Buying and Returning Basses

[Dakotah]

When I ordered my Ric from Sam A they said if I don't like it just return it,no problem.I'm sure GC is the same way.I wanted to try one first but they didn't have any in the store other than one sold ,waiting for pick/up. I respected that they didn't want to let anyone try it or even bring it out. Wouldn't want that myself. On the other note I have a MIM J fretless and love it.

 

[mp40smg]

I wasn't justifying anything.

The point I am repeatedly making here is that it's the consequences that make an act unethical, not the act itself, by itself.

It's really not that difficult to separate the act and it's consequences.

Extreme example: putting a knife in someone's heart per se is not unethical; it's the fact that someone dies as a consequence that makes it unethical. If all it did was tickle and make you laugh a bit and absolutely nothing else, then you'd find it very hard to explain why it's unethical, wouldn't you? It seems counter-intuitive, but if you're intelligent you can get past that.

That in mind, let's try this again: Both me and a store happily agree that I will buy and then return an instrument under their returns policy. I return it in MINT condition as promised, and the store gives my money back as promised. They are happy, I am happy, and there are no negative consequences to anyone, ever.

If there were negative consequences - as I plainly agreed there can be in previous posts - the act would be unethical. But in my hypothetical, there are no negative consequences.

And the final point is this: there is nothing inherently unethical about purchasing a bass and then returning it. It only becomes unethical when there are negative consequences.

So you can't just pronounce an action 'unethical' without regard to it's actual, real life consequences, and you can't just assume that the consequences - if any - will always be negative.

Got it?

Now that that's cleared up, you should all know that I personally do not condone doing this. It would have been easy for me to do when I was in LA, and it was an option offered to me by staff at one store (which is the inspiration for my hypothetical). I knew, however, that a) the policy wasn't there for this kind of thing, and b) I would still be financially better off hiring from elsewhere. Also, I would have had the bass for two weeks, playing frequently and travelling often, increasing the likelihood of this bass not returning in mint condition. So I didn't risk those consequences or the personal guilt associated with abusing the trust of the store. I still disagree that there is a clear-cut, black and white answer on the ethics of this, because situations and circumstances are different every time. In my case, it could have been very unethical for me to do it. In another person's case, there might have been no negative consequences for anyone involved. I still stand by the statement that there is nothing inherently unethical about purchasing a bass and then returning it, and it only becomes unethical when there are negative consequences. And no this is not "getting away with it" - because there's nothing bad to "get away with".

You are saying there are no consequences to the vendor? How do you figure that?

The store shells out money to buy a piece of gear.
For every day that piece of gear is on the shelf, they LOSE money. They lose money in terms of the cost of the money invested as well as the cost of the floor space. Every square foot of floor space has to generate $x/ day/ week/ yr to generate profit to be profitable.

The person that you deal with has to write up the sale. It actually costs the store money to have that employee handle your transaction. It will then take generally more time for that same person and then, generally a manager, to then transact the return. If that sales person is on commission, you are now potentially taking money out of his pocket as well.

yes, theoretically, the "loss per day clock" stops ticking when you take that gear out of the store. But, then what?

If a customer comes in to actually buy the instrument you just "rented" did they just lose a sale? Again, lost revenue.

If the store actually presumes that you bought this and it's not coming back, do they place an order for an identical item to replace it? If it's a slow mover or a high end item, now they have 2 of these. How does that work out for them?

There are lots of consequences.

it's the consequences that make an act unethical, not the act itself, by itself.

So, cheating, stealing, killing, grave robbery, etc. Is only unethical if/when the person is caught?

 

[bolophonic]

I wasn't justifying anything.

The point I am repeatedly making here is that it's the consequences that make an act unethical, not the act itself, by itself.

It's really not that difficult to separate the act and it's consequences.

Extreme example: putting a knife in someone's heart per se is not unethical; it's the fact that someone dies as a consequence that makes it unethical. If all it did was tickle and make you laugh a bit and absolutely nothing else, then you'd find it very hard to explain why it's unethical, wouldn't you? It seems counter-intuitive, but if you're intelligent you can get past that.

That in mind, let's try this again: Both me and a store happily agree that I will buy and then return an instrument under their returns policy. I return it in MINT condition as promised, and the store gives my money back as promised. They are happy, I am happy, and there are no negative consequences to anyone, ever.

If there were negative consequences - as I plainly agreed there can be in previous posts - the act would be unethical. But in my hypothetical, there are no negative consequences.

And the final point is this: there is nothing inherently unethical about purchasing a bass and then returning it. It only becomes unethical when there are negative consequences.

So you can't just pronounce an action 'unethical' without regard to it's actual, real life consequences, and you can't just assume that the consequences - if any - will always be negative.

Got it?

Now that that's cleared up, you should all know that I personally do not condone doing this. It would have been easy for me to do when I was in LA, and it was an option offered to me by staff at one store (which is the inspiration for my hypothetical). I knew, however, that a) the policy wasn't there for this kind of thing, and b) I would still be financially better off hiring from elsewhere. Also, I would have had the bass for two weeks, playing frequently and travelling often, increasing the likelihood of this bass not returning in mint condition. So I didn't risk those consequences or the personal guilt associated with abusing the trust of the store. I still disagree that there is a clear-cut, black and white answer on the ethics of this, because situations and circumstances are different every time. In my case, it could have been very unethical for me to do it. In another person's case, there might have been no negative consequences for anyone involved. I still stand by the statement that there is nothing inherently unethical about purchasing a bass and then returning it, and it only becomes unethical when there are negative consequences. And no this is not "getting away with it" - because there's nothing bad to "get away with".

Dude, I simply cannot believe that someone who claims to have earned a doctorate would be piddling around with these high school stoner philosophical beliefs on a public forum. By your logic, if two people conspire to shoot a third person and the bullet misses, then everyone just walks away with a clear conscience and everything is cool because there is no such thing as intent. Do you really live in Candyland?

 

[Artobass]

Ok...This guy says it's the "consequences" that make the act unethical not the "act" itself. WOW! this is the kind of rationalization that one can talk themselves into doing just about anything and if you don't get caught then it's ok. Dude you have NO moral compass.

 

[THE DANiMAL]

This guy is unbelievable. Really? Abusing the return policy? Bogus. You wouldn't do it with a gallon of milk, or a dozen eggs, would you.

 

[Immigrant]

If more consumers had the same attitude about return policies as a few here, GC would surely start charging a restocking fee. Then folks that actually want to return an item for legitimate reasons will have to take a hit, leading to people keeping more stuff that they aren't completely happy with. If GC's return policy prompts them to discount returned instruments, everyone else shopping there takes a hit also.

Lots of hits being taken. Hasn't there been talk about GC not doing that well? Hmm.

 

[punkjazzben]

Dude, I simply cannot believe that someone who claims to have earned a doctorate would be piddling around with these high school stoner philosophical beliefs on a public forum. By your logic, if two people conspire to shoot a third person and the bullet misses, then everyone just walks away with a clear conscience and everything is cool because there is no such thing as intent. Do you really live in Candyland?

I think you are hearing 'consequence' and thinking 'punishment', but what it actually means here is the sum result of an action.

Firing a bullet is not inherently unethical, and if it was shooting wouldn't be an Olympic sport. It's what the intention and end results are that can make it unethical. If I shoot with the intent of killing someone, but miss, it's still attempted murder.

Did people honestly think I was saying "It's only wrong if I get caught."? Nice to know you have such faith in your fellow man.

And seriously, chill everyone. Do I have to say 'thought experiment' one more time?

 

[Huge]

Man, earlier you said that things are only unethical when an act has a negative consequence.

Granted I haven't read all of your long posts but I don't recall you speaking to intent until just now.

 

[punkjazzben]

Man, earlier you said that things are only unethical when an act has a negative consequence.

Granted I haven't read all of your long posts but I don't recall you speaking to intent until just now.

It seems kind of obvious to me that motive and result are linked, otherwise there would be no such thing as an accident. But no I dont think I've mentioned intent.

 

[joebar]

i bought a bass from a L & M in another province. i had only a pic of it and had never played one.
my local chain agreed to ship it from that store to my closest store. they wanted to charge me a 5% restocking fee on top of the price; their rationale was what if i didn`t like it and then i returned it and now they would be stuck with a niche instrument that may be hard to move. it was expensive
i understood their plight and i told them that i would waive my right to bring it back if i didn`t like it to save the 5% and shook on it too. my theory was that i could sell it on here if i had to and recoup my money. (they even saved me an additional 2% in sales tax by allowing me to buy it through the far-away dealer.)
in the end i was beyond happy and ended up being a moot point.
i guess what i am trying to say is that they helped me put together a deal a little off the beaten path and in return i met them kinda halfway- i didn`t abuse their return policy

 

[lfmn16]

But you'd have to admit that if your only option was to go to a store with a costing system like this then, ethics and honesty aside, the financially prudent thing to do would to be to buy it and return it later. My honest opinion on this is that it's not black and white; ethics is often more like a blurry continuum. Buying and returning once as an alternative to paying exuberant prices for rental seems logical to me, but obsessively buying and returning every week and never giving the store a cent seems more like abuse of the system.

I'd be interested in knowing what ethical standards you find to be so blurry. If you were to set ethics and honesty aside, how do you make your decisions? Also, doing the wrong thing only once doesn't make it the right thing. My suspicion is that become blurry when we don't agree with what we want to do.

Sorry, I can't find a single thing in your post that I agree with.

 

[awilkie84]

Personally, I've bought & returned gear. BUT, it was never to circumvent a preposterous rental policy like GC's. Long & McQuade is where I buy most of my gear, and their rental policies are incredible! It cost me $45 to rent an Epi LP Std for a month.

When I return something I bought, it's because the magic I felt in the store just isn't there or the piece just doesn't fit with the rest of my setup. They're always great with accepting the returns, and I have no issue paying the restocking fees.

i bought a bass from a L & M in another province. i had only a pic of it and had never played one.

I'm doing the same thing right now from L&M in Vancouver. They're a Dingwall dealer & they're letting me buy from Van & shipping to Nanaimo (where there happens to be a competing Dingwall dealer that doesn't do financing).

 

[guy n. cognito]

It seems kind of obvious to me that motive and result are linked, otherwise there would be no such thing as an accident. But no I dont think I've mentioned intent.

You haven't, and it's an exclusion that has made your position sound ignorant.

 

[punkjazzben]

You haven't, and it's an exclusion that has made your position sound ignorant.

Ignorant of what?

EDIT: Sorry that was a bit of a troll post. I'm going to leave this one alone. Trying to explain consequentialism to moral absolutists is tedious and is getting nowhere and I'd prefer to just talk about technique or GAS or something.

 

[One Drop]

I understand the point BW is trying to make; I don't believe in moral absolutes either. I just wanted to show there were consequences to what were being presented as benign actions.

Very bad form making ad hominem attacks and assumptions about character when you don't agree with the argument. Where the heck did all
that come from?

 

[punkjazzben]

I understand the point BW is trying to make; I don't believe in moral absolutes either. I just wanted to show there were consequences to what were being presented as benign actions.

Thank you, good sir!

I think a lot of people read (or didn't read, as the case may be) my posts and thought I was saying there's nothing wrong with what the OP proposed. What I was actually suggesting, and I did explicitly mention this a few times, was that it's possible to imagine a scenario where buying and returning can have no bad results, and therefore people shouldn't naturally assume that it's always going to be an inherently unethical act.

In the OP's case, it would have been unethical because of the dishonesty involved and maybe some other negative results, but I really just wanted throw something in for the sake of discussion.

It's funny, I was accused for having no moral compass for simply talking about hypotheticals, but the system of ethics I was speaking of (consequentialism) involves having a very active moral compass. On the other hand, being a moral absolutist requires your compass to be stuck in one direction all the time.

Very bad form making ad hominem attacks and assumptions about character when you don't agree with the argument. Where the heck did all
that come from?

I threw a personal comment in eventually, but he really did set himself up for it!

 

[Munjibunga]

Maybe someone with experience buying a 70-inch HDTV from Costco and returning it after Super Bowl weekend could help.

 

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Maybe someone with experience buying a 70-inch HDTV from Costco and returning it after Super Bowl weekend could help.

Since this is the jist of this thread, I'm throwing it to OT.

 

[LarryO]

What's worse returning a bass to guitar center or stealing a shopping cart?

 

[punkjazzben]

What's worse returning a bass to guitar center or stealing a shopping cart?

Or watching shopping cart porn from GC and then returning it when you're done. Unless GC agreed to it, in which case everyone gets confused.