What irk's ME the most, is buying a piece of electronic gear that has had grubby, snot crusted fingers all over it before. What happens to returned stuff ? If I buy electronic gear, then I am mad as hell if I get home, open the box, and can see that the stuff has been moved around and been meddled with - it makes you begin to wonder what the person that had it before, did to the gear....was it abused, was it dropped, was any liquid anywhere near the device ? questions ring in my head. I hate that.
BTW.....I am no fan of the South African Core Group and their iStore/zastore, however, Apple USA charge a 10 % restocking fee, and so do all electronic stores in the USA that I have been to - and I have been to most, and they don't just sell Apple stuff, any electronic stuff Tv's, Hi-Fi's etc eg. Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's Electronics etc, they all charge a restocking fee.
You just need to read the specs on what you are buying carefully, so you don't buy something you don't want. In principle, I agree with stores charging a restocking fee on electronic stuff, in fact they should charge 20 %, to stop the cheap-skates that want to take an item home, play it into the ground over the weekend, then take it back for a refund - who wants a second hand item, that has spittle and drool/sweat and any other forms of DNA all over it ?
Electronic gear is difficult to resell once it has been opened and played around with - unless some organizations try pass it on to an unsuspecting customer. If it is indeed faulty, then it gets taken out of sale stock, however, with working units that are returned after having been played with and abused for a few days, then i'm sure the stuff gets re-boxed and some poor sucker gets a second-hand, DNA infested, gadget that might fail, or perform under spec after having been dropped. It's different from other merchandise like clothing - clothing would be easy to take back, clean up, and resell. However delicate and sensitive electronic devices are completely different.
