jpoc:

 

Why did DS ever think that it was a good idea to resell second hand goods (returns?) as new?

 

I have never encountered that from another retailer but I have personal experience of it at DS and have seen it mentioned in the media as a DS issue.

 

My own experience was five years ago and it was the end of my time as a DS customer and I expect that it would have been the same for others too.

 

Selling them as new? It happens in other retailers too unfortunately, but it would never be company directive to do that. Most often it's usually someone put the returned product down in the wrong spot behind the counter, and someone else put it back out on the shelf, or some staff member thought it was so well re-packaged they'd just put it back on the shelf (lazy).

At Dick Smith every store had Not New stickers, which were meant to be put on the box of every returned item. There were also Quarantine labels which would come out of the receipt printer for any returned product with storage. This was to be put on the item, and kept on there until the storage was wiped, and it came about when an Australian store sold a returned cellphone with porn on it.

I know of another case, from a Harvey Norman in the same shopping center we were in, where they sold an external hard drive with a previous customers data still on it. It cost them thousands as they were essentially blackmailed by the customer who bought the returned hard drive, I assume to keep it out of the press.