On Friday, I bought a jacket from the Powell BCBG in San Francisco. It was my first purchase from BCBG ever, so I was excited, especially since I was not expecting to go in there and purchase -- it was a browse that turned into a purchase with the sales associate's enthusiastic help.

When I got home, however, I noticed that the jacket was too puffy and did not go with the things I had. So I went on Sunday to the Westfield Mall BCBG (since I was already in the mall) and returned my purchase there -- or at least attempted to.

I discovered that there were no refunds, and only exchanges/credit w/in 10 days. However, anything on sale was final sale. This came as a surprise to me as I had not expected a high-end store like BCBG to have such an inflexible policy.

I think it's unfair to spring this policy on to a customer and to have a customer abide by such an uncommon return policy if the only notice that customer receives is a printed notice on a receipt, which the customer would only read AFTER having already purchased an item and therefore, would be bound to it before ever having any opportunity to reconsider entering into the agreement.

Even though the store manager ultimately gave me store credit, which I cannot even use for an item that I was trying frantically to find so that I can exchange the jacket, I now think that too was unfair. It was only after I came home tonight and conducted research that I realized that notification is actually something that BCBG reps do when a customer makes a purchase. This means that EVERY customer this past weekend should have been notified that the purchase was a final sale because every item in the store was on sale. I, on the other hand, was not notified AT ALL about this policy when I purchased the jacket on sale on Friday. I did notice in the Westfield Centre BCBG, that the cashier verbally notified the customer about the policy and made her sign at the bottom of the receipt. At that point, however, I thought that she was doing this only for my purpose, since I was the only other customer in the store and they were about to close.

However, researching online, I discovered that this is what the cashier is SUPPOSED to do when making the transaction. I, however, received no such notification nor was asked to sign any agreement besides my agreement to pay pursuant to my credit card.

Therefore, I was not given proper notice and am now not accepting the store credit. The unfortunate thing is that I do not have the original receipt to show that I did not sign the agreement. I only have the store credit receipt.

Nevertheless, I'm going to file a complaint and talk to my credit card company about this matter. I suspect that no notification about a policy that differs so much from the norm makes this agreement unenforceable.

I am amazed at the sheer number of people who think returns are a requirement. Listen up...returns are a COURTESY and NO store has to accept them. You do not have to like a store's policy but you do have to honor it. If you want to be able to have Walmart ass kissing, then go to Walmart. Otherwise, leave the real shopping to us reasonable folks who do not jump on the internet and cry every time someone tells us NO.