Friend regifting expensive gift

[EachandEveryone]

I dont know why Im annoyed. Im probably wrong. We bought a gift for our friend it was£130 and it broke down after three months. Luckily John Lewis were able to refund it and we bought a replacement. Our friend has decided it was a nice gift but doesnt want it anymore (Im deliberately being vague but its not needed anymore) she’d rather have the money. The second company we bought the replacement from has a very good return policy so our friend has ended up with the money from the original item plus the replacement gift which is still in its box. So not exactly regifting but I suppose that is what she will do with it as its surplus to requirements🙂

So you bought her a present. She has the present. Discarding everything about the refund/replacement, you can’t buy someone a gift and then dictate how/when they use it!!!

Ok so it's something related to having a baby. Do you not actually want your feiwns to have the gift? Or the gift was just for your gratification? It's hers to do what she wants with. Stop buying people expensive gifts if you want to control what happens to them. That sort of thing makes people feel uncomfortable and under those conditions I'm sure she would rather have no gift. So just buy one for charity if you are that bothered and stop being a gift controller.

But she got £130 as well! So it’s like she got two gifts. Either she keeps the cash or the gift, surely not both! If the replacement item had been sent directly to the OP then the friend wouldn’t have ever got her hands on it, as she had opted for the cash instead.

She's incredibly rude. Who gets given a gift and says it's great thanks but I'd rather have the money?! Guessing she had to ask you for the receipt so she could get a refund. Otherwise they'd have only swapped it. If you get something you don't like and you swap it or sell it, fine. But FFS you don't go being rude to the giver and telling them you don't want it. I wouldn't buy her anything ever again OP but if she's somebody you feel you must buy for then I'd spend no more than £20 and "lose" and future receipts she may ask for! She's proven herself grabby and not treated you with the respect a friend deserves. If someone goes to the effort of choosing and buying you a gift you don't throw it back in their face.

Tacky friend.

She is not rude or tacky

She decided that rather than the item she would rather have the cash - lots of people return gifts for an exchange or gift card or cash.

How is it her fault the store didn't want the actual item back? I'd say result, and be really happy for her that she lucked out!

Also, it's a bloody big gift to give to a friend! Maybe I'm a skinflint, but I've never given a friend a £130 present! Even for a wedding I'd normally get something in the £50-£100 range.

Also, if you're so concerned about her re-gifting this, you gave her something beyond your limits of generosity. Just give smaller gifts in future, that are actually "gifts", not items with unwritten conditions attached.

The whole posts says We.

You’re lucky they don’t do it for me, they even tried to convince me to return broken wine glasses. Which I couldn’t even get my round, but the dude argued I wasn’t going to get a refund unless I boxed up the broken glasses and returned them.

It sounds like she didn't really ever want it in the first place to be fair.

I wonder if she sent the company the images of the broken/damaged first item, to claim a full refund, she sounds very money focused and keen to take maximum advantage of a freebie in a way that seems pretty crass of her.

Nothing you can do and a gift is a gift but I wouldn't buy her anything again - just a bunch of flowers or something if occasion called for it.

I just don’t see the issue? If I buy a friend a present, I’ve committed to spend as much money as I wanted to. In this scenario, I’m not out of pocket and my friend has the gift (to do what she wants with, surely that’s the pint of a gift), and has some compensation too as the gift was faulty. I’d be really happy for her, it’s no skin of my nose!

Yeah, if you give someone an item as a present you then lose control over what happens to it. That's just the nature of gifts.

To those questioning an online retailer not wanting an item retuned after refund. It does happen, it happened to me twice, 1st was a teapot, they sent me the wrong size, I contacted them giving details of my order and photos of the actual teapot they sent out. They gave me a full refund and told me to keep the teapot.
2nd was a table light, it was faulty complained, they sent me another lamp and didn’t want the other one back.edited to add Dh fixed the faulty one.

Maybe I’m tacky or a greedy bitch but I probably wouldn’t have even told you that I’d had a refund AND been able to keep the item. I’d have just re-gifted/re-sold it on the QT.

I was in a situation once where a group of us clubbed together for a gift card for a friend and I organised and ordered online. The company sent me 2 gift cards by mistake (for the full amount) and I kept the other one! It was a restaurant gift card and DH, DS and I had 2 lunches out of it.

It turned up weeks after the original, if it had turned up at the same time I’d have given them both to the intended recipient but I just thought if it as a nice bit of luck, never mentioned it, took advantage of it and got on with my life.

Ready for the onslaught 😁

What an absolute headfuck of a post to understand. I read your updates and still don’t get it.