Watch out for Von’s and their return policy on liquor!

I am not going to name names, but I will say that I bought a 6 pack of wine from a new location of Von’s. I NEVER would buy wine at Von’s except that it was last minute for an event, and that was the store my friend Johanna needed to stop at, so I said ….’What the heck’ and went for it.

I didn’t like my choices….. I kept 4 of the 6 bottles, unopened. When I went to return it to VON’S I was informed by more than THREE employees (asked separately) and a Manager that there’s a new law that prohibits them from taking wine back, even though it was unopened because it’s like me (the customer) selling THEM wine. Whoot?  Yes. That’s the story I got. They even got so specific to say that with a receipt it’s a SPECIFIC exchange and because I was 50 cents off, they had to get permissionfrom the Manager to do the exchange and have me pay an additional 50 cents. ANY WITHOUT A RECEIPT? Forget about it. NO RETURNS EVER.

I was curious about this ‘new law’ but when I asked for details AT VON’S, the store did not know. I asked if it was just store policy and was ASSURED that NO. It’s the law.

I don’t know about you, but in my world THIS IS CRAZY.

I went online and read about other states, where this kind of thing happens. Here’s what I learned from the Times Union (if you click on the link you can read the entire story yourself). Wiki ‘answers’ sites law and tells you what to say when a company refuses a refund for liquor specifically in California. And as I continued my research on the web, listening to stories about craziness connected to the sale of alcohol in California, I decided instead to do some simple research. So I called Ralph’s to see if they were following this NEW LAW. They said they weren’t sure, hadn’t heard of this… but if I gave them my email, they would write back. Here’s what they said: