Re: I was officially Banded from an Astronomy stor

I know we are all guilty of impulse purchases from time to time, but if one is returning more than a couple of items a year that are unopened, something might be amiss. Maybe a little more research into the items before purchasing would save you some hassle in the long run.

I am curious why you would be returning unopened items. I probably over research things before buying, to the point of paralysis. But I have never returned any astro gear. I have received damaged goods and gotten returns on that, but if it is new in the box, I figure it is on me. I either keep it or take a loss and sell it here.

1. Large chain stores have secret return amount limits that are never on display (that I have seen). A certain home improvement store located in what I would consider a "poor neighborhood", puts you on their list if you have three returns in a month. The same chain has a store in a rather affluent neighborhood and I have not been able to determine how much you can return (it seems like no limit). Somewhere in some corporate computer there is a formula, but they are not posting it on the wall.

2. Just about every chain store has become LESS liberal with their return policy in the last few years. There have been many segments about that on TV lately with the holidays approaching.

Best Buy even has a sign that says "Best Buy reserves the right to deny ANY return". It's true:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Help-Topics/In-Store-Return-Policy/pcmcat204400050028.c?id=pcmcat204400050028


3. Shoes have a tremendous mark up. Google "Nike shoe production costs" to see that Nike's total cost is under $5, and they retail for $150. The Nike outlet store could have a 1/2 off shoe sale and still make a great profit.

You don't see 1/2 off Ethos sales at Anacortes because the razor thin profit margin is closer to 15%.

4. One can be certain that the manager of a store would not just ban a good customer without first trying to advise him of the problem. The club members who are banned from our local store are "just a little bit off" and between ordering things (then trying to cancel them), returning things, hanging around and just simply making others uncomfortable, I fully understand the owner's reasoning behind the ban.

I can recall returning two Astronomy items over the last ten or fifteen years.

In 1998 I walked a $500 Meade LXD500 mount with Bronze Gears back into the Meade Headquarters Showroom and complained that the polar alignment scope was misaligned since when I rotated the mount in RA the reticle crosshair would also spin and not stay centered.

The Meade rep assured me it was because I was not pointing the crosshairs at Polaris and at infinity. I assured him back that it did not matter where the RA axis was pointed, the center of it should not vary. He then informed me that if I wanted a precision mount I should have bought the LX750 instead. Upon hearing that I walked over to a stack of Meade product catalogs on the lobby coffee table, flipped it open to the LXD500 page, and showed him the words "high precision" in their marketing material. Upon seeing that he agreed to take it and have their technicians look it over.

Two weeks later they called me in to pick up a new mount with a new polar axis scope -- they couldn't fiqure out what was wrong with the mount I brought in. On this visit I noticed that all the product catalogs in the lobby were now missing. The crosshairs in the polar scope of the new unit still wandered but not as much and, with a shrug, this was the best they could do for me. I took it home, removed the polar scope from the mount and decided to try adjusting the three tiny allen screws located near the eyepiece. Viola! I DISCOVERD the solution and how to center the reticle which was not printed in any Meade instruction manual nor known by any Meade tech rep.

Now five years ago I decided to give the Meade 24mm QX a try. I called Anacortes but they didn't have one in stock so I opt-ed to purchase it from a local astronomy shop in Oceanside. The Meade literature said "Sharp, pin point stars to the edge of the eyepiece field of view. So, after reading the first few reviews here on AM and the CN forums and getting mixed opinions -- "it's a great eyepiece", "no, it's a dog", I decided to buy one and decide for myself.

Well, it was a dog of course. Focusing stars in the center of the eyepiece showed flared stars in the outer 2/3 when using an f6 scope. I called the astronomy shop explained to them that I did not agree with the marketing verbiage on their web site and they immediately agreed to a return.

My conclusion is that there is a more than a little blame to spread around. If as a consumer I read untrue marketing material then I think some of the onus should belong to the Manufacturer and distributor to make things right to me. Does that absolve me from doing a little of my own research here on AM? Not at all.

Just my 2 cents.

Jerry