Kind of a bad experience

Last week, we bought a mouse (the Apple Mighty Mouse Wireless Bluetooth model) from Westworld Computers in Calgary. Westworld is one of the few 'Apple Authorized' dealers in the city, so since we had bought our Macbook from them, we decided to use them to get the mouse as well. We bought the mouse, without testing a floor model with a like computer. This is the first nail in the coffin for us having a bad experience.

As soon as we got the mouse home, we noticed that we had to turn the 'mouse speed' setting all the way up to get it moving reasonably fast. This should have been our second hint that this was not going to work out.

After about a week of trying it on various different surfaces and scenarios we found the mouse overall was kind of sluggish feeling and not particularly accurate. It was difficult to use photo editing, and was just not a good overall experience. Further research online led me to find out that it had received somewhat bad reviews for the same reasons I had found, so we decided to take it back.

I emailed the salesman we had spoken with (who was actually very nice and helpful and it isn't his fault the store has strange policies) about our problem and he said that they would take it back, but with a 15% restocking fee. 15% for a mouse!

I realize that they are a small store (well, they do have 4 stores across the region so they are not THAT small), but why would they charge me to return something like that? I also realize that stores do not HAVE to offer return policies, but it really is in their best interest otherwise they get all sorts of bad PR (kind of like what they are getting right now). In addition to this, when we bought the Macbook, they said that if we didn't like it, and wanted to return it, it would be a 25% restocking fee because they would need to have a tech format, restore it and then sell it at a an open box discount.

I could have gone to either BestBuy or Futureshop to buy these products and I would not have had any of these 'stipulations' around the sale. Why would I buy anything from them in the future, if they are not offering the customer service options that their competitors use? Sure I can have them show me how to use the product a little better than some person at a big box store, but is that worth the cost I just incurred?

I think that this is in juxtaposition to the fact that Apple pushes that 'you will love your Mac if you try it' and that they are a progressive and customer service based company. If you don't love a product they sell, shouldn't they take it back no questions asked?

Finally, in addition to this, it should also be noted that they did not offer me the full 'educational employee' discount Rea gets with the Apple.ca website for the actual Macbook itself. I considered this an OK cost to get the product right away, but now thinking back it was kind of a rip-off if they are supposedly an 'authorized' reseller.

Anyhow, buyer beware. They offer great staff and products, but Westworld Computers return policy is a little bit out-to-lunch in regards to return policy and I do think it will likely prevent me from purchasing from them in the future.

Update

We just noticed on the receipt that we were charged 25% restocking and not 15% as was advertised. I have sent an email to see if we can get this corrected.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that another mouse was offered to us (Logitech, not Apple) to see if we like it better. Of course we would still have to pay the restocking fee on the Apple product we were returning. However, we would also have to pay it for the Logitech device if we had issues with it as well! They were also not able to provide us a demo of the mouse because it was in a clam shell packaging.