Used/open-box sold as “new” is something I have zero tolerance for. I had it happen TWICE from a major retailer a couple of weeks ago.
A “new” electronic drum kit that they had on special had a broken frame inside when I opened the box at home. Could have been a shipping thing, but I kind of doubt it, considering the way the box had been taped. So I went back to exchange it for a replacement. I got the replacement home and the kit was NOT new, nor even “open box”. It had obviously been used and returned. The pads and cables and such were just thrown back in, plus it was missing parts.
The crazy thing was, this was the retailer’s own sub-brand of electronic drums and they seemed to care so little about QC and customer experience. I thought it was weird that they were trying EXTRA hard to upsell me on their 3-year warranty with kind of a “wink wink, these things might break, wink wink”.
So I went back to the music store for a complete refund, as I was finished with that nonsense. When I left my house, I was furious at all the the nonsense and heavy lifting that had come with this debacle. It wasn’t exactly a broken harmonica we were dealing with here. But by the time I reached the store, I was laughing at the absurdity of it all, so I went in with complaints intact, but without the anger that wouldn’t have been productive anyway.
The guy at the register was processing my refund when a manager walked by and overheard my calm, reasonable complaints. He asked a couple of questions, then immediately offered to give me a larger/better/more expensive kit from a better brand at no extra cost. I mean, they outright admitted that the other brand, not their own, was better.
I opened the box of the new kit in the store to verify that yes, it was indeed new, untouched by human hands outside of the factory. Got the kit home and it was perfect.
Funny thing is, when I went back to the same store the following week, they had moved their “bad” brand boxes off to a corner and the “good” brand boxes were moved to the front of the store in a prominent display. I wonder if I had anything to do with that?
TL;DR? The squeaky wheel gets the grease and sometimes complaints can put you in a better position than when you started.