Props to Microsoft, but this is actually pretty routine. (It was literally written policy at a previous employer of mine.)
Manual exception handling at the warehouse is crazily expensive. It is much, much easier to write it off (as shrinkage, not charity) than to get the item back into active inventory (all the fun of chasing invoices, except the amount payable is "one XBox", and the person doing the chasing sees their general productivity go to pot), particularly as it may have been opened. The charity suggestion removes many customer objections and ends the ongoing CS expense almost immediately.
Just staying, our literally written policy was "Offer DDD": donate, destroy, or "dispose of" (a polite euphemism for "You keep it") the misshipped item. I would have added the Christmas flourish if I were saying it in December, too, but the options would have been the same in July. (n.b. The business does not care what you do. We want to convey, in the politest possible way, that we both don't want it and don't want to talk to you about it.)
I just ran into it for the first time. I bought an MHL cable from Monoprice, and it was DOA. I requested an RMA; they asked one question to make sure it wasn't pilot error, then said they'd send a new cable, and I didn't need to send the old one back. I was pleased; my gold standard has been Amazon, where they pay the shipping, but I'm still out the time it takes to go to the post office.
Agreed. Amazon could use a similar policy rather than having to ship stuff back. For example, I ordered something from Amazon worth $200. A few days later, the price dropped to $100. I already had it unboxed and wired into my setup so I called Amazon and said do a price match. Instead, they wanted me to ship the old one back and reorder the new one. I'm like why? Now, I have to be out $8 shipping it back to them, they are out whatever to ship the new item back and they still give me $100 back. But that was policy and that is what I had to do. Makes no sense. Seems like UPS comes out ahead.
Manual exception handling at the warehouse is crazily expensive. It is much, much easier to write it off (as shrinkage, not charity) than to get the item back into active inventory (all the fun of chasing invoices, except the amount payable is "one XBox", and the person doing the chasing sees their general productivity go to pot), particularly as it may have been opened. The charity suggestion removes many customer objections and ends the ongoing CS expense almost immediately.