Target Should Refund My Money for Defective DVD

What absolute nonsense! The DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT
ACT is the culmination of treaty negotiations between Europe and the
United States. No provision of this act prohibits any retailer from
refunding money for defective or UNWANTED copyrighted material.
Claiming it does is bogus. Granted, the act is updated regularly, but
the legislation's intent is to address illegal infringement of
copyrighted material and does not consider recorded movies an issue.
As a matter of fact, federal legislation as upheld in the courts,
stipulates that any copyrighted material that is broadcast via cable
or public airways is not longer subject to copyright exclusion in that
the public may record such media for its personal use, meaning we can
make copies as long as we don't sell or distribute them.

Costco will accept returns on DVDs, CD, Blu-rays, etc. Best Buy, if
the clerk is trained to handle your objections, will quote a federal
statute it calls Chapter 7. Actually, the reference should be to
Chapter 5 of the Copyright Law of the United States of America
and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States. It does
detail a wealth of limitations on "service providers" but only
mentions retail in passing, not once prohibiting stores from taking
back or refunding purchases.

If the no-refund policy is based on a federal statute, retailers
should know what the name of it. I had Best Buy refuse me a refund.
They are a corporate bureaucracy with no management authority to do
anything outside of company dictates. I simply exhanged my unwanted
open Blu-ray disc in one Best Buy store and exchanged it in another. I
took all three receipts -- original purchase slip, exchange slip, and
refund slip and told the store manager what I'd done and asked that
she swear a complaint with the local police. She declined. I'd
e-mailed and telephoned their corporate people and received the same
"It's a federal law" nonsense, so I also contacted and told them THEY
had broken and I wanted to know where I could file a complaint. I
leave it to your imaginations as to where they told me to go, which I
did with a chuckle.

I mailed back the DVD's as requested and received a $30 gift card in
the mail today. The set was $19.99 and the shipping was around $5 so
it was just enough with a bit extra to spare. Although it was kind of
a pain to have to ship the items back, overall I am happy with the
resolution.

This is what is wrong with corporate America.

It seems the most logical solution is for Target to refund your money
since they cannot replace the product under their own policy at the
STORE LEVEL. Why not have you return them to the store, put them in
one of the many working DVD players they have on display and verify
they are duds, then refund your money? Mail them to their CO in
Minneapolis? Are these people serious?

What a crock. Screw Target...seriously. Are you stores that inept and
powerless to do a simple "water test" and see that the discs don't
play and since they cannot seem to find another working copy, give the
lady her 20 bucks back and send her on her way?

What a bunch of asses.

How about contacting the manufacturer of the DVD? If it is indeed a
defective batch, they should refund or replace the set. Target had no
idea that the merchandise shipped to them was defective in any way,
and since the manufacturer won't credit them for opened DVDs, your
best bet is to try to contact the manufacturer directly and see if
they'll ship you a replacement.

I use to work for the customer service dept in Target. The reason that
they cannot return your movie for a refucd is because it is part of
the copyright law. If they were to return the DVD then Target would be
breaking this law. Have you ever notced that when you do bring a DVD
back that when you exchange it the customer service rep has to open it
up for you before you leave the store?? This is because people would
go home, copy it, say it didnt work, get a new one, and then later
return the new one for a refund. Everything they do makes sense. I
understand that it can be frustrating, but its really out of Targets
hands, and every retail store is supposed to do the same. It is a law.
Perhaps like the others stated, your dvd player is older and can't
play it. I can assume that is probably is since you had problems with
both the sets. In that case its probably time for you to update your
equipment, because you will probably just have issues again in the
near future.

Its sad that they have had to come to this, but you can thank your
peers for once again ruining your ability to do something as simple as
return a defective dvd.

While it will be great for retailers to have employees do as they
please in return policies,it will never happen. It really isn't fair
to the employee to be put in a decision making situation, because they
aren't managers. That is what the managers are there for. Great
letter, but I would have to disagree on the "employee decision making"
suggestion.

Thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions. In this case I
doubt it is my DVD player as of of them is a brand new Sony Hi Def DVD
player that we bought when we set up the home theater in the family
room a few months ago. As for the other DVD player that I have- yeah
it's one of those $50 specials from Costco or where ever I bought it a
couple years ago. I had also purchased the Sabrina set for seasons 1
and 3 and they both work fine in both players. I think that there was
just a bad batch made for this season- on one of the discs you can see
thin scratches. I will update you as to weather or not Target
responds and how they plan to handle this situation. Thanks again.

Having the same policy of not returning opened defective DVDs, at my
store the associate checks the inventory to see if there's any in
stock, if not, a gift card is issued for the purchase price. A note is
also put on the customer's purchase history in the computer.

If your DVD players are older they may not play Double Layer Discs
(essentially DVDs that hold 8.5 GB of information versus the 4.7 GB of
a single layer DVD).

I have read that some older (and certain brands) DVD players simply
will not be able to read the discs.
I would bet that the problem is your DVD player.

The problem is the DVD player. I had the exact thing happen with my
last DVD. The older DVD players and some newer ones will not play any
DVD that has any HD features.

You can exchange that DVD all day long and it will NEVER PLAY.

I ended up buying a 49.99 DVD player to play my DVD fro TARGET that
would not play.

If you want proof the DVD is not defective make TARGET insert it in a
player in the video dept. I promise you it will play perfect!

I don't even begin to understand all the technical reasons they don't
play.

We tried the DVD in three different players. It would not work.

I think all DVD are coming out Blue Ray at Target. You might as well
wait until the new players come out to buy one.

There was some battle between HD and Blue Ray at one point. I think
Sony finally threw in the towel and is going to do Blue Ray.

PS all my old DVDs played fine in the players that would not play
these DVDs.

Just a racket it to make us buy more players.

Normally, I'm a big proponent of Target's return policy, but in this
case I completely agree with you.

Target.com has different inventory. If Target has a brain and
anything resembling ethics (a big stretch and probably a vain hope)
they should order it from the on-line division and ship it to the OP's
home free of charge. The customer should get what she paid for.

"Your employees should be able to make decisions based on individual
situations and common sense instead of repeating the return policy
printed behind them on the wall like robots."

Normally I would disagree with this statement because it puts
employees in the continual position of having to make judgment calls,
and while that sounds great in theory, in practice it leads to
policies being ill-defined and subject to argument. A
one-policy-for-all practice is much more fair and easy to enforce.

However, in this situation, I agree with your letter. If Target
doesn't have the item in stock, how are you supposed to exchange it? I
suppose you could wait for it to come back in stock, but who knows
when that will be, and that's hardly fair to you or your niece.

So, I don't know what the answer is. I hope you do get a refund or
they are able to get you a working copy of the DVD.