Re: Seller beware
quote: "Yeah dead funny - let's celebrate crime - oh it's not so funny when it happens to you or someone you know or a company you work for."
Since the consumer protection legislation in most countries allows for a full refund if the goods are not as advertised (e.g. lump of clay instead of Apple iPad), I think the consumer is going to be fine in this circumstance.
The company that neglected to check what they were refunding, on the other hand, should probably have had a decent returns process defined? You know, one where they check the returned product to ensure it was in a working state, and not something unusable that has been carefully packaged back up?
Crime is crime, but there are certain crimes (like this type of confidence trick) that can be trivial to avoid if you apply a little intelligence. In the case of corporations, this can be in the form of a well written and carefully implemented returns policy (e.g. "sorry, no refund before we open the box and check it"). The "box of spuds" selling technique is as old as time, it's not like it was only invented last year.
Caveat Emptor works both ways, if you work for a company that accepts returns from customers I would suggest you need to be at least as careful as someone purchasing from the public. Conmen have even less scruples ripping off companies than they do ripping off consumers ;)