The Retail Security Perspective (Score 2, Informative)

Most likey the purchaser of the box full of tiles is a legitimate customer, who is suffering from the actions of a previous scam artist. After working in retail security for several years I have seen DVD burners returned with wooden logs inside, and iPod boxes returned with bars of soap in them. The scammer will purchase an item, remove it, place anything inside to match the weight, and seal it up as cleanly as possible. The scammer returns the box, gets their money back, and the product goes right back onto the salesfloor (without being opened and checked). It sits on the salesfloor until some unfortunate HONEST customer purchases it, and watches as their 12 year old daughter unwraps her brand new Apple iPod which turns out to be a bar of Dial soap. This honest customer then gets to deal with the headache of returning it and trying to explain what happened. In my experience, the store was always obligated to refund these mystery boxes when they get brought back because the store has zero proof of who initially swapped the merchandise out in the first place. Rather then hassle this customer (assuming he doesn't have a long suspicious history of returns like this), Best Buy should be telling their return department to be more diligent about checking items that are returned "as new". This type of scamming activity is leading many retail stores to begin requiring photo ID when returning items, and limiting how many returns can be processed per ID per year.