MILs annual bag of tat has arrived!

[DonaldDucksTowel]

MIL doesn’t have anything to do with our DC, sees the older ones maybe twice a year, she’s never met the youngest
Yet every Christmas (and to a smaller extent Easter too which is a bit random) we receive the biggest gift bags she can get her hands on full of the shittest most unsuitable tat for each child imaginable
All from a market stall (or shoplifters) wrong sizes, wrong ages, personalised things with the wrong names on, roughly 20-25 books each every year, bath bombs for the child with severe eczema, peppa pig toys for a 9 year old...all stinking to high heaven of smoke and air freshener

We’ve told her before not to bother (DP told her directly and through the family members she sends the bags through) and when she ignored this DP has tried to steer her in the direction of more suitable things and tells her every year it’s too much stuff and asks her to get less - and I swear each year the bags are getting bigger
This year my 3 year old could stand up in the bag and we could shut it and not see him, and we had 4 of them, bulging with stuff! (I don’t know where she gets these enormous gift bags I’ve never seen any as big!)

It all goes to the charity shop or in the bin
It’s just such a colossal waste of her time and money
It drives me potty 😤
Rant over

The item was NOT flagged up as being stolen. If you’re going to slag your mil off stick to the facts, don’t make shit up.

In other news, you clearly think little of your mil. I agree that she shouldn’t bother any more.

My MIL (long departed now) used to have a knack for odd and strange gifts. Jumpers for the kids, hand knitted with love and care and invariably itchy with a neck that wouldn't pass over their heads without damage to their ears, one year a Fairisle cardigan for me with the multi coloured yoke in lime green and orange and another year a nylon overall in a psychedelic pattern in orange and pink. She did try very hard though and we did know that.

They scan the barcode on the receipt. They then scan the barcode on the clothes to cross reference it to your receipt. There is no personal information stored on the barcode on the item of clothing

No, LovingLola it is the barcode on the item. They never want the receipt. I was confused by it at first, but I have watched them do it a number of times now.

I remember a poster who got some knicker elastic from her MIL - I'm afraid I don't think your bags of tat top that, but it's close

Is she a hoarder?' I have known hoarders do this - a kind of buying obsession. Hoarding is classed as a mental health issue these days.

That’s amazing. Was in a Next queue today and every single person returning items had their receipt scanned first if they wanted a refund.

@pictish You might want to calm down. One of my friends works for next and they have a barcode system that retains payment information, in order to cut down on shoplifting. It's not widely publicised, for obvious reasons.

It stores the last 4 digits of the card used or registers a cash sale, so when something that was never paid for it returned, the store can refuse.

This is also very handy for when you've lost your receipt but can produce the card you originally paid with.

But that wouldn’t work if you paid by cash. You could take in an item without the receipt and have a credit note. It would not show up as stolen as there is no way the system would know.

@janet80 Exactly, you get a credit note, which has to be spent in store. But for card sales, it's really effective!

Anything flagged as not being scanned and sold is refused for return.

Hm. Sorry, I was thinking of online returns were they returning in-store purchases? Though it sounds like they actually do use the same system anyway, from rabbitfoodadvocate's post.

Do Next make it clear to customers that they are retaining personal or financial data? And seek their express permission to retain it?
If not then they are in breach of GDPR legislation.

This isn't a MIL bashing thread, it's a thread about people who buy presents for people they barely know with no thought or care. How hard can it be to check what age/size the recipient is and consider whether the item you're considering buying is suitable for someone that age or size?

That's an interesting idea that it's an extension of the hoarding mindset. It does sound pathological, as most people don't give a huge bag of useless tat to children they make no effort to see or get to know.

janet if you paid by cash, then it would show up as a cash payment. But if you hadn't paid at all then it wouldn't be logged so they could refuse the refund.

It sounds like a clever system. I wonder why more shops don't use it.

I asked my friend because I needed to return something but had lost my receipt. The cashier asked which card I paid with, I showed them and they said that's the one registered to the barcode so no problem issuing a straightforward refund. It was a bit scary but very clever!

The barcode on the clothes in Next links to my account when I return things. Did so today, no receipt or delivery note needed.

Ah right, I didn’t realise that the system would detect an unscanned tag. Clever. I always wondered what would stop someone walking into a shop, picking up an item and taking it to the till to be returned for a credit note. Guess that’s my question answered.
OP, you may continue.... 😆

I'd be so annoyed if my child's grandparents couldn't even get their name right on personalised 'gifts'. That just shows how little she has to do with them. As I see you have two options;

1. Unwrap them straight into the charity shop bag and move on.

1. Just take them back to Mil and say nothing was suitable.

Book it’s not an accusation it’s true, I tried to return something she’d bought from Next once and it flagged up as stolen

How on earth does that even happen?

I'm struggling to understand how they could possibly do this. In fact I don't think they can.

Why, if she sees the older child a couple of times a year has she never met the 3 year old?

What item did next flag up as stolen? confused the bar codes for each individual item isn’t unique.

With Next they are all unique now! DH and I both bought the same jumper for DD (we each thought the other was taking care of it), tried to return one of them yesterday (identical jumpers, same size, even bought in same branch but obviously different cards used), presented jumper with my receipt and was told it wasn’t the right receipt for the jumper, DH presented his card and they matched the purchase to his card and processed the refund. Very clever system!

Ha ha ha OP, are we related? Do we share a MIL? are you Sally or Cath?

We get this every year off MiL, this years classics for DD included wraparound 3D glasses for wearers of prescription specs and two left slippers. DD doesn’t wear glasses and has a left and right foot.

Beat that.

OP Does your DH have a sister? I think we might be related. My annual box of tat arrived yesterday. Why she feels the need to post it in a massive, recycled tena pads box is beyond me.

Took jeans given to me by a friend who no longer wanted them and because I didn't have the card they were bought with, they wouldnt refund me. They also told me it hadn't been sold in that store (Sports Direct, there are 2 branches equidistamt from my house)

I would return the whole lot to her and remind her you've asked her not to send you stuff.

My MIL gave me a catnip mouse...I feel she was trying to tell me something