Babies R Us

Scams are rampant from three-card monty to bait-and-switch electronic stores and bad intentioned fantasy football trades but I've noticed that with the Great Recession they have gotten more prevalent moving from the standard run-of-the-mill Nigerian ones to a more complex schemes, preying on the good nature of baby-shower go-ers. As part of my expose into the baby-shopping culture, I have been doing some major ground work and have uncovered a huge scam from an unlikely place.... Babies R Us.

Now you may have to suspend your disbelief but here it goes.

I walked into Babies R Us yesterday with a few items of clothes, blankets and towels we got at the Baby Shower and needed to be exchanged. I walk in and the chick at the Customer Service booth says. Without prompting "doubles from the registry?"

Now like IKEA, Babies R Us offers a very liberal exchange policy (for store credit) so returning the doubles for a couple of boxes of pampers seemed easy enough. I was standing watching her scan in two baby bjorns, a couple of swaddle velcro blankets and a handful of baby-seat accessories when it occurred to me. There were so many items that were doubles, especially in the high price ticket items. We received FOUR cribs each bought off the registry for example.
Each crib was easily exchangeable for store credit but even after the shower it still showed up on the Registry. What this equates to is full on Registry Fraud, like a bait and switch for good intentioned friends and family.
What I figure is that there is a 'glitz' in the Babies R Us website which purposefully does NOT take off certain high priced items they figure are items that many people would want to buy. Then when four people parade up to the shower with identical gifts, it feels like a prom with two girls wearing the same dress. Everybody feels scammed but as it's a nice event nobody makes too big a deal out of it.. It's the perfect cover for B-R-U to milk money out of your friends and family.
I now have over $400 in store credit which (you guessed it) I will use for diapers and wipes.
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