Send It Back, Take It Back, Put It Back...

I read several photography columns daily, and to my credit, I rarely steal ideas from them. This is not from fear of prosecution, but from the fact that so many of them feature things in which I'm not interested. I'm sorry to say that a very well-known daily website is getting less and less relevant as time goes on. I don't blame them - the bits that make up the trade are getting scarcer - and anyway, I've lived where they write from and the climate there isn't conducive to great literature. But every so often I pick up a snippet that gives you to think. On all three sites recently there was a reference to returning goods that had been purchased. In all three cases this action did not seem to be the result of the products being faulty - just that the writer did not fancy them. I'm willing to bet that it's not just in the rainy Northwest, locked down Alps, or privileged California sun that this sort of thing is rife. Rife? That sounds like a note of criticism. We're talking about customers here. Clients. Consumers. You don't criticise them... No, but sometimes we criticise ourselves. If you see yourself in this, be assured that you see me in what I write as well. The practice of ordering on-line is big within Europe and America - becoming so here in Australia too. On-line international ordering is also becoming stronger. Say what you will about it, the idea does involve you making a judgement on something that you have not seen. Sometimes that judgement is good and sometimes not. Cheers to you for the first case, but it's a trial of your character with the second. Do you return goods that are actually working to spec if you just do not fancy them? If you made a bad call in the first place? If you just didn't know your own mind before you pressed " add to cart " ? Should you, in honesty, do it? If the goods are bad - not working to spec - yes. At least here in Australia you are protected by consumer laws that allow you to get a repair, replacement, or refund for genuinely faulty goods. Note: dropping your new lens in the cat's food bowl is not a factory fault, and the techs will damn well know it. Can you force your will on the retailer and compel them to take back perfectly good items? Some people do this, and I cannot say why they succeed without raising their ire. They can be sensitive to criticism. Can you cozen your way to get what you want? Oh, dearie, can you ever. It is a horrifying prospect when you are the retailer and nearly as bad to watch from the sidelines as a spectator. Be aware that it marks the person who does it with a clanging bell-buoy like a hazard to navigation - they will be shunned in the future. Is there a light in this darkness? Yes - the light of decency. If you have a bad product, send it or take it back and be polite about it. Resolution of the problem will follow. If the bad part of the thing was your own judgement, recognise that and either wear it quietly or re-sell the product at a loss. You need not expose your dignity to insult - we all make mistakes. In the future, analyse, think, and plan...and you'll never have to return a thing.