L.L.Bean scraps lifetime return policy

LizzieMaine said:

He was apparently carrying on with young-teen girls in Cincinnati in the '70s. It came out late last summer which is why Fox Sports dropped him and the Phillies dropped plans to have him in an on-field ceremony celebrating their 1980 team.

I didn't pay a lot of attention to Rose until I watched him plow over Ray Fosse in the 1970 All Star Game. There's a line between "gritty player who wants to win" and maiming a promising young player in a meaningless exhibition game, and I always thought he crossed it there. After that I always disliked him, and his relentless vending of himself in the 80s cinched it for me. Wearing six different shirts during a game just so you can sell them to memorabilia dealers is just sleazy.

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I wasn't aware of his peculiar predilection, and I agree that there are lines that should not be crossed.

ChiTownScion said:

I can remember the Left Field Bleacher Bums at Wrigley chanting, "Rose is a FAIRY! Rose is a FAIRY!" back in '69. He spiked Ernie Banks.... and actions like that have consequences in the Friendly Confines.

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After the White Sox won the Series-back when I was a more forgiving Cubs fan-I met Ernie, and remarked to my boyhood idol,
"isn't it great the Sox won the Series?" and he promptly asked: "what's so great about it?" Ahh..."common Ern, a Chicago team..."
"We're gonna win it next year." Really stepped in it that time.

seres said:

There are always people who try to "scam" the system. Amazon needs to tighten their return policy, too. I've actually read posts on "other" forums where the poster brags about ordering a product, wearing or using it once for an important occasion, and then returning it, with Amazon's "free returns" policy.

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THat one's as old as the hills. I had family who did the 'club books' back in the day, and in those circles, there were always people would try that on. Of course, with the more 'human' nature of that sort of operation, anyone who did it would be blackballed pretty quickly; nowadays, it's much harder. For their sins, Amazon have been fantastic with me when, once or twice, I've had to report a non-delivery, including the time I found the empty packaging of my signed-for delivery blowing around outside the block and bearing a signature that was none of my neighbours (best guess: either workmen or the delivery driver stole it. Driver theft is on the up in a lot of instances I hear, mostly because they are paid so poorly). I can totally see how easily they must get ripped off by less than honest buyers, though.

LizzieMaine said:

I think you can argue that America has always been a land of chiselers. In colonial times, the majority of coins in circulation were short-weight counterfeits, in the 19th and early 20th Centuries you were likely to find that the loaf of bread you bought from the village baker had sawdust in it along with the flour and the neighborhood butcher had to be watched closely to keep his thumb off the scale, and during the Era you didn't have to go far to find someone selling telephone slugs or chances on a rigged punchboard. How many here ever pulled a fast one on Ma Bell by making a person-to-person collect call using a code name designed to tell the person on the other end of the line that some event had occured? And the good lord himself knows how often I clean up after a show and find wrappers and bottles and cans from products we don't sell, smuggled in by people who have no shame.

I can't speak for other countries, but it isn't just "this generation" that's at fault. America has from its very foundation been the home of the knave. "Getting away with it" is a fundamental part of our national character.

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Some things are universal. For a few years I spent a lot of evenings at my local cinema flyering for the Rocky Horror shows we did there. The scams people would try to pull to get their own stuff in, and how unpleasant they could be ("Are you a racist?" / "I'm a well known blogger and I will ruin you") when called out on it was quite the education. My favourite was the woman who, caught trying to smuggle her own ice cream in, claimed she wasn't in violation of their rules because she didn't buy it elsewhere, she'd made it at home, and the sign only prohibited "snacks purchased elsewhere". Worst recent one was a loud family group who turned up to see Paddington 2 and left the debris of a picnic trodden into the floor after the show. I mean, by all means if you think the cinema snacks are too expensive don't buy 'em, but why can't these people feed their children before they come inside, or after the film? It just smacks of being cheap. And then, of course, these brats will grow up and think they're entitled to bring their own stuff in too....

In terms of codes, I remember being taught a rosy version at school of how the Penny Black stamp came into being as an affordable form of post which was pre-paid so that poor people could receive mail. Story goes that a poor woman was seen sorrowfully turning away a letter from her soldier son or husband, I forget which, but then later revealing when the postie had gone that she knew he was okay based on the use of a code of her name - full name, initials, middle initials and such. The rose-tinted version of the story is one of democratising the mail, but I can't help but feel it was, for the postal service, as much about being sick of being scammed as anything else.

One of the earliest scams I remember is the call the house, distract 'em and run 'free meal' scam pulled by the lead in Bugsy Malone. As a very prim ten year old, I was rather shocked by that!

When I was in radio, we were taught how to scam a pay phone using a beer can tab -- which worked fine until the phone company got wise and replaced all the old-style phones with ones where you couldn't unscrew the mouthpiece cap and access the terminals. Evidently this was a very very common trick.

The postal scam that used to be most popular was to pay your bills by putting the company's address in the return address area of the envelope and then dropping it in the mailbox without a stamp. It would be "returned to sender" at no cost to the actual sender. Some companies even helped out by printing their own addresses in the return corner of the pre-printed envelopes they supplied along with the bill. This was an old trick that went way way back. The post office finally changed the rules so that any envelope without postage is delivered postage due to the recipient.

We all know that scammer / schemers / those willing to push the envelope / those willing to find any loophole have always been with us - the evidence is overwhelming.

That said, I wonder if the percentage of the population willing to engage in these untoward behaviors have increased today and if that is why Bean had to change its policy.

I'm sure Bean - throughout its existence - has always priced in some cost from those gaming the system, but figured the overall benefits outweighed that. Hence, what changed? Is it Bean becoming more like other corporations and just trying to cut cost everywhere or has the percentage of the population willing to take advantage increased to the point that it "broke" the system?

I bought some of their "made in Maine" shoes, back in the 80's, and several of their Hamilton watches. But when those items wore out, I didn't consider returning them for free replacement. I got my money's worth, and was satisfied.

ron521 said:

I bought some of their "made in Maine" shoes, back in the 80's, and several of their Hamilton watches. But when those items wore out, I didn't consider returning them for free replacement. I got my money's worth, and was satisfied.

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Because you are a decent person, a normal person, a person with reasonable expectations and a person that understands the intent of a "life-time" guarantee.

Fading Fast said:

I'm sure Bean - throughout its existence - has always priced in some cost from those gaming the system, but figured the overall benefits outweighed that. Hence, what changed? Is it Bean becoming more like other corporations and just trying to cut cost everywhere or has the percentage of the population willing to take advantage increased to the point that it "broke" the system?

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Most likely it's simply trying to improve the bottom line. Every Mainer knows that Bean prices are, and have always been, rather highly inflated, and the "quality of the goods" has always been used as a way of justifying the extra cost. But since the 1980s, the company has steadily moved away from US manufacturing, outsourcing a very large proportion of its merchandise to overseas -- but the prices have not come down to reflect the decreasing cost, and let's face it, the decreasing quality of manufacture.

The duck boot is the Bean product everybody knows, and that's still made in USA, for now -- but most of their other stuff is not, and hasn't been for quite a while. They've been pinching pennies for years in terms of quality, and in a situation like that the return policy isn't tenable even if nobody gamed it. I won't at all be surprised to see them go all the way and outsource the boots within the next couple of years. The change in the guarantee is just a way of clearing the route for that. And you can bet the price of the boots won't come down a cent.

LizzieMaine said:

Most likely it's simply trying to improve the bottom line. Every Mainer knows that Bean prices are, and have always been, rather highly inflated, and the "quality of the goods" has always been used as a way of justifying the extra cost. But since the 1980s, the company has steadily moved away from US manufacturing, outsourcing a very large proportion of its merchandise to overseas -- but the prices have not come down to reflect the decreasing cost, and let's face it, the decreasing quality of manufacture.

The duck boot is the Bean product everybody knows, and that's still made in USA, for now -- but most of their other stuff is not, and hasn't been for quite a while. They've been pinching pennies for years in terms of quality, and in a situation like that the return policy isn't tenable even if nobody gamed it. I won't at all be surprised to see them go all the way and outsource the boots within the next couple of years. The change in the guarantee is just a way of clearing the route for that. And you can bet the price of the boots won't come down a cent.

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We don't buy that much from Bean - but over the years we've bought fleece vests, rain jackets, socks, sweaters and the odd this or that (plus several pairs of the boots) - but with an exception here or there, have thought the price very reasonable versus the competition.

The companies that sell things for less - Old Navy, the Gap, Lands End, Uniqlo - IMHO, also offer value (overall, you have to pick and choose), but you get less quality for the lower price. From Bean, the rain jackets have proven to be the best value - I've seem comparable ones for twice the price; the fleece and sweaters offer fair value and the socks are better than average (cost a bit more, but wear much longer); oddly, I think the boots are pricey for the value, but I know they are made in the USA, so that costs more and, well, Bean boots are Bean boots (they'll need to get more overpriced to chase me away).

As an aside, their marketing copy has been awful, in my opinion. The whole "Be an outsider" and now "The Outside Is Inside Everything We Make."

PrettySquareGal said:

As an aside, their marketing copy has been awful, in my opinion. The whole "Be an outsider" and now "The Outside Is Inside Everything We Make."

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I agree and think it's either because:

• The company is becoming "corporate," which means it hired or brought "in house" professional marketing leading to generic, market-tested, homogenous copy that "works" in some "survey tested" way, but is devoid of soul and a true feel for the company or its loyal customers

• It's great and I'm just out of touch

"And the survey says --- "The company is becoming corporate!" (applause from studio audience.)"

PrettySquareGal said:

As an aside, their marketing copy has been awful, in my opinion. The whole "Be an outsider" and now "The Outside Is Inside Everything We Make."

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I agree. I don't mind the return policy change, but the entire "attitude" of LL Bean has changed. That's why I rarely buy there anymore.

It's all part of the hype of nowadays. It's why people who never do yoga wear yoga pants and you see people wearing athletic clothing all the time. How you show you have money and class today is by showing off that you have the resources to exercise and spend money on exercising clothes and gym memberships and outdoor clothes.

Note: in none of this do you have to actually exercise or go outside. You just have to own the stuff to show off.

An article a couple years back in one of my favorite lefty magazines dubbed that whole movement "Twenty-First-Century Victorianism," and for pretty good reasons -- that whole idea of turning class privilege into a display of individual virtue was very much at the heart of the original middle-class Victorian way of life.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Leon Linwood Bean was a product of that culture, and made his first fortune catering largely to fellow products of that culture: his very first marketing move was to get a list of all non-resident Maine hunting license holders, and they became the base to which the company directed its attention forever after.

I don't think an article has ever rung more true about parenting. Modern expectations are exhausting. I dread sending my kids to school to get swept up into the extracurricular activities and such. That and the homework, which I've heard takes hours.

I was lucky as a kid if I was given time to play (as opposed to being expected to work).

I consider myself fortunate in having been raised, at least until my teen years, in a family where basically nobody cared what I did or where I did it. As long as I didn't hang around with those O'Brien kids in the next block, they were bad news.

I have to admit, one of things I hate about modern society is our focus on children as a little fragile beings.

I grew up out in the middle of nowhere. I walked the quarter of a mile to my friends house (my mother would walk me to the end of the driveway and make sure I made it across the road ok) everyday starting when I was about 4 until I was 6. (The neighbor mowed a path so I and my friends could walk through his field, as we lived on a narrow road that people sped on.) When I was 7ish, my parents started the farm and that was the end of my free time.

Our 15-year-old babysitter is afraid to walk to our house about 7 blocks from her house. In the safest town ever created (we win awards for being the safest town, I kid you not). I walk all over ALL the time- by myself, with the kids, with the whole family, etc.

We're raising our kids to be afraid of the wrong things. My kids should be far more afraid of ending up in a dangerous situation because of peer pressure, relationships, substance abuse, etc. not walking down a street in daylight.

sheeplady said:

It's all part of the hype of nowadays. It's why people who never do yoga wear yoga pants and you see people wearing athletic clothing all the time. How you show you have money and class today is by showing off that you have the resources to exercise and spend money on exercising clothes and gym memberships and outdoor clothes.

Note: in none of this do you have to actually exercise or go outside. You just have to own the stuff to show off.

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If true (not challenging you, just absorbing and thinking about it), how crazy is that? I've often wondered why I saw so many people running around in workout clothes, but being stupid me, I just assumed they were on the way to / from the gym. Also having some yoga clothes / workout clothes hardly says you are rich - they are in the bins at Marshalls. To be sure, talking about your ski trip to Jackson Hole can be showing off, but is wearing a pair of running shoes really a way of showing off?

LizzieMaine said:

An article a couple years back in one of my favorite lefty magazines dubbed that whole movement "Twenty-First-Century Victorianism," and for pretty good reasons -- that whole idea of turning class privilege into a display of individual virtue was very much at the heart of the original middle-class Victorian way of life.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Leon Linwood Bean was a product of that culture, and made his first fortune catering largely to fellow products of that culture: his very first marketing move was to get a list of all non-resident Maine hunting license holders, and they became the base to which the company directed its attention forever after.

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I had always read that his middle name was Leonwood and I only remember that because of the crazy that is "Leon Leonwood -" who in God's name would do that to their kid? Is it really "Linwood?"

sheeplady said:

I don't think an article has ever rung more true about parenting. Modern expectations are exhausting. I dread sending my kids to school to get swept up into the extracurricular activities and such. That and the homework, which I've heard takes hours.

I was lucky as a kid if I was given time to play (as opposed to being expected to work).

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My friends are caught up on the swirl of extracurricular activities for their kids. It's funny, even the ones who know it's crazy (and who are normal people) will tell you how hard it is not to get sucked in. And these are not show-offs or bounders, just regular people who, IMHO, go with the flow and the flow is an insane amount of extracurricular activities for kids that absorb all their parent's free time (and more) and a lot of money.

LizzieMaine said:

I consider myself fortunate in having been raised, at least until my teen years, in a family where basically nobody cared what I did or where I did it. As long as I didn't hang around with those O'Brien kids in the next block, they were bad news.

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My parents did not even get absorbed into the relatively few extracurricular activities kids had in my day (growing up late '60s/'70s) as they wouldn't let me play little league because the fields were far from our house, through really bad areas and they weren't going to drive me to all the practices and games. "No" was the answer - we are not your chauffeur and life does not revolve around you. Find some kids around the house and play pickup (after your chores are done) was their answer. Maybe harsh / maybe not - but they did not raise an entitled child.