Customers buy TVs for Super Bowl and then return them

PHOENIX — Sunday is the Super Bowl, which means this is the week when a lot of people run out and buy
a big screen TV in time for the big game.

But some of them have no intention of keeping it.

Consumers will go buy the TV, set it up, watch the Super Bowl on it and then bring it back to the store for a
refund.

Best Buy employee Kraig Kubicek has seen it happen.

“I think it’s exaggerated,” he said. “It used to happen a lot more frequently, but I don’t see people doing it as much anymore. They don’t want to deal with the hassle of bringing it back.”

Kubicek works at the Best Buy at Superstition Springs Mall in Mesa. He said that with his store’s
no questions asked return policy, “borrowing” a TV is pretty easy.

“Any TV over 50 inches, you can get it before the Super Bowl,” Kubicek said. “After the game, you can have us pick it up
if you’re not happy, and it doesn’t cost you a dime.”

Kubicek told News/Talk 92.3 KTAR’s Arizona Morning News on Saturday, Jan. 25, that even though fewer people are buying and returning TVs, it does happen.

“You can know when people walk in the door that they just want the biggest screen possible, and that’s it,” said Kubicek. “They want to have a party, and maybe, the TV is not within their budget, so they have the TV for one day and enjoy the
game.”

Kubicek added that with his experience, he can tell if he is going to see the customer in the return line after Super Bowl Sunday.

Best Buy would not comment on whether it plans to change or strengthen its return policies. One
online blog, however, quotes a Best Buy store manager in another part of the country as
saying that the company is then forced to sell the returned televisions at reduced prices.