I agree twshield, I went to home depot, to return a few items, they told me that it would take about a week to get my refund, two weeks later and no refund was posted to my acct. I had to physically drive to home depot and talk to someone about it, they put the blame on the bank, so naturally I called the bank, the bank blamed h.d., I went back and forth with them for about a month before it finally showed up on my statement

The amount is probably leaving your account, but not added to the account of the seller. That might cost as long as it takes to get a refund back. The refund leaves the account of the seller and arrives at your account a few days later. It is a quite old use of banks. In the Netherlands they called it Value days. Those 2 or 3 days the bank uses it to make profit for themselves. But in those days they didn't charge you for using your account. They needed that money for operational management, now they need it for extra profit to be able to pay the shareholders their dividend. No, it's not fair anymore, it's theft now.

You are correct . I believe it has to do with interest . They're not dealing with tiny amounts of money . The longer their accounts hold your money , along with that of a lot of other people's money, the more interest they collect . Your money isn't just sitting in their savings account , waiting to be returned to you . It's part of a much larger pool that is invested . Rather than being just a few drops in a glass , it's more like being a part of a huge swirling ocean , which , by using statistics , allows them to retain an over-all pool of money simply by detaining your refund .

Are you kidding ? You have obviously never had to manage a business accounting department, and had to protect yourself from both consumers and dishonest staff.

The stories I could tell you ....

This is where bricks & mortor stores come in handy . Don't like something ? Take it back . You only have to wait in line . You still can't beat IRL service .

interest $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Holding up one refund for a week won't get much interest but when you do it with all refunds it adds up. Companies routinely delay payment on debts for similar reasons.

There is a lot of fraud with returns at some stores.

The answer is simple. Companies with questionable moral leadership try to discourage people from applying for refunds. It is a part of the culture of greed.

My thoughts are, you are exactly right about the way this part of life works. The simple answer. Because they can.

A tad more of an answer -- everybody has their jobs and most companies do not have one person who does the four or five different jobs of selling a product, discussing or processing the refund with the customer, processing the refund in the computer and requesting the refund, approving the request, and finally pushing the keys that say "Here, the money is now yours." Every step must be taken -- and each person is doing their one or two steps probably hundreds of times per day.

And, now that I think about it -- getting that product into your hands didn't happen overnight either. It had to be manufactured, go through QC (hopefully), packaged, shipped, priced, security devices applied for the thieves, displayed put on the shelf or rack, and one day finally checked out at the register. Not possible to do all that in 3-5 business days.

Don't shoot me. Again, my short answer -- because they can.

Funny, I have a friend that sells cameras on E Bay from time to time and she is always complaining that the buyer take advantage of E Bay's return policy which basically says that within a certain time period she has to accept the return and refund the money or replace the item. She recently sold a camera and a week latter the person indicated it was being returned. She found out that this person had gotten the camera to take wedding photos and then returned it.
Companies are aware that some people will buy items, use and return them, but the guarantee of satisfaction is a marketing ploy so they keep the option available but make it harder for the person returning the items to do so, like requiring you to fill out a form, paying for shipping, waiting for the return to be processed and so on.

I couldn't resist, and googled. The top answer does a great job of explaining it, though.

They make interest on the money the longer they hold it. They are profiting with your money!