spot.

I seem to think the reason they might do this if in case they find
something wrong or missing from the return.

If you pay by check then waiting is fair.

Now for everyone that says this is to keep from having large amounts
of cash on hands. They have it on hands already if they are a large
box store.

Even on the worse days you deposit a few thousand, or at least you
better, or you will not be in business long.

Most petty cash funds are very large in large box stores.

Stores can have deposits in the 100's of thousands of dollars at busy
times. Even stores that don't offer electronics...straight out
clothing stores can deposit between 100 and 200 thousand dollars on a
good day. Those deposits would include credit cards
transactions...but a big chunk is going to be cash.

We use to pull cash out of tills throughout the day...but the tills
could literally still have thousands of dollars in them.

$500 in an electronics store should not be that big of deal to give
back.

$5000 maybe would be a problem!

Also if you didn't have proof of purchase then the wait for a check
routine is pretty normal. I assume you had your receipt.

I had exchanged a defected product at Macy's a few weeks ago. It was
a cash transaction. The exchange was cash. I picked up an additional
like item different color and put that on my credit card. All was put
on one ticket. The item I exchanged for ended up being defective as
well. Both with the initial exchange and the second return, the
product was unused with tags on it. I returned it for a refund.
Macy's gave me 1/2 in cash and credited my credit card for the othter
1/2. I thought this was a bit silly. I had the receipt showing it
was cash, did the even exchange, and was keeping the item I charged.

I had to pay the credit card bill anyway so I just let it go.

I find it interesting that you object to waiting 7 days for your
refund, but have no problem at all with holding the computer system
for 7 days then returning it. Seems like a pretty even deal to me.

I don't like that the person told them the wrong policy. However,
that's not my point.

I fail to think that this is Best Buy simply protecting itself from
having too much cash on hand. First, $550 is not a lot of money and
is almost certainly in a safe in the office along with a lot more
money.

I think their reason is to get free interest from the customer
floating them the loan.

In this day and age of technology, there are numbers of ways for BB to
get the cash back to the customer that would work in a ton of cases.
First idea would be to offer them a pre-paid Visa/Mastercard. If they
don't want that, they could have technology to post an fairly
immediate payment back into the persons checking or savings account
electronically. Or third, they could have the ability of the register
to print out a check for the full amount.

It's not as if the person paid with a check and they need to make sure
that it did not bounce. This was cash they took and have, and now a
PC they have back, unopened. also.

Typcially the reasoning for cash policies such as this is that loss
prevention will periodically take the high amounts of cash out of
drawers and lock them away for pickup. They do this because it would
be unsafe for them to keep high amounts of cash on hand like that...
And, as someone pointed out, for customers to know this.

I know its a pain, the check, and I can understand why. I think if
they can do it easily without risk of them being stolen (internally),
being able to write checks in the store would be a good idea, but it
would all depend on the risk factor involved.

Overall, these policies are not meant to penalize you by any means,
but are in place for the safety of the cashiers. I know its a hassle
but unfortunately thats the world we live in =(

Even if they did carry that much cash in the drawer, they would not
want the customer to be made aware of it. A check is the next thing to
cash unless you do not want a paper trail of the transaction.

Most people today do not pay in cash when it is for a large amount.

Mary, do you know of any major retailer that will give you back your
money in cash (when it's $550)? Who?

The most likely reasons they do not do cash returns over a certain
amount are they do not keep that much cash in the store for security
purposes or they like to make sure the product is intact and the
receipt is valid before letting someone walk out of the store with
their untraceable money.

However, the cashier SHOULD have known the policy and told you it when
you asked. I doubt they will change their policy for the reasons
stated above, but I do think you are entitled to an apology.