L.L. Bean scraps its century-old unlimited lifetime return policy

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Portland Press Herald

Posted 9:04 AM Updated at 9:40 AM

L.L. Bean scraps its century-old unlimited lifetime return policy

Company executives say too many customers abused the policy by returning worn-out items years after they were purchased. ... The days of turning in your old, worn-out Bean boots to L.L. Bean for a brand new pair are officially over.

In a reversal of its longstanding policy, the Freeport-based outdoor retailer will no longer accept returns on any product it has ever sold regardless of the items age or condition.

L.L. Bean executives said the decision was prompted by a growing number of customers abusing its generous satisfaction guarantee policy. In the past, L.L. Bean would accept almost any return in exchange for a new unit of the same product, the most comparable product currently available, or a store gift card valued at the last known sale price of the returned item.

But from now on, products only can be returned if they were purchased within the previous 12 months or have a manufacturing defect, they said. ... What we have seen, and it has come to the point where we had to act upon it, is a small but growing group of customers who are interpreting the guarantee as a lifetime product replacement program, and that was never its intent, L.L. Bean President and CEO Stephen Smith said Wednesday in an interview.

Read more: https://www.pressherald.com/2018/02/09/l-l-bean-scraps-lifetime-return-policy/

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The Portland Press Herald lets you read five free articles per month.

{edited} Read the comments. They mirror the ones at DU. People are sharing stories of the abuse of the system they've seen.

[democratisphere]

1. Greedy human bastards can't play it straight while wrecking it for everyone else.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. I think that's what L. L. Bean was trying to say, except in not **quite** those words.

I have a lot of L. L. Bean stuff that I bought at yard sales, rummage sales, and thrift stores. Sure enough:

Smith said the company is specifically cracking down on two forms of product return abuse: returns on older items that are not defective but merely worn down from regular use or totally undamaged (because the customer outgrew the item or wanted an upgrade), and returns on items purchased from a third party such as Goodwill or a yard sale. About 15 percent of recent product returns abused the lenient guarantee policy – double what it was just a few years ago, he said.
....

The other type of abuse the executives said they sought to end was a growing secondary market for used L.L. Bean products that was driven by the buyers’ ability to return those items at L.L. Bean without any proof of purchase. From now on, such returns won’t be allowed, they said.

“We have huge numbers of customers who come in with no buying history at all, but are returning copious amounts of product,” Smith said. “And that’s things customers are buying … at yard sales and Goodwill and Salvation Army, and coming in for refunds.”

L.L. Bean Executive Chairman Shawn Gorman said the cost to the retailer of abusive and fraudulent returns had become so great that it eclipsed total annual revenue from sales of the company’s flagship Bean boots.

No good deed goes unpunished.

I've never sent anything back to L. L. Bean. I have bought new things from them too, but I generally prefer to handle things before I buy them. Especially clothes, as I try them on first. At yard sales, rummage sales, and thrift stores, I get to do that. Mail order, not so much. Hence, I just don't buy clothes online.

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Wow. So you could buy old LL Bean clothes and stuff at a thrift sale and

then send them "back" to get a full refund of money you never paid for stuff you never used. Yeah, that sounds like a scam waiting to happen.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. They wouldn't send you money.

In the past, L.L. Bean would accept almost any return in exchange for a new unit of the same product, the most comparable product currently available, or a store gift card valued at the last known sale price of the returned item.

But yeah, basically people were fleecing L. L. Bean, and L. L. Bean reached the end of it rope.

People used to do this with flat screen TVs just before the Super Bowl (trademark). People would buy the TV, watch the game, and then take the TV back. Stores won't let you do that anymore either.

I have a couple of L. L. Bean jackets lined with Polarfleece or equivalent that have come from thrift stores. I made the mistake of washing my first one of these in a machine. The nylon material that formed the inside of one front pocket disassembled itself. I briefly toyed with returning it, but I sat down and painstakingly repaired it myself. That's a lot of close stitching on something like that. It takes a great deal of patience.

I have a lot of stuff piled up now that needs sewing. Sewing takes the right light. You need a northern exposure, so that you don't get shadows on everything, and you need a bright sunny day. We haven't had too many of those lately around DC.

[IronLionZion]

2. It was an overly generous policy that didn't make a whole lot of sense

If something is defective, I would return it fairly quickly. 12 months is still much better than many of their competitors.

The jacket I wore today is from LL Bean. I got it in 2008 and it is still going strong because of excellent quality.

There have been items I got from Amazon sellers that were so bad I returned them immediately and gave poor quality as the reason.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. I have a sort of Baxter State parka.

I say sort of, because there's a story involved. L. L. Bean, at the time, did not manufacture the Baxter State parka. This was back in 1991. I was driving through northern Pennsylvania. There's a town in Clinton {edited: not Potter} County named Woolrich. Guess what the town's economy was based on.

The Woolrich factory had a store at which factory seconds were sold. The parking lot was full of tour buses, and each bus had disgorged a load of passengers who were in the store stocking up on Woolrich factory seconds. One item was a parka that Woolrich made for L. L. Bean. The big difference between the parka I bought and the Baxter State parka is that the buttons on my parka have the Woolrich logo, and the ones sold by L. L. Bean have an L. L. Bean logo.

There was a short stretch of stitching on the flap of a front pocket on my parka that had gone astray, so that the Velcro strip was loose. I used to do a fair amount of sewing, and I was able to take care of that right away.

Sewing is a terrific skill to have. If I were czar, every high school kid would be required to take a yearlong course in home economics. Boys would learn how to sew (and so would girls), and girls would learn how to change motor oil (and so would boys).

[skypilot]

4. I've never shopped at L.L. Bean...

...so I never knew this policy existed. I'm amazed that they are just now deciding to get rid of it. I had to deal with similar crap when I worked in retail years ago. The now-defunct Borders bookstore had a policy where a person could pay for items with a check and after 7 business days return those items and get the amount of the purchase back in CASH. The checks were bad, of course. We were literally handing scammers HUNDREDS of dollars in cash out of the register. These guys would come to the register with three or four really expensive art books and the pull out a checkbook. We knew that we'd see these idiots (and the art books) again real soon.

[Historic NY]

7. We were just talking about this relative to COSTCO

and others. A restocking fee would cut down on abuse. I bought a couple high quality paint brushes for restoration work at Home Depot, the ones wrapped really well. I went to open it and the paper would come off, turns it it was used and re-wrapped. Who does that? I remember a friend go to Sears replacement part center years ago to buy his lawn mowers. Seems people would use thema whole season, then return them saying it was defective. And we wonder why, we pay more.

[Liberalagogo]

9. Remember L.L. Beans support of the Shithole?

I won't forget.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. I think that was a family member and not a corporate decision.

There was a thread at DU.

[Liberalagogo]

11. It was Linda Bean

And the company paid dearly for it.

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=ocx9WpiYLuv-jwTv_rCACg&q=l.l.+bean+trump&oq=l&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.35i39k1l2j0i67k1l4j0i46i67k1j46i67k1l2j0j0i67k1j0i131k1.1428.1428.0.2566.3.2.0.0.0.0.161.161.0j1.2.0....0...1c..64.psy-ab..1.2.291.6...131.FfFFQV1sJFw

[louis c]

12. They endorsed and supported Trump

Fuck them. I wouldn't buy shit from that company.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

13. One person did. Not the company. See post #11.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141983830#post11

[louis c]

15. Oh, only one of the "heir's" was a Nazi, thast's different

do any of the profits go to her.

Has the company disowned her opinion? And I don't mean some "neutrality" statement. A complete disavowal of her and everything Trump stands for.

Until then, I'll shop where I want, and it won't be L.L. Bean.

[LanternWaste]

19. It's often important to move the goalposts we've se

It's often important to move the goalposts we've set so everyone knows how righteous we are, even if we split "heir's" (sic) to do so.

[louis c]

22. I never move the goal posts.

You're with Trump, I don't do business with you. If you have an owner in a highly important position that donates to "Heir" Trump,
then my money goes somewhere else.

I never said I was "righteous" and I didn't post that others have to do or think as I do.

I'm saying not a fucking penny of my money knowingly goes to Trump or his supporters. I don't shop at WalMart, I don't do business with car dealers that donated to Trump, I avoid local businesses that the Trump stickers on their cars.

I don't go out of my way to investigate the political positions of the people I do business with,. but if they put it out in public or in your face, I avoid them.

they have free speech and I have every right to shop wherever I like.

[The Mouth]

16. There are always purity folks who will hurt EVERY employee

just because one or two people who work or own it are conservatives.

Their loss, their right.
But then there are also the assholes who will refuse to associate with family members because of politics, too; selfish twits who make the world worse for everyone, they are fouler than anybody they protest IMHO.

LL Bean makes good stuff. I bought one of their bomber jackets at a thrift store, it needed a zipper repair. $26 dollars to have them put in a new zipper (I told them I had bought it used and asked how much to fix), excellent quality, American made.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. Thanks for putting into words what I was thinking, and welcome to DU.

Last edited Fri Feb 9, 2018, 03:00 PM - Edit history (2)

I don't require grocery stores to stop selling Yuengling beer just because the Yuengling brewery owner invited Junior to the brewery. I just take Yuengling off the list of things I'll be picking up at the store this week.

Full disclosure: I did buy one case last year, but only because it was on a double-super-secret sale, and there was a $5 rebate on top of that. But for the normal price? No way.

Both of my Polarfleece- or equivalent-lined jackets from L. L. Bean were made in the U. S. The (old name) Maine Hunting Boots (now: Bean Boots) are made in the U. S. You can get old ones rebuilt for a fee. It's the non-leather part, the lower part, that wears out and cracks. They cut that out and attach new bottom material to the upper leather part.

Thanks and welcome again.

[louis c]

20. Trump supporters are not "Conservatives"

They're fucking racist assholes.

George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake and John McCain are Conservatives.

Please don't mix the two groups up.

And, in the mean time, they can think and say what what they want, and I'll shop where I want.

[The Mouth]

21. More power to you.

[crim son]

14. I worked as an LLB Customer Service agents for a few years.

It was really difficult not to get irritated at customers who chose to view this policy as a "free refill" whenever they thought something looked old. I'd speak with parents who called in every year to have us replace their kids' backpacks. LLBean backpacks are incredibly expensive and very solid. Right now I work for another company that is also ridiculously lenient when it comes to customer service. It drives business but I'm 100% certain we have at least as much fraud as LLB, and probably much more. There is no honor among thieves.

[EllieBC]

18. I hate that people abused their policy. As a longtime LL Bean customer I can say I've returned

1 item. It was a skirt and probably about 2 sizes larger than the size I bought. I actually bought 2 skirts, same style different colours. 1 was perfect fit the other way too big so I assume it was mislabeled.

[mainer]

23. We were shocked when a friend said he was going to return his LL Bean camping equipment

He bought several expensive items, used them on a weekend trip to Katahdin, and then after the weekend was over, said he was going to return it all. My husband was appalled and told him how wrong that was, but the friend's attitude was: "LL Bean is just a rich corporation and I could use the money."

[dem4decades]

24. I'm fine with them ending something that was abused.

As long as the cost of their products come down accordingly.