Returns

I never purchase used gears from Crutchfield before but only a pair of brand new speakers one time.  You will think what bad experience you could possibly get from buying a brand new set of speakers?  Well, here was the story.  I found out the speakers were labeled LEFT and RIGHT because of the off-center positioned treble driver.  However, the serial numbers were not sequential which might later affect the resell value.  So I called back and the salesman named Steve (Steven?) answered the phone.  After hearing out my complaint, he actually treatened me that I can not sell the speakers otherwise I will be banned forever from making any other purchase from Crutchfield.  First of all, I do not intend to resell the speakers, rather I was saying IF I want to resell them many years later, non-sequential serial number will hurt the resell value.  What kind of customer service is that?  I ended up with keeping the speakers because I like them and do not want to bother with the return.  But I was threatened and humiliated and I chose to do nothing.

One of the reasons I asked is certain products like say the McIntosh MC152 for example never has an open box for sale that Ive seen and I'd say that some have mostly likely been returned?

@basket random While some retailers may choose to resell returned products as "in box" or "refurbished", not all returned items will necessarily be resold. like New. Many retailers have specific policies in place to ensure that returned products are properly inspected, tested, and refurbished (if needed) before being resold to customers.

I bought a bluesound integrated amp from crutchfield. It cost me a $60 restocking fee. Free shipping back to them. They could sell it open box and still make money from the restock fee. They are good for returns, but not cheap.

I’m afraid $60 would not be making money for Crutchfield. They have to have someone process your return, refund your money, receiving processes the physical return, inspects it, it, someone puts it into inventory, then it must be advertise an open box. There are so many non-standard flow interactions they are not making money.